Unlike most companies, Sony is sounding positively chirpy about Apple’s foray into the world of eBooks with their iPad, the iBooks app and the iBook Store. They welcomed Apple’s move into the eBooks domain and also predicted the imminent death of paper printed books as we know it. Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading division told tech site Pocket-lint that a new device that has eBook reading built into as a feature is a good thing for the digital book market. He emphasized the fact that mobile devices that have this feature built in will play a key role in the paradigm shift from the analog to the digital media. So looks like Sony is actually happy that is has such great competition as the Kindle because frankly this is the device that put eBooks on the map. Even Steve Jobs acknowledged that.
Sony also mentioned that the conventional form of a book — ink printed on paper and bound together — is really on its way out. According to them, it has about 5 years of life left before everything goes digital. While that sounds really nice with so many people wanting it to go digital, I would like to remind people that similar things were said about the CD about a decade ago from this date. Yes it is dying but physical storage mediums for audio content have not gone out just yet.
So even though it is plausible that paper books will completely fade out in the near future, there is still at least a decade left for it to even start fading out. That is because the adoption curve globally on new technology is really low and it would be silly to focus only on the US.
But one thing’s for sure — eBooks are only going to become bigger and better as time goes by. The same for all other print media content. We have officially stepped into the decade that saves the print industry by, Ironically, stopping all physical printing!
So the much rumored “Kindle/netbook/everything killer” is revealed to the public and we can finally make a first guess about it’s prospects in eBook/eReader market that is getting increasingly crowded as well as it’s general chances of success.
First of all it turns out that most of the speculations turned out to be wrong. It’s called iPad (not iSlate), the price point is $499..$829 not $799..$1000. However some people were right – it basically is an over-sized iPod Touch with and optional 3G data connection. It does run all or most of the iPhone/iPod Touch applications that are the main selling point of it’s smaller siblings.
I’ll save readers the suspense: I don’t believe that iPad will be a a Kindle-killer. It will capture a noticeable portion of the eReader market but I find it highly unlikely for it to even become #2. Here’s why:
1) It’s not as mobile as Amazon Kindle because:
1.a) Battery file. Since it uses a back-lit display even according to the specifications it can only sustain 10 hours of usage which is nowhere near week-long stretches eInk based readers can go on a single charge. In reality it may end up being even less than 10 hours since I’m yet to see a device that would live up to it’s battery life spec in a real-world usage scenario. Although 10 hours would seem like a lot, it is not if you think about scenarios like trans-Atlantic flight from the west coast or even domestic flight with several connections. Surely you can charge up while at the airport but then you are likely to end up sitting on the floor next to a restroom. Another option would be to carry iGo Power device or something similar but that’s not too convenient either.
1.b) Size and weight. Although it’s similar in weight and dimensions to Kindle DX, neither of these devices are truly “mobile” as both fail the “coat pocket test”. Personally I find 6″ screen much more convenient for reading on the go than larger 9.7″.
1.c) It lacks free Internet connection. You are either bound to use the WiFi or pay$14.99..$29.99 per month for 3G data plan. It’s nice that this plan doesn’t have a contact commitment but still… I’m already paying a hefty sum for my iPhone plan and another hefty sum for a separate data-plan to keep my netbook connected (AT&T still doesn’t allow iPhone tethering and with iPad hitting the market the chances of that happening are getting even slimmer. There definitely isn’t going to be an iPad tethering option since tethering a notebook to a tablet is as stupid as it sounds) so paying some more on top of that doesn’t seem reasonable to me.
2) There are fewer books available via iBooks and they cost more more. Until recently I though that convenience of books in under 60 seconds is the main selling point of Kindle, however after having to buy some books from Sony store (and finally putting my PRS-600 to a proper use) I would say that book selection is just as significant. What is the use of instant availability of nothing after all. But having fewer books at higher price that are not instantly available unless you pay even more for data-plan doesn’t seem like a recipe for success to me. iBooks app is ePub based to it’s possible that this shortcoming can be supplemented by buying books from other stores. It’s also possible to use apps to add support for other formats and stores. After all there is Kindle for iPhone that would make Amazon’s entire eBook selection to iPad users.
3) iBooks is only available in the US for the time being while Amazon has already gone international. Others will follow in time but it will not be very soon and it will not be easy for the eBook stores because of legal complexities involved.
4) Price. Although iPad is price point is close to that of Kindle DX, if all you are interested in is reading books and an occasional visit to Wikipedia, you can get Kindle 2 for almost half the price and with free Internet lifetime connection to boot.
