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Amazon Kindle – Is it Really the New iPod?

The Amazon Kindle appears to be the cutting-edge warm “have to have” machine available on the market proper now. It appears very a lot as though the eBook reader is a concept whose time has come – and the Amazon Kindle is certainly the high-quality instance of this sort of tool in the marketplace proper now. It is also, and allow’s make no bones about it right here, cool.

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The Kindle has been compared to the Apple iPod – which now has a Kindle application that allows you to read Kindle books on it – by using some of the enterprise observers. Indeed, going proper lower back to the release of the unique Kindle in November of 2007, Steven Levy’s Newsweek cowl article advised that the Kindle became the “… iPod of reading”. Two and a half years down the road, it seems that drawing parallels among the two gadgets may move some manner in the direction of understanding the present-day extraordinary success of the Kindle – and perhaps even some insight into what may additionally take place inside the near destiny.

Amazon supremo Jeff Bezos is quoted as saying, again manner lower back in 2007, that “This [the Kindle] is not a device, it’s a carrier.” – and this is really essential to know-how why the Kindle works so properly in Amazon’s commercial enterprise version. Some criticisms have been levied on the Kindle’s excessive fee – it currently retails at $359 for the Kindle 2, slightly reduced from the original Kindle charge of $399. The authentic iPod changed into the price at $399 when it was launched – prices have fallen because the product turned into the first customary and then passed via mainstream to practically ubiquitous. At the same time, functionality has increased.

For a while now, Apple is synonymous with tune downloads and has extended them to be had a range of merchandise to include movies, video games, and a host of packages for the iPod. Similarly, Amazon is strongly related to books, making the Kindle an excellent product choice for them. The giant Kindle DX’s current assertion is noteworthy, not only due to the numerous technical upgrades that it gives, however as it improves Amazon’s functionality to supply newspapers, magazines, and even academic textbooks to its customers.

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It would be wrong to discount the technical elements of the Kindle collection of readers absolutely of the path, however plainly, for Amazon, the generation is a method to a stop in preference to the quit itself. In truth, as some distance as ebook reader era goes, Amazon is pretty past due to the birthday party when you don’t forget that there had been contenders which include the Franklin eBook (now not being developed but still to be had from a few assets) kicking around given that 1999, and Sony have had eBook readers for a while. Some of the others have already died a death. Others are soldiering on without, currently as a minimum, attracting whatever like the extent of hobby generated by the Kindle.

Another key benefit loved by using Amazon at this time is the 3G wi-fi generation used to permit Kindle users to download their ebooks in less than a minute without using a pc or an internet connection – and without being tied into a month-to-month contract or having to pay a download charge. It’s a wonderful example of how Amazon has used the era to offer a perceived advantage for his or her clients.

No month-to-month connection price and no download prices mean that clients do no longer sense tied in or devoted to the Amazon provider, a critical thing thinking about the incredibly high price ticket charge and the cutting-edge economic climate. Of route, whilst clients could purchase ebooks someplace else for use with their Kindle, it is nevertheless going to be lots more accessible for them to shop for from Amazon’s huge, and ever-increasing, choice of Kindle pleasant books. Amazon will look at several repeat businesses – just as Apple does with their iTunes store.

Using the iPod revel in to expect the Kindle’s ability destiny, it seems not likely that the Kindle may have the whole lot its own manner. As formerly referred to, there are already some of the current alternative eBook readers on the market – the Sony PRS might be the maximum giant participant apart from the Kindle right now, but there are others. These will either enhance and offer strong opposition to the Kindle or disappear from the marketplace.

Also worth thinking about is the truth that there are quite a several recent readers in improvement. Plastic Logic has a Kindle DX sized reader in advance, scheduled for release in 2010. Rumors abound approximately the discharge of an Apple tablet-based laptop, suggested being geared toward the space between an iPod Touch and a complete-blown MacBook. It might not be too fanciful to imagine that Apple would possibly increase their iStore to consist of ebooks simply as they elevated it to encompass films after the iPhone and iPod Touch discharge.

And it’s no longer just more difficult competition based totally on improved reader generation that Amazon might also have to face. In March of 2009, Google and Sony announced that Google’s huge library of public area e-books could be made to be had without cost on Sony’s reader. That’s a total of 600,000 titles and a clear signal that the eBook reader market will be fiercely contested in the future.

At the instant, Amazon is sitting pretty. It has a massive variety of ebooks in its library; it has the wireless technology to offer price unfastened downloads, and, most critical of all – the Kindle is excellent. Whether or now not it develops right into a ubiquitous iPod-type product or directly not inside the face of what will possibly be fierce opposition handiest time will tell. Amazon has been more than bright up to now, so it seems likely that they will be a major participant in this emerging market for the long-term to come back.

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One component seems sure; we can all choose to read books, magazines, newspapers, or even textbooks using portable virtual readers within the immediate destiny. As a competition, volumes of scale and advancements in technology combine to pressure charges down, which can emerge as an increasingly popular choice for many, likely even a majority of, readers. The manner we examine is about to alternate, probably faster than you might imagine.

Leah Leonard

Coffee expert. Troublemaker. Typical music guru. Friendly beer fanatic. Introvert. Web specialist. Uniquely-equipped for implementing bullwhips in Ocean City, NJ. Spent a year importing licorice in Hanford, CA. Have some experience licensing cigarettes for the government. Once had a dream of selling toy monkeys in Las Vegas, NV. Spent the 80's working on hula hoops in Minneapolis, MN. What gets me going now is working with action figures in the government sector.

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