NYT Kindle obit

[leebase]

The kindle will do fine for several years to come. Who knows after that. The kindle has dropped by almost 2/3rd's in price. eInk has it's own virtues independent of price as well.

However, just as silly as the "kindle will die" articles, are the "eInk is for real dedicated readers" rubbish that's spouted by so many on this forum. Sure, if you like eInk, great. But that's an area of _preference_ not objective fact. Sure, for reading in direct sunlight it certainly rules but that's such a SMALL percentage of most people's reading.

The results are in on the iPad already. Those who have one overwhelmingly find it a nice reading experience. Some prefer it to eInk, some still like their eInk readers better. Only a very tiny portion of folks actually dislike the iPad reading experience. And there are those tiny amount of folks that don't like eInk screens.

Sure, sizable majority of customers buying the iPad do not have reading as their primary use case. Everyone who buys a kindle intends to use it for reading. But that's nothing surprising since it ONLY is useful for reading.

The iPad does indeed have it's own set of use cases where it clearly is superior. You can buy from all the major stores via the iPad. Not so with the kindle, nook, or Sony. It has a color screen. There is no delay or blinking going from page to page. There is a variety of reading apps to choose from that all have more functionality than any of the readers. Comics, magazines -- there is a clear superiority for the iPad. If you want to include the web for it's reading aspects, the iPad rules there as well.

While the iPad can't hold a candle to any eInk reader in the full sun, it does just fine in the shade. And for more of us like reading in the shade to baking in the sun. Indoors, the backlit screen is often far superior -- no book light needed.

You know the iPad apps will get better and better -- but the kindle pretty much needs to be upgraded to the new model to get any better.

I'm not saying the iPad _IS_ better, but that that there are points in favor of each. Depending on one's own needs and preferences, one device or the other will be the optimal choice.

However, beyond reading, the iPad is a highly desirable device for lots of other reasons, in ADDITION to being an excellent reading device. That's why it's going to sell over 10 million this year, and over 15 million the next. Then thrown in the 10's of millions of Android tablets that are going to sell next year as well.

The multi-function tablets are indeed going to eclipse the dedicated readers as "the main market" for ebooks. But there is nothing on the horizon that's going to do away with dedicated eInk readers for at least the next few years.

Lee

[petermillard]

Originally Posted by leebase

I'm not saying the iPad _IS_ better, but that that there are points in favor of each. Depending on one's own needs and preferences, one device or the other will be the optimal choice...

Wholeheartedly agree; it's not necessarily an 'either/or' choice. I've had dedicated e-ink readers since they were available, but for me, the benefits of e-ink never cancelled out the overall clunkiness of the devices and once the Kindle App was available I did most of my reading on an iPhone - which in turn has largely been replaced by my iPad. But I've just come back from a couple of weeks holiday and in some conditions (e.g. bright shade) the iPad didn't fare too well - not impossible to use, just grey text on a pale-grey background - a bit like e-ink in less than ideal lighting, to be honest... I found my old Cybook to be better in these brighter conditions, and clunkiness aside, I was surprised how much I didn't hate reading on a small e-ink device again.

So having sworn I'd never buy another e-ink reader, I'll probably pick up a WiFi-only Kindle when they're available, just for use where the screen makes sense. The price-drop helps; a hundred quid may not exactly be loose change, but it's not expensive either, and having all your Kindle books available and synched across all the devices has considerable appeal.

Actually, I wish Amazon would go one step further and produce a WiFi-only Kindle with no keyboard - I can buy books via the Kindle App on a host of other, more responsive devices; all I'd want from the keyboardless-Kindle is a 'sync now' option in a menu somewhere (maybe not even that) and a way of managing which books in my Amazon 'library' are synced. If this enabled Amazon to reduce the price further still, then so much the better for eBook readers everywhere.

So yes, dragging myself back OT, I'd say the NYT Kindle obit was a little previous.

Cheers, Pete

[Blue Tyson]

I'd certainly make the Kindle a favorite to last longer than the NYT.

Originally Posted by GeoffC

Welcome savethebutterfly to mobileread ....

Thank you! It seems a very nice place to be at.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by leebase

I'm not saying the iPad _IS_ better, but that that there are points in favor of each.

The tone of your note certainly sounds like the iPad _IS_ better in your opinion.

Well, it's not -- when the purpose of the device is e-reading. The iPad weighs more, has a puny battery life, is more easily damaged, and costs four times or more as much.

Further more, the Kindle platform is device agnostic allowing the end-user to access his/her library on a Windows PC, on a Mac, on a Blackberry, on an iPad, on an Android device, on two different classes of Kindle ... and sync the reading experience, and share the content, across all of them. Plus Amazon provides the most robust commercial content library out there and the best opportunity for content providers to generate income ... which encourages even more content.

Finally, Amazon has books and reading in its DNA; Apple does not. The iPad can become a hugely roaring success without selling a single ebook; not so Kindles. And that, ultimately, is why we can expect Amazon to stay focussed on providing a better reading experience, across the ebook eco-system, today, tomorrow, and on the journey toward the 10th and 20th generation Kindle.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by corona

The dedicated e-reader is the new dedicated word processor; RIP. Oh, and Long Live the iPad!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/bu...ref=technology

The article makes a prediction about what we will be doing ten years from now.

Ten years ago - no iphone, no ipad, no ipod, no Kindle. The Rocketbook was two years old.

Ten years from now all those devices could be as obsolete as the VHS player. Who knows - we could be reading - and computing - using holographic projections by then.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by catsittingstill

This.

I haven't thought much about this recently (thought about it a lot when I first got a Kindle, again when I considered iPod Touch vs iPhone) but this is a big deal. At least, it's a big deal for me. I would rather save my pennies and buy something big than commit myself to more monthly bills.