5) Whether backlit screen is optimal for prolonged reading still remains a point of debate but it’s definitely not a plus for the iPad as far as eBooks are concerned. It will very likely to provide a sub-par experience under strong sunlight.
However not all is bad in the Apple camp. Here’s why the device might become successful:
1) Color screen will provide good reading experience for picture rich books (comics), newspapers and magazines. eInk’s lack of color is not a virtue in itself but result of dire necessity.
2) Touchscreen can enhance the reading experience when properly used. I consider gestures-based page turns a useless toy, since ergonomically it’s much more optimal to press a simple button. But navigating table of contents, links etc as well as looking up dictionary definitions is much easier if all you need to do if poke the word with your finger.
3) iPhone applications and almost fully functional browser do add some value to the device (if you are willing to carry it around despite it’s weight and dimensions).
4) Apple products == COOL! This will be reason enough for at least some people. It is possible though not likely that Apple will actually launch “I’m an iPad and I’m a Kindle” ad campaign that might prove successful.
So in short term my predictions for iPad are not great especially in the eBook niche. However I considered 1st generation iPhone to be a joke when it came out. Only after a year when app store was introduced, 3G was added along with at least partial Microsoft Exchange support the ugly duckling was transformed into a swan. The same might happen with iPad but it will not be soon.
Amazon has already introduced 70% commission to publishers and self-publishing authors (although with some strings attached) as the result of increasing competition. It’s likely that we’ll see Kindle DX price drop some time soon to make it more competitive against new rivals. Also it’s quite possible that by the time first iPads will start shipping in March, we’ll see first Kindle Apps become available that will make the entire Kindle product line more competitive.
I promise to get some hands-on time with the iPad as soon as it will become available and share the experience here.
If you are new to eBook industry and would like to catch up on all of the relationships between different Amazon Kindle and other different devices and companies in the e-Book universe. This picture created by techflash.com is just the right thing for you. There is also PDF version available that has every arrow linking a related story on techflash.com. You can download it by clicking on the picture below. It will really be worth your time.
eBook Universe by techflash.com
I guess this picture really is worth a thousand words… Great work, TechFlash!
Take a look at the list of best selling products in electronics section on Amazon.com. As of recently 3rd generation Apple iPod Touch 32GB has climbed to the second place. Currently it is outsold only by Kindle 2 and is trailed by Kindle DX. This is interesting since Kindle has had prime advertising spot on Amazon.com homepage for quite some time now, while the Apple product generates sales only because of this popularity and the fact that Amazon sells it at $20.00 discount compared to the official Apple store and provides free shipping.
Technically it also can be considered Kindle related merchandize since it can run Kindle application that is available in Apple app store.
While it has been widely rumoured that Apple will release tablet PC type device that will compete with eBook readers, the fact that two companies cooperate this much indicate that Apple will not be competing with Amazon in this space. Just look at all the current news about Apple Google feud around Google voice application for iPhone. There’s clearly competition there and no cooperation at all.
Steve Jobs had some harsh words to say about the Kindle, and eReaders in general, in a recent interview with David Pogue. Jobs had previously stated his view that eReaders weren’t a viable product, but this was before the success Amazon has had. Yet, even with the profit the Kindle has made, Jobs’ view is the same now as it has always been:
I’m sure there will always be dedicated devices, and they may have a few advantages in doing just one thing … But I think the general-purpose devices will win the day. Because I think people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device.
Jobs also goes on to imply that since Amazon doesn’t release exact sales figures, the Kindle hasn’t been as successful as people believe. Of course, this is just marketing bravado on the part of Jobs. Sure, there aren’t as many Kindles out there as iPods, but no one would truly believe that Amazon hasn’t benefited from the eReader market. Besides the devices themselves, Amazon takes a huge share of the profits from everything people buy to read on it (So huge that some publishers have started to complain).
It’s also pretty easy to jump to the conclusion that Jobs is hinting at the fabled Apple tablet. While still existing mainly in the form of rumor, the tablet is nonetheless expected to have a huge impact. Since its a portable device which will, among many other things, be able to read books, it’s expected to be the killer eReader device. Some have even gone so far as to preemptively call it the Kindle-killer or attempt to forecast its effects on Amazon’s sales.
Both Jobs’ statement and they hype around the tablet come down to the same question of design philosophy: dedicated vs general-purpose devices. While Jobs may be right that general-purpose devices have the long term advantage, the Kindle won’t be in any real danger unless the tablet can pull in enough customers from across the board. Someone who likes the idea of an eReader, but already bought a tablet for other reasons, will likely keep the tablet. Someone specifically shopping for a reader could still be swayed by the Kindle’s advantages, however.
