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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.'
If you forget the price difference, the monthly fee the iPhone requires, the shorter battery life of the iPhone (how long can it last if the display is lit nonstop?)...
Not to mention that the iPhone display is smaller and lower resolution.
And that Amazon already has a lot of pull with book publishers.
I'd buy a Kindle if I knew I could get all my college books on it.
They're incredibly out of touch with reality if they think people are going to pay $399 for a book reader, in addition to paid content/subscription. They might have small chance of success if they offered the device for $99. At the current price, it's nothing more than a curiosity a la AIBO/Segway.
I believe the Kindle was also going to be the size of a standard paperback book. That means its screen size is going to be a lot more functional for reading than the relatively small size of the iPhone screen.
When will people get over the iPhone already? Really, it's just a phone.
(PS: To be fair, though, there'd be one reason for a guy like me to get a Kindle: flat fee access to Wikipedia from anywhere where there's EVDO. Then again, an offline wiki reader that can auto-update when you have a net connection would do just as well.)
For me, the price of a book is essentially $4. This is $3.99 shipping plus the symbolic $.01 that most used-book dealers charge as the nominal price for used books sold on Amazon (hardcover or paperback, the same). Dealers get their profit from the difference between the shipping compensation that they get on the sale from Amazon and the actual cost of shipping the book. There are more expensive books on Amazon marketplace of course (textbook, non-obsolete computer books, ...), but these aren't going to be available from $10 on Kindle are they ? If books on Kindle were $5 for novels and about $15 for "useful" titles, that would seem more fair to me, given that the publisher does away with printing, logistics and the possibility that the book will be read by more than one person (in a library, borrowed by a friend or re-sold as a used book).
This, or the device should be at an aggressively subsidized price, made up from sales of content.
I like the device, and love the business model independently of the price point though.
I've been reading PDFs on my Palm for a couple of years now. That's all the e-book I need.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Who needs it? Here's my "dream" device: it automatically loads whatever you want from the world's libraries for free. It has the Dewey Decimal System encoded in it, and anything available for Inter-Library Loan can be downloaded in seconds. It looks a lot less dorky than this hideous design -- who did it, the guy who designed the '60s Paper-Mate pen? -- and it costs what three or four hard-cover books cost. Then I might be interested. Until then, haw haw, it's Kindling. Lose a book in an airport, you're out $10-$30. Lose this, and Jeff Bezos gets another $400. No.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Well... there are some areas that don't "just work". Fortunately, most are just bugs and will be fixed quickly once an SDK is available.
:D
Big things that are missing, though? GPS. High speed internet. Replaceable SIM card. Replaceable battery. Actual "phone off" mode (where you can travel and use the other features without it phoning home constantly).
I have a phone (a helio ocean) that delivers most of the same functionality, cost half as much, and has several features the iPhone lacks (though it is also provider-locked). I love it. It's not 18mos old, but still a pretty good contender. It also needs an SDK in the worst way
Seriously - the iPhone is a nice 1.0 product. Wake me when it has GPS and a high-speed connection. iPhone 2.0 is likely a phone I will be buying... but 1.0 just didn't cut it.
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
Well, they can be had for less than half the price of the iPhone, can do everything the iPhone can do, have a ton of 3rd party apps (including one of the iPhone's big selling points, google maps), and are very hackable. Mine also has a slide out keyboard, built in GPS, and 3G. It cost me less than $200 and has better battery life than the iPhone. Sure the UI isn't so simplified that any idiot can use it, but it's quite easy to use if you take the time to figure it out. I'll take the extras over shiny and a nifty on screen keyboard any day.
If we're down to "all [group] did was utilise existing invention, rearrange the stuff with [this and that] and [stick something on one end] to attract the world's attention", you could replace Apple / nice little device / shiny UI with:
NASA / three stage rocket / moon lander
the non-Chinese / a barrel and self-contained bullets / wooden handle
James Starley / rubber wheels / handlebars and a saddle
That's all they did. And changed how we do things just a little. You have to give it to Apple -- nobody calls a generic personal music player "a Walkman" anymore, even though Sony has video and mp3 Walkman devices in the market.
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
Look cool: iPhone is shiny.
8 hours of talk time: I get ~4, iPhone with 8 will have me. But oh look, I place a new battery in I got for 10 dollars on ebay and I have 8. While you pay apple 100 to replace. Consider that a draw in a year when the iPhone is getting 2 hours?
Display: 240x320 is lower than the iphones.
