Kindle on Smartphones Heralds The First Mainstream Ebook Success

[slitchfield]

Amazon's portable ebook reader, the Kindle, is in its second hardware iteration, and has now expanded out from the dedicated reader into a software platform. At the moment the Kindle and the Apple iPhone are the only devices in the ecosystem, but you have to expect more platforms to join the party. Here's why.

Read on in the full article.

[argh]

The large number of higher resolution devices on Windows Mobile and the ability to use the same touch user interface design as the iPhone will also make it a more popular next choice, I imagine.

The N97 and Omnia HD should start to move those reasons back towards S60 in the future, though.

[JCB_Digger]

I suspect it'll be a flash-in-the-pan kinda thing. I suspect millions will download the app, which will increase Amazon's book sales as every one of them (hopefully) buys a book.

The problem is that the screen is still too small, and it'll absolutely decimate the battery life.

The killer punch for a Kindle (or the Sony PRS505), is that they have decent dimensioned high resolution screens that are capable of being read of hundreds of hours without a recharge - try that with a smartphone.

I can get about 15 hours of usage from my iPhone with nearly full backlight. Seriously, how long do you NEED to read for?

[JCB_Digger]

Iain - you might get 15 hours out of an Iphone when it spends most of it's time in your pocket, but I honestly doubt you'll get anything near that with the screen on all the time and you're "turning" pages.

When I've spent time fiddling around with my 2nd gen Ipod Touch, I don't think I've had more than 3 hours before I need to recharge it.

Please report back with your actual experience with the application on your iPod Touch and confirm if your 3 hour claim is accurate.

[Raven]

Originally Posted by JCB_Digger

Iain - you might get 15 hours out of an Iphone when it spends most of it's time in your pocket, but I honestly doubt you'll get anything near that with the screen on all the time and you're "turning" pages.

It's true. Reading ebooks on the iPhone doesn't drain much battery at all. Of course, there is no need to keep the backlight level at full when reading (or ever, for that matter - the screen is really bright). I use the free Stanza ebook reader on my iPhone 3G almost every night and the battery-meter only goes down a few per cent - around 5% per hour of reading.

The iPhone has a better battery-life than my N95 8GB, and almost as good as my E90 (in some cases better - like music and movie playback).

Raven! Finally someone who can look at Apples products objectively and not critisice them every way they can on this website! (Excluding staff, of course)

Even with browsing the web over 3G and full backlight, Wi-Fi on and BT off (Coz lets be serious, what would I use it for?) I can easily get about 5-6 hours of browsing from my 3G, with the backlight down or off that number only grows.

Only time I've had terrible battery life is browsing over Wi-Fi or playing hardware intensive games on the system :-)

Reading an eBook doesn't drain the battery at all (Well, not as much as anything else anywhoo) and you'd be surprised at how well the battery holds up, and again cranking down the backlight will only improve the battery usage :-)

These battery life claims are almost as bad as the "It needs 2 hands to operate!!11" claims ;-)

The iPhone app has some limitations compared with the Kindle:
a) no newspapers or magazine subscriptions
b) can't buy books directly from the app
It's unclear if the app was crippled to favor the Kindle II, or to make the app compliant with Apple store policies (no store inside the store, no heavy 3D data traffic). If the former, the same limitations will apply to a future S60 version; if the latter, there's the hope that the S60 app will be functionally equal to the Kindle. Regardless, I'm looking forward to using it on an Omnia HD, taking advantage of the larger (less eyestrain), OLED (lower power consumption) screen; and, of course, of the user-replaceable battery.

[JCB_Digger]

Iain/Raven,

(in between muffled sounds of a hat being eaten)

I grabbed Stanza last night on my fully charged Ipod, turned off the wifi, and cranked the brightness back to around 20%.

This morning after around 10 hours it was complaining about low battery, but still working, so I was talking out of my arse - sorry.

The reading experience wasn't half as bad as I was expecting either, I had to hold the Ipod a little closer to my face than I normally would for reading, but it'd certainly pass an hour or so.