March 5th, 2009
Well, you hardly need my blog to bring you the big news that you can now Kindle your iPhone. It’s all over the place. Should you have missed the news, here’s the New York Times report, as comprehensive as any.
The details of the features and shortcomings of bringing the Amazin’ Kindle to a less capable device are described there and also on a blog entry on the site.
So the only remaining question is WHY?
WHY did Amazon, after all its proprietary secrets and obtuse stories and challenging dealings with publishers suddenly capitulate to the iPod/Phone so quickly after the introduction of the modestly improved and horrendously over-hyped Kindle 2? Surely this will not enhance Kindle sales, although it will surely enhance Amazon’s desired position as the #1 retailer of e-books.
Have a look at this blog entry titled “Apple’s Epic E-Book Fail.”
Digest it.
Then imagine that Amazon got wind of the fact that despite Steve J’s infamous pronouncement, “People don’t read anymore,” Apple may have caught onto Amazon’s attempt to corner a segment of the digital media market that it did not yet control, and that Apple had plans to break in.
Just a thought.
And here, for your edification, a screen shot from the New York Times that reveals the pleasure you can expect from reading a book on an iPhone/iPod:
Update: Ed Burnette’s ZDNet blog entry this morning is titled: “Did Amazon intentionally cripplw the iKindle?” Mr. Burnette writes:
“As soon as I saw that Amazon had released their new Kindle Reader for the iPhone I immediately downloaded it and tried it out myself. My initial reaction: unimpressed…the entire thing seems to be set up to make your phone an extension of your Kindle and not a replacement for it.
“Take shopping for a new book, for example. When you try that from the iPhone reader, the software simply opens up the web browser on the Kindle store at amazon.com. It’s practically impossible to actually order something from there, because the site is not very friendly to the small screen. The real Kindle has a real store that you can use right from the device. Obviously Amazon would rather you do your purchases from there.
“Another glaring omission is search. Searching is one thing you can do with an e-book that you can’t do with a paper book. The Kindle 2 has a physical keyboard for this purpose. They could have supported search on the iPhone with the pop-up keyboard, but didn’t. Why not?
“Kindle for iPhone is nice for people who already have a Kindle or Kindle 2 who might find themselves away from their device with a little time to kill. However, Amazon seems to have taken steps to make sure the iKindle does not cannibalize sales of their $359 money maker. If, as Amazon claims, the big-screen Kindle e-ink reading experience is so much better than reading books on a phone, then why bother crippling the phone reader?”