The Kindle DX has prompted people to predict Apple’s response (including me). At TUAW, my colleagues and I fantasized about a hybrid computer/ebook reader we dubbed the “iDevice.” Imagine a full-featured, color touch screen eBook reader that also displays your photos, videos, music and iApps. Of course, Apple has a history of presenting the best way to do something that’s already been tried and in a manner that no one considered, so our guesses are as good as yours.
What’s certain is that Apple vs. Kindle isn’t a zero-sum game. Apple needn’t defeat the Kindle to succeed. Think of a subsidized Kindle with a newspaper subscription like a cable box. Those who want something better get a TiVo. Or, in this case, whatever piece of magic Apple is peddling.
PC Magazine’s Sascha Segan writes about the “iPad” today, saying
“The Kindle DX seems to have three primary markets: textbooks, newspapers, and magazines. Other companies, including Hearst and News Corp., are said to be going into the media pad space to save their magazine subscription dollars. They’re doomed. In exchange for your monthly contract, the iPad will give you the whole Internet, and 35,000 iPod touch applications, including—get this!—the Amazon Kindle application.”
It’s arguable that Apple saved the music industry with iTunes and legitimzed the mobile application market with The App Store. They could rescue newspapers, but it would have to be done exactly right. Sascha’s right when he says that a full-featured device from Apple would trump the Kindle from a consumer’s perspective, but you’ve also got to consider how easily publishers get their content to the device, how consumers retreive it, etc.
I’m looking forward to what develops.
