I suspect many people expect the iPad to put the Kindle out to pasture, but I’m not entirely convinced. What the Kindle has going for it is its simplicity as a unitasker. The Kindle does one thing well: allow you to read books. (It also lets you read magazines and newspapers, though it does that a bit less well—but then again, Apple’s iBooks app doesn’t support magazines or newspapers at all.) It’s cheaper than the iPad, and will presumably get cheaper still in the face of such stiff competition. If a friend or relative came to me and said that all they wanted was a book reader, nothing more, I would happily endorse the Kindle.
Fascinating argument. He says too that newspaper reading’s a lot better on the Kindle than on the iPad – though this may change soon (with the app store and all).
