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Kindle and eBooks

June 22, 2010 10:15:35.808

The important thing for Amazon to focus on is the core item - books - and not the hardware device. As Om Malik points out, Amazon gets paid whether you use a Kindle or not, so long as you buy from their store:

The day I first laid hands on Apple’s iPad I banished my Amazon Kindle to the back of the proverbial drawer. And yet, I have been spending, on average, about $10 every 3-5 days on Amazon’s site buying a book to read using the Kindle application on the iPad. In fact, the reading experience on the iPad is so superior to that of the Kindle I often find myself staying up later than usual reading a book.

Some companies would have doubled down on the hardware, but Amazon was smart - they pushed the reader app out to iPhones (and now iPads) - they don't care what device you read on, so long as it was purchased from them. My wife's experience mirrors Malik's, except that she didn't bother with the Kindle in the first place.

Since the Kindle app exists on iPhones, iPads, PCs, and Android devices, stuff you buy there is portable. Anything you buy in the iBook store, on the other hand, is locked to the Apple device. Amazon is playing this very intelligently.

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posted by James Robertson

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