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Amazon launched the Kindle App for iPhone yesterday night and it has set up a
flurry of posts on Techmeme. I downloaded it yesterday night and played around
with it. Now I am thinking whether it matters at all.
iPhone already has two good book reading applications in the name of eReader and Stanza. The early adopters of
these two apps are already ridiculing the Kindle app. I thought I will offer my
take on Amazon Kindle App for iPhone in this post.
- This app is short on features. You can’t search for books and you can’t buy
the books from inside of this app, like how it can be done through the Kindle
hardware. These are big put-offs for me - When I checked last night and again this morning, I could not buy/subscribe
to Newspapers and Magazines. This makes the app completely useless for casual
users like me - The books are stored in proprietary formats. When it comes to books, I want
to keep them for a long time and being struck in proprietary formats may render
them useless if the company behind the format vanishes in thin air - In spite of the fact that there is no paper or printing involved and a much
smaller cost on the supply chain and delivery options, the books are expensive
in the ebook formats. In order to get the “Books on the Clouds” concept to gain
traction, the pricing has to be attractive. If I can buy an used book for half
the price of Kindle books in the same Amazon marketplace, why would I get
attracted towards ebooks unless I feel deeply about the moral issues associated
with the cutting of trees to make paper and global warming implications with the
printing and delivery of these books - The only advantage Kindle iPhone app has over eReader and Stanza is the huge
number of titles available for Kindle compared to other formats
I love eBooks and it is my plan to move to eBooks from paper books as soon as
possible. But the lack of availability of good eBook readers for Open Formats
(sorry, I can’t read an entire book on iPhone) and exorbitant cost of eBooks are
a big concern.
I am not entirely sure about eBooks, but I sure hoped for Audio books to take off. I don’t remember reading an entire book in the last 5-6 years. Audio books yes, many.
When you have a 30 mins commute, it is easy to complete a book or two a week.
True. With iPods and iPhones, one would expect them to take off big time.
Krishnan,
For several years now my publisher (for fiction) makes our ebooks available in many formats. Also they are a member of EPIC (www.epicauthors.com) an organisation which contains many small ebook publishers who have basically created the maturing ebook market. The major publishers have only recently realised the potential of ebooks and want their piece of the pie, but they are still stuck in their bricks and mortar costs/mentality and keep their prices high.
Time will tell whether the discerning reader will prefer lesser known authors such as myself with ebooks at maximum $4.95 and no DRM or big name authors backed by Old publishing houses charging $10 (and upwards).
Regards
Gerard Readett