I watched the keynote speech for iPad and was fascinated by what I saw. For those of you who missed it, you can now watch it on the Apple website at the link below:
This post is not about singing praises for iPad but simply to highlight how the iPad has been positioned to make the Kindle or any other e-reader irrelevant.
How did they do that?
First, by simply by making it clear to everyone that with an iPad you get (almost) everything that Kindle offers for no additional cost.And, you don’t have to carry another device to carry your digital books.
Second, by making it clear (in case it was not clear from the above slide) by stating it explicitly. Steve Jobs said,
“Amazon has done a great job pioneering this functionality with their Kindle. And we are going to stand on their shoulders and go little further.”
Third, by announcing current Publisher support and giving a sneak peek of future publisher support.
I am confident that Amazon and others out there are busy updating their battle plans on how to counter this.
Just shows that one cannot stop innovating wherever they are in their lifecycle. Time will tell how this will play out in the next few months and years.
I want to leave you with a quote from #ThinkTweet that I posted about ten days ago. Here it is:
P.S:
Just I was giving the final touches to this blog post, I noticed my friend Mari Smith echoing similar thoughts and couldn’t help smiling. The writing is clearly on the wall unless there is a new bag of tricks from Amazon
P.P.S:
For an alternate viewpoint (which I disagree) you can read a NYT piece by Brad Stone
Three Reasons Why the iPad WON’T Kill Amazon’s Kindle
You be the judge!
***** Update at 11:37 am (hat tip: Guy Kawasaki)
Please watch this quick video where Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple) shares his opinion about iPad. Most of his two minute talk is about how iPad will be a better eBook reader