One of my favourite trend-dissecting websites, Ars Technica, goes into detail on how Amazon must adapt to sell ebooks to multiple devices, as Apple gets ready to release its tablet and just about every PC vendor prepares its own e-ink devices, slates or what-have-you. The article, titled “Why Amazon won’t launch its own tablet, but will use Apple’s“, says that Amazon must to now compete with vendors who will sell books for any screen, and will have to support the Apple tablet and others no matter how un-Kindle they may be.
The article goes on to suggest that opening the Kindle to third-party applications will buy some life for the franchise, but by the end of the year it will be just one of a large field of dedicated devices and full-function computers that the e-book reading public can choose from.
I can only hope that this also signals the beginning of the end of the proprietary Kindle book format. This is going to be a very interesting year.
I’m betting the Apple product will be heavier, costlier, and require a $50/100 a month data fee. I’m betting that Amazon can drop its price another $50 this year and still be profitable. So, I don’t see Kindle’s phase-out this year. Of course, Amazon WILL surely offer Kindle for iTab, just as they do for iPhone. And if, eventually, they get out of the hardware business, that won’t be any big deal, assuming they can lock in their customer base first.
Rob Preece
Publisher
It is going to be an interesting year. I will enjoy watching things unfold. I have my favorite predictions, but if they’re wrong… Well, I’ll need to learn some new stuff about the world!
There’s already a Kindle app for the Phone – I’m not entirely sure how it works (owning neither an iPhone nor a Kindle) but I’ve seen people advice others without Kindle it’s worth downloading so they can take advantage of Amazon’s prices. If you don’t actually need a Knidle to use the Kindle app, then surely Amazon will hope tablet users will just download the same/similar app, and they won’t have to reformat all their eBooks?
I think the wisest thing Amazon could do is to offer their ebooks also in ePub format. Kindle apps run on iPhone, iPod Touch and computers but not on other ereaders like the nook, Sony, Onyx, BeBook or what have you. Reformatting the ebooks can be done largely automatically. They can still have their own format for the Kindle, or also support ePub on the Kindle at a later time. Amazon’s main business is to sell (e)books, not Kindles.
Let’s see Amazon enable the Kindle to read ePub and I for one will be ecstatic.
I’d settle for either a Kindle app for Windows Mobile (for my PDA, another device not supported by Kindle), or Amazon selling in ePub format for my existing reading apps or future devices. I’d prefer the latter… Amazon needs to join everyone else in adopting a standardized format, and the market has already spoken in its adoption of OEB.
As I said in the other news thread the Apple website says that ‘iBooks’ is available in the USA only. So this is not a Kindle killer. Not even close 🙂
To be fair, the Kindle was US only until last year, and that didn’t do it any harm. The Sonys popped up here first (and the iLiad some years ago, though it pretty much priced itself out of the market), and even some of the cheaper brands like BeBook. To be honest, I don’t know what kind of uptake the Kindle has had, considering so many of the books available for it on Amazon are US only for rights reasons.
Now that the Apple iPad has been announced, notice that it will play the Kindle App without any modifications whatever, so tacitly Amazon has approved of using an iPad to read AZW files. I understand there are also iPhone apps for the B&N and Sony books as well. Of course calibre or Stanza will read unprotected ePub files on any device on which they run, including the iPad.