The future of e-readers: the iPhone?
While technology analysts have been touting e-ink – which mimics the glare-free quality of real ink on a page – as the breakthrough that could push e-readers into the mainstream, Forbes is reporting that the most popular e-reader in the U.S. is not Amazon’s Kindle or the Sony Reader, but Apple’s multi-platform iPhone.
Stanza, a book reading application offered in Apple’s … iPhone App Store since July, has been downloaded more than 395,000 times and continues to be installed at an average rate of about 5,000 copies a day, according to Portland, Ore.-based Lexcycle, the three-person start-up that created the reading software.
By comparison, Citigroup estimates Amazon will sell around 380,000 Kindles in 2008.
In fairness, Stanza is a free application, whereas the Kindle costs several hundred dollars to purchase, so the comparison isn’t exactly apples to apples. Another key difference is that titles available to Stanza users are public domain ones only, so no one will be reading the latest bestsellers on their iPhone.
Still, the figures do show that the demand is there for portable e-readers.
Well, duh. A large, clunky expensive device that pretty much does only one thing vs. a small slick iPhone (or any phone, for that matter) that people have in their pocket anyway? Kind of a no-brainer.
There IS a market for e-readers. We’re just going about it backwards. I think we have a lot to learn from the music industry.
I own a Kindle and an iPhone and enjoy using both as ebook readers. In each case, I find the reading experience just as absorbing as reading the same book in print. But so far I give the nod to the iPhone because (1) as a backlit device, it can be read easily in the dark, and (2) the very same device, so very portable, also carries my music, digital books, weather reports, stock reports, web browser, a camera, photo albums, movies, map program, YouTube, calculator, and so on and so on. It even makes and receives phone calls!
There IS a reader available for the iPhone and iTouch that works with the latest bestsellers and other commercially available ebooks. It’s available from eReader.com and it is free.