People read more than books
“Sure, fine, make your single-use devices. But all these e-readers — the Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader, et al — are all focused on the wrong single use: books. (And in the case of at least the Nook and Kindle, the focus is on buying books from B&N and Amazon. The Kindle is more like a 7-Eleven than a book.) The correct single use is reading. Your device should make it equally easy to read books, magazine articles, newspapers, web sites, RSS feeds, PDFs, etc. And keep in mind, all of these things have images that are integral to the reading experience. We want to read; help us do it.”
The above is the full text of a post by Jason Kottke, which outlines something I’m beginning to think - the iPhone/iPod Touch will win the e-reader wars:
- An iPod Touch can beat the Kindle and Nook on price.
- With the addition of 3rd party apps they’re much more fully-featured than any of the e-readers on the market.
- Despite general claims on the iPhone being a “closed” platform, as far as reading’s concerned it’s one of the most open around (you can save web articles to read later, download PDFs, view newspaper apps, scan your RSS feeds).
- It allows easy sharing, tweeting, blogging etc. - all inherent to a native digital reading experience.
I’ve tried to avoid coming to this conclusion prematurely as I want to see how this area plays out, but the latest offerings (from B&N etc) don’t fill me with hope.