The iPad is very shiny. Literally. I might want one someday--a WiFi one. But I want a K3 *first*.

And regarding PDAs disappearing into smartphones--I don't want to have my PDA held for ransom every month. Show me a pay-go smartphone and I'll think about it. In the meantime, an iPod touch works pretty darn well as a PDA, which is a big part of why I got one.

Walmart has 'em, called Straight Talk, a subsidiary of Tracfone. I haven't tried them myself, but I've seen them.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And you really shouldn't. Ever.
You literally don't know what's in the thing; their formula is the biggest secret in business.

Everybody has their own philosophy. Coca-cola, like Amazon, doesn't believe in helping their competitors. Let *them* figure out how to make money selling sweet colored water on their own. If they can.

Lots of companies rely on Trade Secrets to protect their business. Others don't even believe in IP. Fortunately, there's room for all kinds.

Silly, the ingredients of Coke are listed on every can. That whole 'secret formula' stuff is just marketing lore.

As to the Amazon vs. Apple thing - I don't think the iPad is a Kindle-killer, per se, but I do expect that down the road there will be multi-use devices that are better for reading than the current crop of devices. I'm afraid that if they're not Amazon-branded devices, then Amazon will just choose to pull the plug on their ebook business. They did once before.

Amazon may be the 800 lb. gorilla right now, but as technology changes, that is not guaranteed to continue.

But then, prediction is easy - predicting correctly is hard.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

The tone of your note certainly sounds like the iPad _IS_ better in your opinion.

Well, it's not -- when the purpose of the device is e-reading. The iPad weighs more, has a puny battery life, is more easily damaged, and costs four times or more as much.

The tone of your note certainly sounds like another opinion

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

I'd certainly make the Kindle a favorite to last longer than the NYT.

I'm with you. One would expect professional writers to have a sense of irony but apparently it has already died at the NYT.

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by NYTs

The uniformity of e-book prices at Amazon and Apple on many of the most popular e-books has drawn the attention of Richard Blumenthal, attorney general of Connecticut, who said last week that his office had started an investigation into their agreements with major e-book publishers that “threaten to encourage coordinated pricing and discourage discounting.”

I'm no fan of Blumenthal, but as far I'm concerned, the publishers deserve any time they have to spend with him.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by kjk

The tone of your note certainly sounds like another opinion

You missed my first sentence, even though you quoted it. "Well, it's not [the iPad being better] -- when the purpose of the device is e-reading."

I then elaborated why the Kindle, and the Amazon Kindle platform, provides a better reading experience. I supplied facts and a reasoned argument, not merely "another opinion".

[corona]

I didn't want to start another thread, 'cause there's just no shortage whatsoever of this stuff and one gets, well, kind of tired, but now the newspaper of record has the iPad killing off not just the independents, but the big-box bookstores, too:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/bu...e&ref=business

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by corona

I didn't want to start another thread, 'cause there's just no shortage whatsoever of this stuff and one gets, well, kind of tired, but now the newspaper of record has the iPad killing off not just the independents, but the big-box bookstores, too:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/bu...e&ref=business

I liked the fact that in the first five months of 2009, ebooks were 2.9%, in the first five months of 2010, ebooks were 8.5%, "spurred by sales of the Amazon Kindle and the new Apple iPad". As the iPad came out in April, it's not clear what this means. Did the iPad cause a massive spike in eBook demand, or is this iPad hype, when it's other eBook devices driving sales?

I went to look here at the stats. Q1 2010 is $91M, about $30M per month. Jan-May 2010 is $147.7M, about $30M per month. So, according to these stats, the iPad had approximately nil impact on sales over those two months.

Clearly, you can't draw a curve with two points (I usually use one ), but I don't see any evidence from their cited source that that iPad was driving sales at all.

[Juliette]

Originally Posted by Crowl

The scanner vs multifunction device is a good example of just why it can still be a good thing to have separate devices, separate functions tied together in a package that is generally bulkier, no cheaper and a single point of failure i.e. your printer breaks and you have also lost your scanner.

DITTO.

Originally Posted by corona

I didn't want to start another thread, 'cause there's just no shortage whatsoever of this stuff and one gets, well, kind of tired, but now the newspaper of record has the iPad killing off not just the independents, but the big-box bookstores, too:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/bu...e&ref=business

As much as I love pbooks (but I should say that I love texts rather than p- and e-books) I feel the article mythicises too much the bookstore as a physical place. Yes, I loved the feeling of coming out of London's Waterstone Picadilly with some bags of books, but let's face it: it's business. (The same is, for me, the most romantic, small, cared-for, loving, paper-smelling specialised bookshop.) I don't know, but it seems to me a rather too subjective approach to the problem, rather than an equilibrate assessment of how things are doing for the bricks-and-mortars. Uhm.

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by corona

I didn't want to start another thread, 'cause there's just no shortage whatsoever of this stuff and one gets, well, kind of tired, but now the newspaper of record has the iPad killing off not just the independents, but the big-box bookstores, too:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/bu...e&ref=business

The independents have allied with Google Editions (if it will ever launch ) and that may prove to be a useful alliance. Depending on a number of things, I could see myself happy to patronize a local shop, buy my ebooks through their portal and direct some friends to do the same to preserve a good store. I've always liked having a real human to deal with, and I like doing business with small businesses. If Google Editions lets me do that, it'll definitely be an advantage.

I think one thing nook might still not be doing is profit-sharing ebooks bought while at B&N locations. That would be a shame. Glad Google Editions figured out a way to reach out to a similar pool of resources though.