Interview:Adam Engst on iPad and ereaders

[doreenjoy]

"Apple has become so huge and dominant"

I wonder where I was when that happened.

[adamengst]

Originally Posted by leebase

If you really want to have fun, just suggest that an excellent reading experience can be had via an LCD device. Watch people swear up and down that ONLY eInk is suitable for reading as if their experience were more valid than yours.

I suspect it's a bit like color, where individual perception can vary quite widely, with a dose of tribalism thrown in for good measure. :-) Everyone has preferences.

As far as the subsequent comment/question/snark (not sure) about Apple becoming huge and dominant, the most telling numbers to me are that the company's position as having the third highest market capitalization in the world (behind Exxon Mobil and PetroChina, but now well ahead of Microsoft), and the raw number of iOS devices sold (over 160 million worldwide, as announced at the iOS 4.3 unveiling).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...alization#2010

cheers... -Adam

[kjk]

Originally Posted by adamengst

It's so much fun seeing one talked about in public.

First off, I think people are reading WAY too much into my statement. I said:

> One thing that I think is potentially helping the Kindle is that Apple has become so large and so dominant that buying a Kindle is almost an act of rebellion.

Note the words "I think" and "potentially" and "almost". I'm not stating this as a fact, I'm proposing it as a possibility, as something that might be true in some cases. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is true in some cases, but it would be madness to suggest that it's true in all cases, or even in a majority of cases. If you're all really interested, we can explore the question of why people buy one device over another, but I don't think there's any argument that not all people make fully rational decisions all the time. Sometimes they just like one thing more than another, or have a good or bad association. I don't wear or buy Nike running shoes, for instance, and while I can make up various rational justifications for why, the fact is that I'm not a big fan of Nike and buying other brands of running shoes is a small personal rebellion about how big and powerful Nike has become.

It's true I'm not a big fan of the Kindle. I have a Kindle 1 and a Kindle DX, and they sit on my floor unused until I need to test something on them, at which point I generally become fairly frustrated with them since I find the Kindle interface opaque. I'm sure that's in large part because I use them infrequently, but I could also make a point-by-point criticism of the Kindle on usability grounds.

Everything is more complicated than it seems, and there are always more than two sides to every argument (which I learned in Carl Sagan's seminar in critical thinking when I was an undergrad at Cornell many years ago). But it's not always possible, in the time and space available, to present and explore every possibility. When it comes right down to it, I was asked those interview questions by an online friend and I hadn't replied as promptly as I would have liked, so I was writing quickly in an effort to get the message out of my Inbox. And because the guy's a friend with a blog (as opposed to, say, the Washington Post), I wasn't thinking as carefully as I might about my wording. So it goes.

cheers... -Adam

ahaha, sorry Adam. I really was more interested in sharing your experiences with the iBooks submittal process and DRM, hence what I quoted...but I should have known better

[jocampo]

A Kindle is not a a tablet, and a tablet is more than just an ereader device.

I do have an iPad2, a Kindle 3 and a Kindle DXG and to read novels or non fiction books, the Kindle 3 is way much better. You can read inside or outdoors, and is so light an portable that the reading experience is just a pleasure. You can even buy a book with just following couple of simple steps and in seconds, is just there for you.

Now, for reading PDFs I find the iPad/GoodReader an awesome experience and I think that's where Amazon it is currently failing. If they are able to provide a better PDF experience on the DXG, like Sony does, things could be a bit different.

iPad is also much more than an ereader so for casual readers or people who don't have eye strain problems, they can combine fun, browsing, magazines with same ereading experience than a Kindle. Not an Amazon fault, and here is where price and features push people to one side or another.

Marketing plays an important role when selling and buying products but I don't think people are stupid and they buy just because is X or Y brand. People are becoming more and more educated in the technical aspects of a device and they are starting to buy because it fills certain needs, not because it is popular or "in fashion".

[faithbw]

Originally Posted by rhadin

That may not be why you want a replacement, but I think he understands the overall market pretty well -- except I don't see buying a Kindle as an act of rebellion against Apple. I see buying any ereading device other than an Apple product as telling Steve Jobs that one prefers to think and act independently and have choices, not be an Apple lemming.

What if you have both an Apple product and an ereader? I have brought two iPods in the past four years and I love them. I gave the nano to my mom and still have my iTouch. However, I still want an ereader. I'm not buying an ereader to stick it to Steve Jobs and Apple (I have no reason to since I think they make wonderful mp3 players at the very least [yes, I did use a non-Apple mp3 player before buying my first iPod and found that I much prefer Apple's product]). I just want an ereader. If the price of the iPad ever comes down, I'll probably buy one of those too.

