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iPad Insight from Jason Perlow
March 24, 2010 | 1:49 pm
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By Roger Sperberg, New York Editor for TeleRead
Brilliant exegesis of Apple’s iPad effect on the market for e-ink devices like the Kindle DX by Jason Perlow at his Tech Broiler blog at ZDNet, iPad Killed Kindlenomics.
Why buy a Kindle DX that is limited to reading and buying books from Amazon, when you can get an iPad for 10 dollars more that reads content for Kindle, Barnes & Noble eBooks, Apple’s own iBooks, Lexcycle Stanza, and brilliant full-color magazines from Zinio? Not to mention read blogs and websites for free that Amazon otherwise charges for to convert to its proprietary format?
After all, Perlow points out, the screen size is the same on both devices, but the iPad’s is full color. Moreover, it has 4 times the storage capacity and comes with “a much faster refresh rate [and] a much faster processor and has access to over 150,000 applications over ubiquitous high-speed Wi-Fi, including the free Kindle for Tablets app that will provide all of the functionality of the inferior, dedicated black & white e-reader, and then some, because it will be able to read Kindle books in color, as shown in [this] screen shot of the application.”
A really smart, incisive look at things by Perlow.
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Comments:
“Why buy a Kindle DX”
I bought it for it’s battery life and e-ink large screen. Just for reading fiction though.
Considering that the iPad has not yet been released and is not in anyone’s hands, I wonder how any commentator knows exactly what ebook formats the iPad will let be read on it outside of the Apple bookstore offerings. Does anyone know for certain that Apple will let Amazon’s app work on the iPad? Or B&N’s? Or is this just speculation?
Rich Adin is right. The Kindle’s deficiencies are well known. Given Apple’s fetish for secrecy, there’s a lot about the iPad we don’t know and some things we may not know even after the hardware is released.
Will Apple allow other full-featured bookstore apps on the iPad? Maybe or maybe not. They do allow them on iPhones, but that’s without an iBookstore. Money has a tendency to shape policies.
How many features will iBooks have? Will it permit highlighting and note-taking? Who knows. Even more important, will there be versions of iBooks for Macs, PCs and iPhones with shared notes and bookmarks? Apple has been silent about that.
Recently, I’ve been using versions of TaskPaper (outline/to-do) and WriteRoom on my iMac, MacBook, and iPad touch. The auto-synching between all the platforms is so useful, I no longer have any interest in ebook reader apps that aren’t multi-platform and synchable cross-platform.
Also consider that with the KDX you will have the price of your wireless connectivity built into the purchase price. With the iPad you will be shelling out month after month to get the same thing!
I’ve said before and will say again: Apple would have to be outright crazy to block other e-book apps. Why would they not want their iPad to be attractive to people who’ve already built up substantial libraries on those apps? Why would they want to make it harder for them to convince themselves to buy an iPad? Why would they want to endanger their hundreds-of-dollars-per-unit margin hardware sales in favor of a few three-to-five-dollars-per-unit margin e-books?
Apple is in the hardware business. They’re only in the media business to the extent that having cheap media makes their expensive hardware more attractive. I don’t see any rational reason for them to turn around and kick out other e-book apps. (Which isn’t to say they couldn’t still do it for irrational reasons, but I find that highly unlikely.)
Why buy a Kindle DX?
Well, to start with, because you *can* while the iPad isn’t available yet.
Next you might consider its crisp non-backlit screen, its long battery life, and the fact that you don’t have to pay every month for the Whispernet. You might value the Kindle’s ability to search within and across documents, and its ability to highlight and annotate.
Of course, this assumes that what you want to do with it is *read*. If color pictures are very important to you, then absolutely you should go with the iPad. Or maybe the iPod Touch, which, like the Kindle, is immediately available and has had a couple of versions to work the kinks out.
Kindles, both 2 and DX are better for reading novels. iPads might be good for cookbooks, magazines, comics, references, and the like. Kindles for long, heavy reading.. iPad for the rest.
@Chris –
You ask “Why would they not…?” The simplest reason is because Jobs is a vindictive person. Look at how he had McGraw-Hill’s name removed from the background at the announcement because of something Terry McGraw said the night before.
Also consider that Jobs’ goal is to out Amazon Amazon, and that would be pretty hard to do if every Tom, Dick, and Harry were allowed to compete with the Apple bookstore.
And if Jobs and Apple were so definitely open, one would think that Apple wouldn’t have any problem with letting other comouter manufacturers use Apple OS, but they do and they prevent any competition at all.
And why not adopt the Adobe DRM scheme that Sony and B&N use, as well as most ebooksellers rather than the closed FairPlay system? There is nothing to indicate that Apple wants or will permit competition in the ebook sphere.
Jobs’ mind is indecipherable. It is as safe to assume he will not permit the Kindle app as to assume that he will. Release date will be telling.