Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Waiting on the iKindle

John Holbo and Megan McArdle are both pondering Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader. Holbo:

I’ve always wanted an eBook reader I could really want. I think most academics feel the same; probably most people do, who spend any serious time reading onscreen. And, like most people, I have sized it up as a consumer confidence Catch-22. No confidence-inspiring device, however snazzy, until a critical mass of customers settles. No settling until there is a confidence-inspiring device. It sounded, at least initially, as though Kindle was sure to be born a clinker: speaking selfishly, it wouldn’t have the sorts of features that would make it a wonderful thing for academics, as any eReader has to be. ...

No way I’m buying until the second or third generation (even if it comes to sunny Singapore). But I’m already curious.

McArdle:

I confess, I too have been casting longing eyes at its box-it-came-in styling and thoroughly un-ergonomic design. I’m going on vacation in a couple of weeks (the first one since last August), and I really don’t fancy hauling the eighteen pounds of books that are necessary to keep me occupied for an entire week. Also, I am out of bookshelves, with no room for more; my apartment is a funny shape with not so much in the way of open walls.

Talk to me, Kindle owners--should I get my hopes up?

I’d love a workable ebook reader. As an owner of a latest generation iPod classic and an iPhone, however, I’m going to wait for Apple to come up with one. The Apple products look cool and work great. So I agree with those who think it’s time for an iKindle:

The iPod and iPhone can be used to read some online content now, along with small bits of text synced from a Mac, but the experience could be significantly improved with native support for PDF, better user interface support for stored text documents, and more.

But I, speaking as a reader and a publisher, would really like to see Apple create a larger version of the iPod touch optimized not just for a better video experience, but also for a best-of-breed reading experience. Apple has the hardware design and user interface chops that Amazon lacked when creating the Kindle, plus the knowledge gleaned from the iPhone and the iPod touch in terms of underlying operating system, physical design, and wireless capabilities. Equally important is the iTunes Store, which offers an unparalleled browsing and shopping experience for digital media - it could be extended to support commercial ebooks, subscription-based periodicals, and free blogs in exactly the way it currently supports commercial audiobooks, TV show season passes, and free podcasts.

Such a device would make good business sense for Apple too. iPod sales posted their slowest ever year-over-year growth rate, at only 5 percent, causing some analysts to opine that Apple has saturated the market. Even committed iPod users will purchase replacement iPods only so often. Like the iPhone, a new “iPod reader” in a larger form factor would open up a new market for Apple, but unlike the iPhone, it would be purchased in addition to an iPod nano or iPod shuffle.