Apple’s iPod and Amazon’s Kindle appear to be the “must have” gadget on the market at the moment. Drawing a comparison between the two devices might go some way towards understanding the current success of the Kindle and perhaps even allow some insight into what may happen in the near future.
Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos is quoted as stating that “This isn’t a device, it’s a service.” and that is fundamental to understanding how the Kindle similar iPod’s business model.
It currently sells at $359 for the Kindle 2, lower than the original Kindle price of $399. The original iPod was priced at $399 when it was launched prices have fallen as the product was first accepted, and then passed through mainstream to as near as makes no difference. At the same time functionality has risen. Two products go head to supporting cross-platform. The second-generation iPod moved off Apple-exclusive platforms and on to Windows. With the Kindle 2, support for the iPhone and iPod Touch was announced.
The Kindle offers a similar experience in eBook market. In the digital age books have managed to remain premium content. However, beyond books, magazine and newspaper content is available in abundance online for free. Yet, I believe that people will pay to receive some of their favorites on their Kindles as people did at the iTunes store.
Apple is synonymous with music downloads and has increased the available range of products to incorporate videos, games and a host of applications for the iPod. In a similar manner, Amazon is strongly linked with books, making the kindle a choice of product for them.
User experience point of view, there are several difference between two products. First, Apple’s approach to creating an entire consumer eco system and the way they deliver a new single UI between devices and fully integrated among their products. Second, the iPod has a full featured web browser and is being touted as a next-gen handheld gaming device. Third, it’s better for audio books, since the Kindle can’t fit in your pocket. Finally Kindle reflects its birthing at the hands of people who love books and understand what the experience of buying, reading, and collecting books is all about. So, I can say that it converged between digitalization and paper. But iPod is total solution for music, video and text.
However there is significant advantage enjoyed by Amazon that is the 3G wireless technology utilized to allow Kindle users to download their eBooks without the need for a computer or a WI-FI connection and without paying a download fee.
When Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, people were skeptical that people would buy a song instead of getting from free file sharing networks. They did. The same thing will happen on Amazon but I will hesitate to purchase the Kindle until adding multimedia function and color display with relatively low price because I won’t carry more than one gadget which have similar function such as PMP, MID, SmartPhone, Netbook.
In fact, as far as eBook reader technology goes, Amazon are a little late to the party when you consider that there have been previous competitor, if they want to huge success like the iPod. The Kindle also considers diversity of level of consumer rather than only people who love reading books.