128mb flash: I have a 2gb micro sd card I picked up for 20 bucks in my HTC. Believe it or not; options for upgrading storage are a *good* thing not a bad thing.
Media viewing/management: I can install third party apps to do the same tasks, but the iPhone is a better overall media player.
Media Content: When you realize you can play *any* format not just those which apple deems "acceptable", things open up a bit on the media format front.
Web Viewing: Have you used mobile opera? Works remarkably well. Did I mention Tabbed browsing? Finger sliding to scroll web pages? Yea, windows mobile has it.
Visual Voicemail: iPhone has it, I do not.
Multiple Buttons: iPhone has a more intuitive interface. See how many "taps" to write a text message by chance. I could just hit "screen on" and then use my finger to click on "text message", but I prefer to tap the button on the side to go right there.
No on screen keyboard. Happen to notice how iPhone's intuitive on screen keyboard introduces iTypos way more prevalent than on a slide out keyboard? + HTC on slide out.
Google integration. I have fully functional Google maps on my HTC; I type address in, it searches, I tap where I want it to go, then pan/zoom with a finger press to see what I want to see.
Fanboy much?
I know people who installed iTunes solely for the purpose of ripping their CD collection, because that process was too hard with the software that came with their mp3 player. Heck, two people came over to my place to rip their collection on my mac, because they could not figure out how on their own system. "Easy to use" is relative, and I'm not sure you're considering it as it applies to the general populace instead of geeks.
It was the full integration from top to bottom with purchasing albums that put it over the top.It was the full experience, but not so much for purchasing. Last time I saw a survey something like 1.5% of music on the average iPod was purchased from any online store, with the rest being ripped CDs and P2P downloads.
You can't "rip" a book except in the literal sense anyway and 99.99% of the population doesn't already own books in electronic form. So, they don't give a damn about that.People had collections of CDs and were using portable CD players. Almost no one owned an mp3 player when the iPod premiered. The iPod was a success because it let people easily move that music onto the iPod without repurchasing everything. Some ripped it and some just snagged it from P2P networks. People do give a damn about repurchasing all their books, although it is questionable if anyone will have a solution. One possibility is if the reader hardware becomes good enough, P2P networks will start carrying books. Another, is this will cause people to be more price conscious. If they're not just buying new music, but repurchasing their entire library, they will not be willing to pay more than the cost of a used version of that book for old titles.
As for Amazon locking people in...well, that's worked pretty well for Apple.Ahh, but as I stated, Apple did everything possible to be non-threatening to the existing publishers who control all the legacy content. Amazon is not being non-threatening at all, directly competing with them as well as trying to get them to cooperate. As for Apple's lock-in, in case you hadn't noticed they're now selling DRM-free content at the same price they were selling DRM'd content. In truth, Apple doesn't care about control of the publishing, they just want it as cheap and easy as possible to sell more hardware.
Amazon DOES, in fact, work with publishers (look at the damn catalog if you don't believe me).Of course they do, I never claimed otherwise. The difference is Apple refused offers to publish directly through them, strictly requiring a publisher of music to offer it to them. Amazon on the other hand has initiated a program to lure writers away from existing publishers and cut that publisher out of future profits. If it works, it will mean a lot more money for Amazon, but I doubt it will work unless Amazon has a lot more leverage than I think they do.
Even if they do, why do I give a damn about the publishers? If their business model is dead, then that's just too damn bad.You don't have to give a damn about publishers, but surely you recognize that publishers give a damn about themselves and their profits? It speaks to whether or not the publishers will continue to cooperate with Amazon and if the device will be successful. A reason to care is because instead of having a loose, fairly weak cartel of publishers with room for independents, if ebooks take off, and Amazon grabs a big chunk of the market with DRM'd ebooks, that will no longer be the case and there will be one major publisher that can control prices, and extort more money via DRM, for example, by switching DRM schemes when moving to a new version of the device forcing you to buy all your content yet again once your existing reader dies. A little foresight can go a long way towards avoiding this crap.
my question is exactly what formats does it read.. it has an SD slot to expand storage - but can i just copy over my existing eBooks or stuff from random projectes to the sd card and read it that way?
while i find the instant download from amazon very very very nice - and i would love to buy and use one and to support this - i do NOT want to have to rebuy my current 300+ book lib to be able to read them on this thing.
also the price is understandable but..
100 = i would already own one
200 = i would have grumbled and ordered it tommarow
300 = i would have looked more in to it and even the chance it would work right buy it
400 = i am going to have to give it time and have all my questions answered befor i think about buying it..
they need to work on the price point if they want to get these things out there.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'