iPad spells doom for Kindle
The announcement today of the Apple iPad has the industry in a flurry. Many are talking about the product and what it has and doesn’t have. For me one of the things disclosed was the iBook feature that it will ship with and the iBookstore. It almost pains me to write this as I am a Kindle owner and I LOVE my Kindle. Fact is I think the iPad may spell doom for the Kindle.
The Kindle sells for $260 on the Amazon website. That’s considerably cheaper then the iPad and word is that they could sell it for around $200 and still make a tidy profit (expect this to happen!).
But when you consider that for $500 (iPad using only a WiFi functionality) you get not only an e-reader but you get everything else to. Color screens are sexy and its’ been one of the biggest gripes brought toward the Kindle. The proof is going to be in prolonged reading on the screens. Does the iPads back-lit screen give people headaches they way regular computer screens do? If it doesn’t this could certainly spell doom for the Kindle.
If they match up fairly evenly in the e-reader department then what will keep people buying the Kindle? The Kindle will largely be pushed into a niche for die-hard readers (as I am one) because I do think their e-ink screen will work better for prolonged reading sessions. But for the average person who isn’t a book fiend, and who might not be able to afford a laptop and a kindle, the iPad will be the solution for them. The Kindle just can’t match the abilities inherent in the iPad on top of the reader functionalities. About the best leverage will have is the Amazon marketplace, but Apple is boasting a nice lineup of large publishers. My only hope is this doesn’t get ugly and publishers start pulling their books from one market or the only for exclusivity on another (just like the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray debacle).
Look for the Kindle to drop it’s price around the $200 mark and try to really push it’s book prices down as well. It has recently offered up to %70 revenue share to authors who offer their books for $9.99 and below. They MUST aggressively push this. For people like me who read dozens of books a year, it’s really more about how much the BOOKS cost, then about how much the reader costs. Recently Amazon has angered a lot of Kindle owners as prices seemingly started to creep above that $10 threshold.
Offer the Kindle cheaper, and offer your books cheaper, otherwise you will not be able to match up with the multimedia platform that the iPad is. Only time will tell.