Kevin Tofel wonders if the iPhone with be the Kindle Killer?Given the iPhone SDK availability, this should come as no surprise, but it's nice to see confirmation. Mobipocket will be introducing an eBook client for the iPhone later this year according to Martin Gorner, president and CEO of Mobi. MobileRead got the information at the IDPF conference where Gorner spoke. That's good news to us folks that read digital content, but what does it mean for Amazon's Kindle?Or maybe Apple will come out with one of these?After all, the Kindle format is a DRM-tweaked version of Mobipocket's format, so there's a key partnership between the two organizations. The iPhone and iPhone Touch user base is far and away larger than that of the Kindle, which is great for the eBook market, but may hurt Kindle sales in the long run. Of course, the products certainly have a smaller screen when compared the Kindle, but they offer connectivity options as well as a simple e-commerce experience through the iTunes store. Could the Kindle burn out even before sales get stoked?
Note: the image shown is from the TextOnPhone eBook web service that I video demo'd earlier this year.
1 comment:
The arguments you make are even stronger for regular cell phones which vastly outnumber iPhones. My phone has a screen only about 2 inches on the diagonal and I have happily read tens of books on it.
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