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On his blog, Aaron Pressman comments on a recent post by John Gruber comparing the Kindle to an iPod. Pressman wrote a Businessweek blog post several years ago predicting that “the Kindle would be the iPod of books.”
Gruber specifically compares the Kindle to the iPod Nano, a comparison with which Pressman heartily agrees:
To me, both devices share some of the same strengths and weaknesses. Most notably, both have an excellent focus on doing one thing perfectly (music playing/reading) while doing other things poorly or not at all. There’s also the attractively low price point and the trade-off of small size forcing less-than-great controls.
He points out that one of the areas where the Kindle is the most like a Nano is the way that its price has fallen to where it is easy to justify even an impulse purchase.
At least to some extent, comparing Kindles and iPods is like comparing apples and oranges. I think I would say that, given how versatile the device is, if the Kindle is the iPod Nano of books then the iPod Touch is the iPod Touch of them—able to read e-books from an amazing number of different sources and fit snugly in your pocket.
That’s how I always explain e-readers (in my case, sony reader) to people: “It’s like an i-pod, but for books.”