Why the iPad won’t kill off the Kindle just yet
Today on iPadTabletPCReview.com we’re going to look at how the e-reader capability of the iPad tablet compares with the Amazon Kindle dedicated e-reader. This post follows on from a PC World post this week “iPad vs. Kindle: Can Amazon Keep its E-Book Edge”.
iBooks, problems and solutions
When Steve Jobs officially announced the Apple iPad, one of the killer features was the news that Apple were launching the iBooks application. Whispers of the death of the Kindle filled the air.
In the last few weeks there has been a lot of debate on this subject with commentators raising the limitations that would stop the iPad from ruling the ebooks world. However, Apple subsequently announced some solutions. Lets have a look at the key points.
1) Reading on the iPhone using the Kindle app is great – as long as you don’t do it for very long. The bright, back-lit LCD screen is always going to lead to eyestrain whereas the e-ink used by the Kindle allows a reader to look at the screen for hours without feeling the eyestrain. It’s expected that the iPad will have similar issues.
Solution: Apple have said that this brightness of the display can be altered by the user. This doesn’t totally solve the issue as the user is potentially having to tweak the settings each time they go in and out of the book reader. There has been talk of a mode on the iPad that will amend the screen backlight brightness at the touch of a button in iBooks to reduce eyestrain or flip the book so it reads as white text on a black screen. Either way it’s not ideal as it’s hardly a book-like experience. Coupled with that, the iPhone screen is ok in the direct sunlight but with the sun glaring of it, I wouldn’t want to try reading a book like this – we’re assuming we’ll get similar issues on the iPad. The Amazon Kindle just doesn’t have these issues due to the e-ink screen there’s no glare.
2) Anyone who has used an iPhone when lying down in bed will know the frustrations of the orientation switching back and forth between landscape and portrait as soon as the device is laying flat. This happens as the accelerometer can’t decide which way up the iPhone is being held.
Solution: The Amazon Kindle solved this with an orientation lock and news in the last week shows that Apple have followed suit with an iPad orientation lock switch.
3) A key consideration for anyone wanting an e-reader has to be the number of titles available for that device. Amazon a employs a DRM format specific to the Kindle so unless you use a Kindle application on another device these books can’t be move around and you’re limited to what’s available on the Amazon store – this is currently around 450,000 in the US and just over 300,000 in the UK. The concern here is it would take a long time for Apple to get the deals in place to match this level of choice.
Solution: The Apple iPad supports the non-DRM EPUB ebook format compared to the proprietary DRM format employed by the Amazon Kindle. This means that on top of the titles sold on iTunes for the iPad, readers will also be able to add any of the books they have acquired in the EPUB format to their iTunes library and get them on to their iPad. The EPUB format is the most prevalent of formats already available for ebooks with a huge number of titles already available and in particular free public-domain ebooks.
On top of this the iPad will read-out-loud all books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs. This is an interesting move given the legal difficulties Amazon got into with the Kindle around their text-to-voice feature. iBooks works with VoiceOver, the screen reader in iPad, and is designed for vision-impaired users. However authors and publishers see this feature as “derivative works” and think this should result in additional audio-licensing fees. Expect a few more “debates” on this when the iPad launches and these features become more apparent.
So with the exception of the screen burn issue, Apple have made big steps on the iPad’s ebooks capability so how else do the devices compare…
How does the iPad compare to the Kindle?
The iPad and the Kindle are two very different animals. The iPad offers a vibrant LCD colour 9.7-inch screen versus the Kindle’s 6-inch black and white screen (the Kindle DX takes you up to 9.7-inches). Putting aside the other features of the iPad, lets just compare the two devices on how good they are for book reading…
Design – we have a sleek iPad versus the Kindle’s white minimalist 70s looks. The Kindle has been designed to be functional and not take away from reading the book. The non-backlit screen allows the user to read in comfort without eyestrain. Reading a book on a Kindle is a very similar experience to reading a printed book.
The Kindle is designed for serious readers and the iPad designed for people reading casually, people who are not likely to buy a stand-alone e-reader but like the idea that their device can take this on if required.
What is exciting about the iPad though is the possibility of a hybrid-media-book with a book but links to images, characters, maps, music and potentially live action or interaction that you can influence. All of this wrapped into one “book” would totally change the way these “books” are viewed. Consider how this could get kids reading more as it becomes cool to read. Schools could be very interested in the iPad particularly.
The Kindle has a great feature where you can cursor along to a word and get a dictionary definition of it. The iPad will match this and more. Apple are saying that you can touch any word to look it up in the built-in dictionary or Wikipedia.
On price, the Kindle comes in at $259 for the 6-inch version and $489 for the 9.7-inch version – both with 3G Wireless. If you live outside of the US then currently you need to get it shipped from the US. The iPad is a lot more expensive with the 16GB + 3G version coming in at $629.
Apple iPad versus Amazon Kindle
It looks like the iBooks application will not come pre-installed on the iPad. This suggests Apple will keep working on this application (and perhaps it wasn’t really ready even at the launch) and improving it as they go along.
The Kindle is designed for someone who wants a portable reading device only. Someone who doesn’t want fancy bells and whistles and functionality that they have no interest in. They want the simplest device for transferring books on and off, a device that allows them the flexibility to choose from a huge number of titles and a device they can read for hours on end without an LCD screen burning into their eyes. The device also needs to be portable and as small as a book that you can squeeze into a pocket. They just want the Kindle.
Amazon will allow you to read their downloaded e-books via the Kindle app on the iPad and iPhone because they realize this is a different market and they still want some of it. Their apps work on Windows & Android tablet PCs, Macs and smartphones because it’s extra revenue for them from people who mostly would never even consider buying a Kindle.
The backlit screen stops the iPad from being a real contender for a serious reader – it’s just going to be too taxing on the eyes when reading for long periods.
I think “Professional” readers will stick with the Kindle, Amazon’s income is just going to increase as they skim off the casual readers using the Kindle app on the iPad, tablet PC or other mobile devices.
Let me know what you think in the comments. Can the iPad ever knock the Kindle out of the game?
Image source: Amazon