Financial services company Credit Suisse has issued a report that predicts eReader ownership by one third of adult book readers within 5 years. This would be a huge jump from their estimate that only 1% of the target market owned eReaders in 2008. It should be noted that this report is specific to the US. Also, the target demographic of literary adults that Credit Suisse is referring to consists of 42% of Americans 15 or older.
Amazon in particular is predicted to do well. Credit Suisse believes the number of Kindles sold each year will skyrocket, until Amazon is selling 8.5 million a year in 2014 (equaling $1.8 Billion in revenue). As the report seems to have been completed before the recent news about Barnes and Noble’s upcoming eBook store, there’s no prediction as to how they may make a dent in Amazon’s profits. Credit Suisse has, however, jumped on the Apple tablet speculation bandwagon and suggested that it would have a major effect on the eReader market. I’m not sure if I agree with that analysis, as a tablet computer and an eReader aren’t really the same thing. People use eReaders because they simulate a normal paper reading experience, not because they want a full out computer. We’ll have to wait for it come out as Apple has a way of creating surprisingly usable revolutionary devices (iPhone being the most recent example).
Overall, there’s nothing too surprising about Credit Suisse’s report. At this point, I think everyone expects eReaders to be poised to take over the publishing industry. What’s incredible is how fast Credit Suisse expects it to happen. One third of the market in 5 years? An adoption rate like that is equal to a full out revolution in the way people look at books.
As if recent release of Kindle 2 wasn’t enough… Kindle for iPhone application was just released to iTunes marketplace and is available for download! What it does is it brings most of the Amazon Kindle functionality to iPhone or iPod Touch. The application is free to download and can be installed either via iTunes (click here if you have iTunes already installed) or directly through App Store…
Once the application is installed – you need to enter your Amazon.com username and password and within seconds you have all the books that you’ve purchased before for your Kindle available in “Archived Items”…
Couple more taps on the touchscreen and you can start reading away.
Ok and now when the hype is gone lets be a bit more specific. The new app can do:
Download and display all textual books that are available in the Kindle Store.
Synchronize bookmarks, annotations, reading positions etc via the WhisperSync.
Add new bookmarks.
Text is displayed very clearly and is readable even at the smallest font size (it fact when smallest font size is contains almost as much text as my Kindle which I have set to second smallest font.
Once application is registered iPhone immediately becomes selectable in the combo-boxes on the Amazon.com so you can send purchased books to the device.
And now on what it can’t do:
It looks like periodicals a missing. At least WSJ that I’m subscribed to didn’t show up anywhere in the application.
There is no text-to-speech
Regrettably there is no special interface to buy more books. It has to be done via PC or iPhone Safari browser which is doable but not the most comfortable experience you would have. Unfortunately using Amazon Mobile application (also free) is not an option since it only allows adding Kindle books to wish-list. Hopefully Amazon will update it soon enough.
There doesn’t seem to be any dictionary functionality.
To sum it up: Way cool, with a room for improvement. While it would seem that releasing such an application would hurt Kindle sales, personally I thing that it would not and overall it would be benefical to Amazon.com. And here is why:
While the text is clear and readable, reading from iPhone is not the best experience.
iPhone is much less autonomous than Kindle because it’s not meant to run long on a single charge but more importantly because when you are reading an eBook a back-lit display is drawing a lot of power from the battery. There is no way you can read 20,000 pages on a single charge and this was a major selling point to me and many other Kindle owners.
So in no way iPhone will be able to even come close to replacing Kindle.
On the other hand iPhone is a great opportunity because it is an undisputed leader by number of e-commerce transactions that are initiated and completed using it. This is because it provides excellent mobile browsing experience. You can actually navigate the web and shop with it comfortably.
There were 10M+ iPhones sold during 2008 alone. Releasing this application gives Amazon better access to this audience. And by defintion this audience likes to consume information and spend money on gadgets. So I imagine quite a few would first buy a couple of books to their iPhone to do some quick lookup or to read something during some long commute and eventually would buy Amazon Kindle to have a better reading experience with these books.
Another reason I happy about this realease is that in the modern world of proprietary mutually incompatible and overly restrictive DRM systems that hurt honest users much more than pirates having a seemless easy way to access useful copyrighted and legally purchased content across several platforms from two different manufactureres is a step in the right direction.
You may of heard that over the weekend Apple unveiled it’s new iPhone 3G device, there has been a lot of buzz surrounding the device, mostly because of the software, the actual hardware is not that impressive and mostly includes improvements that the original iPhone should have shipped with in the first place. The iPhone 3G comes in at a impressive $199 to buy, however you will be paying more in the long term compared to the classic iPhone with higher network subscription charges.
