Is the title of an article at ZDnet by Larry Dignan.
What gets fuzzy quick is whether the iPad and Kindle are truly on a collision course. You can spin in a circle and hit someone that thinks the iPad will render the Kindle useless. These folks argue that multipurpose devices will trump the Kindle and e-readers. These devices are relics. However, it’s not that simple. After giving the iPad vs. Kindle battle some thought—I basically held my Kindle purchase to scope out the iPad—I’d argue these devices may converge at some point, but for now can coexist.
I agree. The Kindle is for reading books. The iPad works for things like the Digital version of the New Yorker.
The iPad won’t make the Kindle obsolete, far from it. Amazon already has the Kindle app on the iPhone, so you can expect to see a version for the pad, too. The main point is that the user still remains inside the Kindle ecosystem. Since the Kindle books sinc nicely between devices, users might even use the Kindle-device for travel and the pad at home. They won’t go ahead, scrap their investment and buy from the iBooks-store but stay with Amazon. Apple won’t even be able to block the Amazon app from the iPad without facing antitrust investigation. The pad is a win for Amazon. Naturally they might have to do something about the crappy formating-options of the Kindle file format…
The Kindle will be in trouble if it doesn’t get the price down to the sub-$100 level. As it stands now, it has only two advantages that may stand up over time:
1. You can read in bright sunlight, which balanced by the fact that you can’t read in dim lighting.
2. Reading for hours at a time may mean less eyestrain than the iPads bright screen. The problem is that may be an urban myth. I’ve not noticed any eyestrain reading from my tiny iPod touch. Too bright a lighting may cause strain, but the solution may be dimming the screen (like I do) rather than getting a Kindle.
Also, there are hints in what Apple has said that a deal with Amazon may be in the works. That may mean that iBooks could purchase Amazon ebooks or that Apple would allow Amazon to create their own app for the iPad. Whichever, it’d be a win-win situation for both companies.