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Kindle Versus The iPhone
Bernie Campbell writes "Forbes takes a look at the recently announced Kindle ebook from Amazon, and considers the possibility that Apple may have beaten them to the punch. 'Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has a not-so-secret weapon when it comes time to load up the iPhone with content: Google ... Google's Book Search project has already pumped much of the world's printed matter into Google's servers. Downloads of classic titles, such as Bleak House, can already be had for free. Mix Apple's iTunes content distribution smarts with Google's vast storehouse of content, and you'll have an instant competitor to Kindle -- one with a touch interface and the ability to play movies and music, too.'
I'll wait a long time to get the kindle. I've always found a paper book to be more convenient than anything online. The kindle is, apparently, quite light and very easy to read, which fixes a couple of the problems. But can you lend a book to a friend or just give it away? What about take it to the toilet and not have to worry? What about a low replacement cost? It looks like they have the price per book to a reasonable level, but everything about paper books is perfect for me. The kindle would have to be amazing to supplant my current library, and the same goes for the iPhone.
Because that's the point of Kindle, isn't it? It is an electronic device that feels similar to a real book and let's you concentrate on the reading. It doesn't have a shiny screen and it won't distract you with calls.
... when it's possible for me to sell, swap, borrow, and/or loan them.
It seems like none of the people who design ebook systems have ever been in a used book store or a library, or have ever lent a favorite book to a friend.
I don't think this is nearly the issue you're making it out to be. The iPod touch could offer e-book reading capabilities just like the iPhone, and you need no monthly contract for it. The books could be purchased (or free ones offered online for download) from iTunes on a PC or Mac, and sync'd into the memory of the iPod touch or iPhone to read later - regardless of connectivity during the time you're viewing the book.
Battery life becomes sort of a non-issue too when you think about it practically. Who is going to read a Kindle for anywhere near the 30 hours of promised battery life, non-stop? If you just recharge your device each night before going to bed, either Kindle or iPod touch/iPhone will get you through hours of reading during the day with no problem.
The Apple alternatives win out in size/portability too. Sure, the screen is smaller - but it's bright and easily readable. I have the iPhone (currently hacked with 3rd. party apps), and I've already read a book on it using a free e-reader application on it. It's quite usable, and nice because it's always with me. (I'm already going to carry my cellphone all day long, on my belt-clip, so I don't miss calls. It's nice to be able to grab it and read a few pages of a book I'm working on reading whenever I get a few free minutes here and there. I doubt I'd be lugging a book-sized, $400 Kindle with me everywhere I went too, just to accomplish the same thing.)
I do agree the Kindle could find a great niche market in colleges/universities. It'd sure beat a book-bag full of textbooks. But how durable is it going to be? Can you trust it to work reliably and not develop stuck buttons, a cracked screen, etc. etc. ?
I'd buy a Kindle if I knew I could get all my college books on it.
When some big company figures out that college textbooks are going to be the first big market for ebooks, I'm going to invest in them.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Where do you get the idea that it is "almost entirely proprietary"? If you look at the technical details section, it says it supports "TXT, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), MP3, natively; HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, MOBI, PRC through conversion".
The attraction of the iPhone is that it isn't just a phone. I don't have one, and probably won't get one for some time, but there are times--like when I'm traveling--that I would prefer to have one device that fulfills the functions of my Palm, my phone, and my video iPod all at once. The fact that this device does all this and more, including what I believe is a best-of-breed palmtop web access interface, puts it well outside the "just a phone" category.
But the real point here is not that it's the best thing ever. It's not. The point is that people only have (a) so much money, and (b) so much patience and space for carrying around gadgets. If people didn't want to carry a phone, a palm and an iPod, and consolidated them into an iPhone, then they aren't likely to want to add a new device for reading purposes unless there is something really revolutionary about the device. For someone who has to read on a portable device for a living, I can see them getting this and using it. If it were really cheap, I could see it being a popular gift. If the interface were sleek and simple, maybe it would be successful. But unfortunately, it's not all that awesome, and it's not cheap. I'd be very surprised if it gained more than a tiny niche audience.
People don't want one more thing to sync, to charge, to update, to carry, to protect. The iPhone is not the best at each thing that it does. However, it's good enough at a lot of things, including, potentially, at being an e-reader, that it's probably going to be tough for an expensive, single-function device to compete with it without some major advances.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Come on, the iPhone & Google Books competing with an e-Book reader? I own an iPhone and love it, but it's the proposed situation is only possible if you overlook:
- A 3 inch screen that involves constant movement to see more than one paragraph at "text book" level font sizes
- A slow EDGE connection (at least an e-Book can cache the entire thing easily).
- Lousy bookmark system.
- Poor back & forth or history functionality.
The iPhone MAY one day compete with these other technologies, but to insist right now that it's everything and a bag of chips is just plain naive.
That's why I have a Treo, and have had it for years. It can do all the things you mentioned--web browsing, email, MP3 player, video player. In the end, what I value is the phone, the Palm aspect (its calendar, etc.), and I occasionally use the web browsing and email. I used the video player and MP3 player to see that it worked. Then I was done with that. I usually use an Mp3 player when I'm biking and have the MP3 player strapped to my arm, I wouldn't really want my entire life in a $500 unit that could fall off my arm and break. That's what my $150 iPod Nano is for.
My problem with the iPhone isn't that it isn't a cool toy. It's just nothing particularly exciting considering that similar toys have been available for quite some time.
You think if Apple and Google decided to make this available as a feature with GBS that the publishers wouldn't be screaming blue murder (and, in my opinion, rightly so)?
Agreed. The iPhone is a great phone (and general information-finding device), but peering at it for long periods of time on that tiny screen? No good, not for book-reading. This isn't to say that an iPhone-like solution might not be a really amazing reader... but the iPhone and the Kindle are trying to solve very different problems.
And as much as 'all-in-one' devices can be nice, sometimes you just make 'all' features suffer by cramming them into 'one' device. I think this is one of those cases; an eBook reader is meant to replace a book, which means it has different requirements (in terms of readability, power-use and form-factor). Trying to cram the functionality into other devices means the functionality suffers.
--Rachel