Comments on: Amazon's Kindle: Did Steve Jobs blow it?

By: Nick, Santa Clara CA

Nick, Santa Clara CA — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:08:53 +0000

Apple is in a good position to come up with a product that will consign Kindle to the ages. The question is not if but when. The Kindle killer IMO will not be the iPod touch. I think it might be tablet Macbook that has a touch screen, that might have the form factor of a Macbook Air. It might be smaller than the MBA. Think about it. A screen that folds over like a touchscreen tablet and you have your e-book reader. Or you can use it as a conventional laptop that you can use to download/upload content to your iPhone or iPod touch. All they now need is an iTunes like store for Books.

By: Bill Youngs, Cheney, Washington

Bill Youngs, Cheney, Washington — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:53:42 +0000

One of the disagreements in these comments so far is about whether an iPhone provides a good reading experience. But notice that those who say "yes" are those WHO ARE ACTUALLY USING AN IPHONE TO READ BOOKS! In other words its a theoretical "no" versus an experiential "yes." I own both a Kindle and an iPhone, and I rate the reading EXPERIENCE on the iPhone, the Kindle, and the printed book as equal, with the principal variable being the quality of the words themselves!

By: Dave Small Houston, TX

Dave Small Houston, TX — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:03:49 +0000

I'm expecting Apple to come out with a larger format iPod touch which would blow away Kindle.

By: denis New York NY

denis New York NY — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:42:34 +0000

crapple lol snarky snobs. Your days are numbered…

By: Dave, Wenham, MA

Dave, Wenham, MA — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:06:59 +0000

Apple is already in the e-book market, what a poorly written article which seems to be the norm on the internet.

Check out eReader or Stanza or BookZ free or Google Book Search on the iPod touch. Contrary to what Bezos says the font size is the same as the actual printed page with these books and reading on the touch is a charm. Apple IS in the market, they just needs to advertise it and stop keeping it a secret. iPod touch is a great way to read books and does so much more than a Kindle.

By: Tom, Ewing NJ

Tom, Ewing NJ — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 03:55:04 +0000

No shortage of Appleheads in this comment section eh?

Anyway…I ordered a Kindle 12/6/08. STILL haven't gotten it yet! Called Amazon to see why 2 days ago. Turns out to be nice they DELAYED shipping my the Kindle 1 because the Kindle 2 was just about to be released and they didn't want me to have any hard feelings. A far cry to what Jobs/Apple did to iPhone1/iPhone2 purchasers.

Bottom line is Oprah put this on her favorite things list…Apple is done. Anyone that cares about an eReader will most likely just get a Kindle. What's Apple gonna do…release the iRead? LOL. 500,000 units/yr. at $359 is almost 180 million $'s a year. I'm sure Apple woulda liked that. And this device is so simple compared to an iPhone…probably WAY more profitable of a machine. Good for Amazon. Go read a book Jobs…

By: fred tomson, washinton DC, USA

fred tomson, washinton DC, USA — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:50:35 +0000

Kindle, shmindle. Its a piece of crap. I've never met anyone who owns one, Ive never seen one in use anywhere and I travel extensively. Its a toy that wants to be more and its not. What a joke.

By: adrianwerner

adrianwerner — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:55:54 +0000

Amazon has already won the ebook war, it's too late for anyone to compete with them. Amazaon is a shop, a content deliver, that's their main purpose. Kindle is nothing but a way to push ebooks into mainstream. What Amazon wants is not a dominance in reading devices, they want to dominate the book sales for such devices, the same way they dominate physical book sales.

Kindle has been doing wonders with convincing people to ebooks. Of course we ebook maniacs have been reading on your pdas, laptops, tablets etc for years, but those devices such from mainstream reader perspective. For any typical reader an idea of using iphone as a ebook reader is just a nightmare. What Kindle does so nicely is emulate real book reading and with wireless tech it opens it up to people not tech savy enough (and most avid readers aren't anywhere near as tech savy as typical apple customer). Amazon actualy made people who previously though ebooks are a sacrilege to wonder and be curious about the prospect.

Sooner or later Amazon will open up it's store to other devices and reek billions on it.

Apple if they ever decide to enter the game might create a device that will blow Kindle away, but as it looks now, even if they do, people will be buying most of books on this device from Amazon.

Amazon is positioning itself as for dominance for ebooks, exactly the same way Apple iTunes is dominating digital music distribution.

Let's think for a while here: does anyone things any online shop will be a real competition to iTunes in the near future? Nope, not likely. And it's also unlikely anyone will be able to compete with Amazon as ebook distributor either.

Amazon's position on the retail book market means it can squeeze and strongarm the publishers even more than Apple can with music publishers

By: Hot Springs, AR

Hot Springs, AR — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:02:24 +0000

You guys so don't get it.

Amazon will OWN the publishing business. All those hardback/paperback book publishers? History.

This is so obvious, I don't know how you guys can miss it.

By: John, Vancouver, WA

John, Vancouver, WA — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:19:00 +0000

I am very interested in Kindle, but am still waiting for these books to be DRM free. It's just so much easier and "thought-free" when I don't have to worry about DRM and how I use something. The higher the resolution, the better it is too. We are nowhere near true 300-dpi but that's a technical limitation at this point.

Speaking of DRM-free, Amazon does have an awesome MP3 store that is DRM-free with a large selection and often good prices. It would be nice if they had the same thing with books.

On the note about Amazon, I recently came across an interesting table that details the discounts on Amazon at http://www.uberi.com

Maybe someone will find it useful too.

Anyway, Amazon appears to be quite serious this time. We will probably see faster advancements in this area in the near future as competition heats up.