Further to that, battery life isn’t up to snuff; having the screen on for too long kills battery life on an iPhone, and when reading, you need the screen on for long periods.

The contrast is also insufficient, and the screen has too much glare.

As good as the iPhone is, it’s awful as a reading device. Could you imagine reading a long novel (1000+ conventional pages) on that thing? I couldn’t.

I’m sticking with paper for now.

i would suggest that part of the perception that “electronic formats should be more economical than print” may come from the (presently, at least) impermanent nature of electronic versions of texts. that is, if the format changes, or i change electronic readers, & have to re-buy the text because the format is incompatible, i think i need it to cost about the same as an airport paperback. one of those awful, perfect-bound ones, w/ no die-cut wraps. however, this desire or lack thereof may well depend on the age of the individual consumer. (i lived the great migration from vinyl to cd. ouch.) i would also suggest that a significantly lower price-point than print has lain at the heart of the consumer’s electronic-text dream since the earliest days of that dream. (clearly, i’m speaking for myself, here; just imagining that i’m not alone in this.)

and of course, so far we’re just talking about electronic books. probably not fair to muddy the water by bringing into the discussion the weird lack of even a semblance of harmony among price structures for books — electronic vs. print vs. *audio* (h0ly cr@p for the spendiness! yes they’re a gazillion hours of a paid actor reading; but bookmarking’s a pain and annotating is impossible!), as compared with a dvd or itunes download of a huge-budget feature-length motion picture (lots of actors; lots of hours — plus explosions!). copyright laws are all over the map, as are union rules for those involved in the various forms and stages of production; whereas the consumer sees the transaction as simply one of equivalences: of what is being received for the expenditure.

obviously, it’s messy. but the print vs. electronic price-point discussion will become entirely moot, should print die out completely. and if that happens, we may *still* have the hanging question, “will the iphone kill the kindle?” (i did it!! i returned to the main point!)

(1) Have you ever read, or would you ever want to read, scholarly articles (particularly ones with figures, tables, and equations) on your Kindle?

(2) If circumstances (whatever they may be) required you to choose between your Kindle and your iPhone, which would you choose, and why?

The answers were “no,” “iPhone,” and “because it can do everything.” That more or less sums up why I think the Kindle is doomed to fail. I would be surprised if it still exists in two years’ time.

Kevin Cohn
Director of Product Management
Atypon