Now how does the new iPhone effect us Kindlers? well… Apple has done something remarkable with the software – they have opened it up! which is impressive considering we are talking about Apple here. All this has allowed third party developers to create e-book apps for the iPhone 3G and has turned the iPhone into a e-book reader.
There are already a couple of iPhone e-book reading apps out already, the iPhone Bookshelf is one which supports multiple formats.
Another promising e-book app is Stanza. Stanza is an app which lets you read e-book which are stored on your iPhone and e-books online, make sure you check out the demo at the bottom of the page. Stanza can also read files in the ePub format, which many other apps are able to work with, perhaps the Kindle will eventually support ePub aswell one day.
The only annoying thing about reading an e-book on the iPhone is that each e-book comes as its own individual app, with its own icon on the iPhone home screen, Apple could have done a better job of categorising e-books or even better creating their own e-book reading App.
There is still some speculation on whether Apple will create a dedicated e-book reading device, but for now we know e-books are on a Apple device through third party apps, if you couple this with rumours that Apple is in touch with major publishers this would support the theory that Apple is working on its own e-book reader, or at least a e-book store.
Will the touch screen make it easier to read an e-book? I don’t know since I don’t own a iPhone or iPod Touch, but I suspect that it might be a bit easier to read with the iPhone, swiping the screen to turn the page seems a more natural gesture than pressing a button, however you will be using both hands, whereas with the Kindle you need only use one. With the Kindle accidentally turning the page can be quite frustrating, I cant see it happening on the iPhone.
You can watch our buddy Walt Mossberg review of the Apple iPhone 3G in the video below, he mentions the e-book reading capability of the device.
Can Apple with its new iPhone 2.0 software challenge Amazon?
We have all heard this past week that Amazon is expected to shift around 189,000 – 600,000 units by the end of the year – then 2.2 million units by 2010, but how does this compare with other similarly ‘revolutionary’ devices in their first year in the market?
Silicon Ally Insider has compiled the numbers for us and as we can see from the comparison – if Amazon manages to hit expectations – it puts the Kindle in the same league as the first generation Blackberry’s and iPod’s. Now consider that the Blackberry and iPods are leaders in their field were both met with the same ridicule and suspicion that the Kindle is facing today. So if Amazon keeps plugging away, ignores the critics and keeps improving the device, by the time we get to the 3rd generation Kindle those reports which claimed that the Kindle will be the next iPod might not be so wrong after all.
Also of note might be Zune sales, which after a year sold just over 1 million units. (wiki)
Can Kindle really become the next iPod? please leave your thoughts and comments below.
Yesterday on this website we posted the New York Times article which speculated on how Apple is developing a Kindle-like device, well today I came across a wonderful open letter addressed to Steve Jobs (from TidBITS). It address’s precisely the reasons why Steve Job’s is wrong in his statements and why Apple should proceed with the ‘Safari Pad’.
I tend to agree with most of what is said, I also think that competition from Apple will force Amazon to become more creative and innovative, which is something they have been lacking in recently. Ultimately a war between Amazon and Apple will benefit the consumer the most.
Have a read;
Dear Steve,
Back in January, while talking with John Markoff and David Pogue of the New York Times after your Macworld Expo keynote, you expressed skepticism about the Amazon Kindle ebook reader. John Markoff quoted you as saying, “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
That seems an odd thing to say to a pair of writers whose work is read by millions of people in newspaper and book form. I don’t know where you got that 40 percent number, but other statistics would seem to disagree. For instance, the Book Industry Study Group, which has been tracking the U.S. publishing industry for 30 years, estimates that U.S. book sales in 2006 exceeded 3.1 billion copies, generating net revenues for U.S. publishers in excess of $35 billion. That’s a 3.2 percent increase in revenues over 2005. The book industry is growing, not shrinking. And if 40 percent of the people in the U.S. are reading one book or less per year, the other 182 million of us must be averaging over 16 books per year.
Reading habits have undoubtedly changed, since we have more entertainment and research options available to us than ever before. Some of those come thanks to Apple products like the iPod and Apple TV, and Apple services like the iTunes Store. But the prime mover, according to an IDC study of consumer online behavior, is that Americans are now spending 32.7 hours per week online, almost twice as much as they spend watching TV (16.4 hours per week) and more than eight times as much as they spend reading newspapers and magazines (3.9 hours). If you want to point to an industry in trouble, look no further than newspapers, where circulation is in a steep decline.
