Kindle is not the best iPhone e-reader
By now, you know you don't need a Kindle 2 to read books electronically. You can use the new Kindle for iPhone app. — But Kindle's not the only way to read books on a iPhone or iPod Touch. There are two other readers well worth checking out:
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon's Kindle launch in late 2007 bet that a dedicated device was the only way to make e-books work — and the Kindle 2 arrived just weeks ago amid mixed verdicts like CrunchGear's ten reasons to buy it and ten not to. Then Amazon made the surprising move of putting Kindle on Apple's turf: the Kindle for iPhone app shipped this week, immediately raising the question Business Week asked the day before — is Amazon cannibalizing its own hardware? This review pushes further: on the iPhone itself, Kindle isn't even the best reader available.
First-order effects
- iPhone and iPod Touch owners now have multiple credible e-reader options without buying a $359 Kindle 2 — Amazon's moat around book purchases via proprietary hardware starts to erode at the moment of launch.
- Amazon faces an awkward trade-off: every Kindle app install that substitutes for a Kindle sale undercuts the very device business the store was built to defend.
Second-order effects
- If third-party iPhone readers out-review Kindle's own app, Amazon must compete on software quality and library breadth rather than device lock-in — pressuring pricing and pushing rivals like other reader apps into a features race on the App Store.
- Dedicated e-reader makers lose their 'no alternative' pitch; reviewers already flagged Kindle 2 hardware gripes such as fuzzy fonts, giving multi-purpose devices an opening against single-function readers.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward books becoming just another app category on general-purpose smartphones — echoing earlier arguments like why dedicated e-book readers might not stand a chance — with the reading experience decoupled from any one retailer's device.
- Longer term, platform owners who control the screen (Apple) may hold more leverage over digital book distribution than the retailers selling the content, reshaping who captures value in e-publishing — though whether hardware or apps win remains genuinely unsettled at this stage.
The trend: E-reading is migrating from locked, dedicated devices to multi-purpose smartphones, forcing content retailers like Amazon to compete as software publishers rather than hardware gatekeepers.