Commentary

Does Reading Require Its Own Mobile Device?

by Mark Walsh , July 9, 2009

Amazon caused a bit of a stir in the gadget world Wednesday by lowering the price on its Kindle 2 e-book reader by $60, to $299. The price cut on the second-generation device reflects increasing competition in the e-reader space and should make the Kindle more inviting to a wider range of consumers.

But it's certainly not a big enough reduction to send everyone heading to Amazon get their own handy reading tablet. If $200 has become a standard of sorts for smartphones, Amazon would still have to cut the price by another one-third to be competitive by that comparison. And if the Kindle is the iPhone of e-readers, consumers may wonder why shouldn't it be priced the same as the new $200 iPhone 3G S.

That raises another question. Why should anyone, especially iPhone owners, buy a Kindle at all when they can simply download the Kindle iPhone app and get an e-reader along with all the other functions of a smartphone in one package? Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has said reading is an important enough activity that it warrants its own purpose-built device. Fair enough.

But as Melissa J. Perenson of PC Worldadmits, "I often find myself reaching for my iPhone 3GS to read Kindle content -- even more often than I do the Kindle itself."

Probably not what Bezos would like to hear. If the Kindle and other e-readers are to expand beyond a niche market, prices will have to fall at least within the range of other handheld devices. Consider that earlier this week, Best Buy and Sprint, Amazon's wireless partner in the Kindle, announced they were teaming to offer a 99 cent (essentially free) netbook, with a two-year service contract. Of course, the Kindle requires only an upfront purchase and not a monthly subscription that could end up being more costly over time.

But as prices for portable devices from point-and-shoot cameras to smartphones continue to fall to $200 or less, it creates a growing expectation among consumers that on-the-go gadgets shouldn't cost much more. And as pricing on the Kindle goes, so too will likely go the rest of the e-reader market.

app store, books, mobile, telecom

3 comments about "Does Reading Require Its Own Mobile Device?".

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Jeffrey Jones from Word.Jones, July 9, 2009 at 3:25 p.m.
Mebbe Kindle folk don't want to be locked into an iPhone with its coincident huge ATT billing bonanza to read.
There are better smartphone [and not-so-smart] mobile customers who actually enjoy reading and are like me, who are older and who actually want to comfortably [and enjoyably] read on a screen conducive to reading.
The eyes have it, not the Ayes.
The iPhone is not the second coming.
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Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, July 9, 2009 at 6:12 p.m.

Maybe people would like to be able to see the words, especially if the reading is more than a blurb. The Kindle and notebooks are bigger....just in case anyone forgets about eye strain. Another post a little while ago suggested that in a couple of years (or less) phones could be phones and all other access to computer services would be via notebooks depending upon subscription costs and "that's the rub".

Steve Haar from Fanatically Digital, July 11, 2009 at 12:42 a.m.

somewhere around 2000-02 I was downloading books to a Palm PDA. Not easy to read on greyscale, but new enough to be interesting. About 2004, I used a Windows CE handheld device with MobiPocket software and books (now owned by Amazon, I believe). 2-3 years ago I got a Blackberry, loaded the mobipocket software, and read books on it. Now, I have an HTC Windows mobile 6.1 with mobipocket.

With a desktop reader, applications for multiple handheld devices as well a eReaders, and a lot of books available from multiple sources, it strikes me that iPhone & Kindle are not nearly as far ahead of the curve as all the hype would lead one to believe. Just better marketing, I guess.