The key point is that time spent online is largely time spent reading (and writing), whether email (57 billion messages sent in 2007 by IDC’s estimate), blogs (over 70 million, with 1.5 million posts per day, according to Technorati), or more traditional online news and entertainment sources. People read more than they ever have, thanks to the Internet, and new forms of reading are appearing all the time. Witness the Japanese “cell phone novel,” meant to be read in serialized form on the ubiquitous mobile phone. The Economist reports that since appearing in 2001, the genre has grown to become an $82 million business in 2006, with some ebooks receiving over a hundred thousand downloads per day.
I’ve called out all these numbers in order to encourage Apple to acknowledge that people read vast quantities of text and to focus hardware and software design efforts on making it easier to read on the iPod, iPhone, and future devices. The iPod and iPhone can be used to read some online content now, along with small bits of text synced from a Mac, but the experience could be significantly improved with native support for PDF, better user interface support for stored text documents, and more.
But I, speaking as a reader and a publisher, would really like to see Apple create a larger version of the iPod touch optimized not just for a better video experience, but also for a best-of-breed reading experience. Apple has the hardware design and user interface chops that Amazon lacked when creating the Kindle, plus the knowledge gleaned from the iPhone and the iPod touch in terms of underlying operating system, physical design, and wireless capabilities. Equally important is the iTunes Store, which offers an unparalleled browsing and shopping experience for digital media – it could be extended to support commercial ebooks and free blogs in exactly the way it currently supports audiobooks and podcasts.
Such a device would make good business sense for Apple too. iPod sales posted their slowest ever year-over-year growth rate, at only 5 percent, causing some analysts to opine that Apple has saturated the market. Even committed iPod users will purchase replacement iPods only so often. Like the iPhone, a new “iPod reader” in a larger form factor would open up a new market for Apple, but unlike the iPhone, it would be purchased in addition to an iPod nano or iPod shuffle.
John Markoff has speculated that your dismissal of American reading habits is actually a calculated setting of the stage for just such a device. You didn’t have kind words for cell phones or the MP3 players that predated the iPod, with justification – they were (and for the most part remain) utterly awful.
So Steve, here’s hoping that an upcoming special event will feature an iPod reader, designed to do all the great things we’ve become accustomed to from an iPod, but with the addition of native support for downloading, managing, and displaying textual documents of all sorts, whether in plain text, PDF, Microsoft Word’s .doc, or XML format.
The iPod already gives us access to Beethoven and Bob Dylan, to snapshots of our children, and to The Incredibles and episodes of Lost. Let’s add to that Harry Potter and The Hobbit, 1984 and Catch-22, and the complete works of Dr. Seuss. Book publishers have been waiting for a mass-market ebook reader for years, the newspaper companies are dying for a new online business model, and normal people just want to read on the train to work. And of course, I’ll be happy to upload to the iTunes Store an entire library of Take Control ebooks that are already popular with tens of thousands of Mac users.
A New York Times articleby John Markoff this past week made an interesting case that Apple is working on a Kindle-like device called ‘Safari Pad’. Whilst there is no concrete evidence that Apple is working on – or even planning such a device, John Markoff seems to think that something is definitely up.
Steve Jobs does have a history of rubbishing an industry before launching a product, he famously criticised the music and cellphone industries before launching the iPod and iPhone. Apple has confirmed that the iPod Touch is a platform and not a single product, and Intel’s new Atom processor would seem like an ideal chip for a Kindle-like device and certainly Apple’s design department can come up with something which looks better than the Kindle.
Like most discussions on this subject, this article references a comment made by Steve Jobs when the Kindle was announced “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.” could this just be another of Steve Jobs diversion tactic – say one thing, and do another?
If Apple does come out with ‘Safari Pad’ we can safely assume that it will be a full-colour device which will sync to Apple’s other services like iTunes, AppleTV and OSX, which means it would offer video and music content, one thing the Kindle has going for it is that its designed for reading and reading alone which might just give it the upper hand when it comes to e-books.
The article ends with an interesting question – Wouldn’t it be ironic if Mr. Jobs could ultimately claim to have saved reading books in the digital age?
Could Apple do to books what the iPod did for music?
Unlike most companies, Sony is sounding positively chirpy about Apple’s foray into the world of eBooks with their iPad, the iBooks app and the iBook Store. They welcomed Apple’s move into the eBooks domain and also predicted the imminent death of paper printed books as we know it. Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading division told tech site Pocket-lint that a new device that has eBook reading built into as a feature is a good thing for the digital book market. He emphasized the fact that mobile devices that have this feature built in will play a key role in the paradigm shift from the analog to the digital media. So looks like Sony is actually happy that is has such great competition as the Kindle because frankly this is the device that put eBooks on the map. Even Steve Jobs acknowledged that.
Financial services company Credit Suisse has issued a report that predicts 
A New York Times 
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