Maybe there are some people who buy ereaders to be different but considering that ereaders, especially the Kindle, are becoming more mainstream, I have to wonder how different that would make anyone.

[Horemheb]

Originally Posted by adamengst

It's so much fun seeing one talked about in public.

First off, I think people are reading WAY too much into my statement. I said:

> One thing that I think is potentially helping the Kindle is that Apple has become so large and so dominant that buying a Kindle is almost an act of rebellion.

Note the words "I think" and "potentially" and "almost".

I am sorry if the reaction was stronger than it might have been. I still think however that the idea that buying Kindle is sometimes "almost an act of rebellion" is almost certainly false and it is false in almost every case of Kindle purchase.

Taking your example of shoes it is like if you were saying that buying CAT heavy duty boots is sometimes an act of rebellion against Nike running shoes. In some odd situations it might be true but for the most part it has nothing to do with it. Heavy duty boots are not for the same purposes as running shoes just as eInk readers are not for the same purposes as a tablet. I know a lot of people with eInk readers but none of them actually considered it as a replacement for iPad (or any other tablet for that matter) moreover a couple of them have both eInk and iPad, just like many readers here.

So buying Samsung Galaxy Tab might be rebellion against Apple and now Xoom also might be but Kindle? No way. Not to mention the other eInk readers like Nook and Kobo which are also not rebellion against Apple.

[adamengst]

Originally Posted by kjk

ahaha, sorry Adam. I really was more interested in sharing your experiences with the iBooks submittal process and DRM, hence what I quoted...but I should have known better

I could go on and on and on and on about all the things that are wrong with the iBookstore submission process, if the term "process" even applies. :-)

It's just amazing to me how well Apple does when aiming something at consumers, and how terribly when the service in question is only for a small subset of users.

cheers... -Adam

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Horemheb

Taking your example of shoes it is like if you were saying that buying CAT heavy duty boots is sometimes an act of rebellion against Nike running shoes. In some odd situations it might be true but for the most part it has nothing to do with it. Heavy duty boots are not for the same purposes as running shoes just as eInk readers are not for the same purposes as a tablet. I know a lot of people with eInk readers but none of them actually considered it as a replacement for iPad (or any other tablet for that matter) moreover a couple of them have both eInk and iPad, just like many readers here.

I think this pretty much sums things up for me, the kindle serves a different purpose for me than my ipad because regardless of the whole e-ink vs lcd issue for reading comfort, the greater portability of my kindle allows me to take it everywhere with me and its much smaller weight also means that it has much less influence on how I use it e.g. standing on crowded public transport I could comfortably hold a paperback or a kindle one-handed whereas I find my ipad far less comfortable to use that way and it tends to mostly be used at home for things that better suit its strength such as comics or magazines on the colour screen.

So buying Samsung Galaxy Tab might be rebellion against Apple and now Xoom also might be but Kindle? No way. Not to mention the other eInk readers like Nook and Kobo which are also not rebellion against Apple.

Even in the case of those two tablets you mention it does them a disservice to try and diminish people's valid choices for choosing those devices by labelling them as rebellion against apple when somebody might simply prefer an os with less restrictions or having the option of using flash or being able to avoid the bloated nature of the itunes desktop application.

[Horemheb]

Originally Posted by Crowl

Even in the case of those two tablets you mention it does them a disservice to try and diminish people's valid choices for choosing those devices by labelling them as rebellion against apple when somebody might simply prefer an os with less restrictions or having the option of using flash or being able to avoid the bloated nature of the itunes desktop application.

You are right, I think too that in most cases it's a matter of informed choice and not rebellion. I concede however that with Xoom and Galaxy Tab (or other non-Apple tablets) at least sometimes it might be the case that rebellion is a factor in the choice. While the number of these cases are not too high I am almost certain that this number is close to zero with eInk readers.

[adamengst]

It's a really nice idea that purchases are based on "informed choice," but in my experience, people often buy things for many other, less rational, reasons. Marketers have done a lot of research into this, and there are people who will put a lot of thought and research into a purchase, obsessing over getting exactly the right thing for the intended use, and then there are people who will just buy the first thing that they come across, or buy what their friend has, or buy the one that comes in a pretty color, or whatever. Amusingly, the second group is generally happier with their purchases, though I suspect the first group probably defends their choices more, having invested much more in it.