The Next Wave: Kindle Outselling iBooks 60 to 1

[kjk]

http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/08/...books-60-to-1/

So much for iPad killing Kindle. I called it.

Note the author of the post, Alex Wilhelm, comes to this click grabbing headline based on one author's experience with both bookstores.

[John Bailey]

Hehe..
Little acknowledged fact.

All e-book reader users read e-books.
Some iPad and other Apple device users read e-books.

Stand by for the RDS army to batten down the hatches and tell everybody how magical the books are.

[carld]

Originally Posted by John Bailey

Hehe..
Little acknowledged fact.

All e-book reader users read e-books.

I just use mine to play minesweeper .... very slowly.

[Teddman]

Yeah, pretty funny how so many analysts called for the death of the Kindle when iPad hit. It's really about the store, not the device, and iBooks is getting trounced by the Kindle store.

Hell, if Amazon could make enough of them, the Kindle 3 would probably have a shot at outselling iPad for the rest of the year.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by Teddman

Yeah, pretty funny how so many analysts called for the death of the Kindle when iPad hit. It's really about the store, not the device, and iBooks is getting trounced by the Kindle store.

Hell, if Amazon could make enough of them, the Kindle 3 would probably have a shot at outselling iPad for the rest of the year.

The thing in Amazon can sit back and look at the Kindle sales and say "We have hit X% of the electronic reading market" which would be true because people only buy an ereader for reading. I think Apple are saying "Well we have sold X-number of iPads which is about the same figure as 22% of the ereader market...well we must own 22% as the iPad can read books".

[jbjb]

It's important not to confuse "Kindle (the device) vs iPad (the device)" with "Kindle Store vs iBooks Store". The iPad can acess books from both stores, and others.

/JB

[GhostHawk]

Actually I had a chance to see an Ipad this weekend.
Frankly I wasn't that impressed.

Its incredibly expensive, the surface is always smudged, fingerprints, etc.
Its heavy, yet the battery life is only about 10 hours.

I can see where it is an apple gadget freaks delight, but I wouldn't trade my Jetbook for one. Its a status symbol more than a reader in my opinion.

[shanghaichica]

The article is flaky a best, but I do not believe that Apple have 22% of the ebook market. Their store has nothing in it. Even though I have an ereader, I was really excited to check out the ibooks store, but it was such a disapointment. There was hardly any books in there and the books are terribly over-priced.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by GhostHawk

Actually I had a chance to see an Ipad this weekend.
Frankly I wasn't that impressed.

Its incredibly expensive, the surface is always smudged, fingerprints, etc.
Its heavy, yet the battery life is only about 10 hours.

I can see where it is an apple gadget freaks delight, but I wouldn't trade my Jetbook for one. Its a status symbol more than a reader in my opinion.

You know, I'm not going to diss Apple lovers. Everybody loves different pieces of technology and IMHO it is each to their own. Now the iPads are rather expensive, and I actually read the warranty of the iPad, apparently a faulty battery is not covered, so you need to as a consumer pay to have the iPad replaced. The iPad also has some protective cover that is designed to wear off in time (can't recall the exact wording of it). So essentially I read it as, you as the consumer takes all liability for an expensive gadget, which technically has a used-by-date with protective measures wearing off. For $650AUS for the base model, a battery at least IMHO should be covered for 6 months at least. Heck I bought a $300AUS netbook and it has 12 months on the battery.

And you're right about the 10 hours. If what is said is true and the average battery has 500 charge/discharge cycles, and you use your iPad daily, chances are in 18 months - 2 years the sucker has had it. I still love the quote from a guy I go to Uni with when I asked about his iphone, he said "The iphone is great for doing anything but what you'd want a mobile phone to do".

[kjk]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

You know, I'm not going to diss Apple lovers. Everybody loves different pieces of technology and IMHO it is each to their own. Now the iPads are rather expensive, and I actually read the warranty of the iPad, apparently a faulty battery is not covered, so you need to as a consumer pay to have the iPad replaced. .

This is just incorrect. From Apple's Battery page:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html

iPad Owners
Your one-year warranty includes replacement coverage for a defective battery.

Originally Posted by Solicitous

And you're right about the 10 hours. If what is said is true and the average battery has 500 charge/discharge cycles

From Apple's iPad page http://www.apple.com/batteries/ipad.html:

A properly maintained iPad battery is designed to retain up to 80% of its original capacity at 1000 full charge and discharge cycles.

[leebase]

The best new feature of the K3 is the price, and you folks can thank Apple for a good deal of that.

I've read 23 books on my iPad so far, and never once ran out of battery life. I've also never bought a book from the Apple iBook Store. I have bought a couple kindle books and read them via my iPad, as well as books from Baen and Fictionwise.

As others have mentioned -- you can't confuse iBook sales with "how the iPad is used for reading". I will wait until the Apple DRM is cracked before I begin to purchase Apple books.

I do prefer the iBook app, but the Kindle and Stanza apps on the iPad are just fine.

Like most folks, I imagine, I bought the iPad for other reasons than reading. However, it is an excellent reader in it's own right -- unless you want to sit in the hot sun and read, or unless you are incapable of plugging it in at night.

Lee

[carld]

Originally Posted by leebase

The best new feature of the K3 is the price, and you folks can thank Apple for a good deal of that.

Lee

Hmm, no, I'd thank competition from the Kobo and the Nook myself. I will thank Apple for helping the price fix five implement the agency model and giving us higher ebook prices though.

[oggelbe2007]

Originally Posted by kjk

This is just incorrect. From Apple's Battery page:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/replacements.html





From Apple's iPad page http://www.apple.com/batteries/ipad.html:

For out of warranty only:
I believe the deal is...you send your dead iPad back to Apple with $100+ and the great folks at Apple send you a replacement iPad (refurbished, scratch n' dent, whatever), however all of your personal data is gone (unless you backed it up *somewhere* before the battery died on you). Even if you DID back it up your personal data it's still on the dead iPad so you'll have to trust whoever the lowest bidder is for servicing iPad's happens to be at the time not to use your credit card acct to supplement their income.
It's a great deal for Apple but kinda sucks for their technopobic customers cause it's really not that difficult to pop the case and swap that battery.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by oggelbe2007

however all of your personal data is gone (unless you backed it up *somewhere* before the battery died on you).

It's pretty easy to back up and restore iThings by simply connecting them to iTunes. When you plug the new one in, I think iTunes will ask whether you want to restore your last backup to it. Where does the idea that these devices are difficult to back up come from?

[Logseman]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

It's pretty easy to back up and restore iThings by simply connecting them to iTunes. When you plug the new one in, I think iTunes will ask whether you want to restore your last backup to it. Where does the idea that these devices are difficult to back up come from?

Maybe from iTunes' file management being ludicrous and counter-intuitive. If I have files in my iPod which are not in iTunes, iTunes will want to substitute its content for mine. Oh, and the duplication of files made by default.