Bezos suggests Kindle books will appear on more devices, compete with Kindle readers

Amazon already sent a pretty clear signal that it has grander plans for Kindle than just its own devices when it launched its iPhone app earlier this year, but Jeff Bezos has now made those intentions clearer than ever, and dropped a few hints of things to come. Speaking at a Wired-sponsored conference yesterday, Bezos all but confirmed that Amazon sees Kindle books and Kindle readers as two separate businesses, and he even went so far as to say that "we are going to give the device team competition" by making Kindle books available on "mobile devices and other computing devices, although he obviously didn't specify other e-book readers. Interestingly, Bezos also confirmed that Amazon had considered selling the Kindle with a monthly subscription plan to lower the cost, or require a minimum number of books purchased, but said that he preferred the simplicity of providing one flat up-front cost, which he says has helped account for the Kindle's success.

[maleboligia @ Jun 16th 2009 1:29PM]

Before moving it to other devices, why not expand the coverage to Canada first? It gets really tiring seeing all these "US only" devices. The laws here are different but there must be some way to arrange it!

[asayedahmad08 @ Jun 16th 2009 2:26PM]

canada stinks

[asayedahmad08 @ Jun 16th 2009 2:27PM]

jk

[Romesh @ Jun 16th 2009 7:55PM]

Yeah there's an idea, sell it outside the USA

[Llama_egg @ Jun 17th 2009 2:10AM]

I concur. I can't believe they haven't jumped on that yet, I even sent them an email about it but noooo...apparently the Kindle doesn't fare well in our igloo's.

[DraconianSoul @ Jun 16th 2009 1:40PM]

I love the concept of the Kindle... but the cost is still way too high. I read a few books a year, and at $360 that's about 30 to 40 books... It'd take me about 10 years to read that much. And then factor in the price of the actual content you have to buy... Hopefully competition will bring down the price of the reader devices.

[Mike10010100 @ Jun 16th 2009 1:41PM]

Awesome! Competition rules!

[mian @ Jun 16th 2009 1:41PM]

I'm hoping WinMo is next. eReader is great, but Amazon's everyday prices are usually lower.

[crawdad689 @ Jun 16th 2009 1:59PM]

If they're going to charge this much money, they NEED to include 10, 20, even 30 books with its purchase, if they want this thing to become mainstream.

Apart from that, $360 is wayyy too much to be spending for a single-purposed device. Shit, we don't even know what the future of e-ink technology holds. We've seen that it's possible to integrate e-ink and a regular, backlit 10" netbook LCD. Bring me a touchscreen tablet with a hybrid e-ink/LCD (OLED even better) screen with 3G and wi-fi, and I'll spend twice what the Kindle now costs. Get it to run Leopard, and I'll spend 3x.

[ash chapman @ Jun 16th 2009 2:09PM]

It sounds like that's what it will take to get you to buy it. It's been selling so there probably aren't any surprises coming in the near future.

[oGMo @ Jun 16th 2009 2:33PM]

Yes. Imagine if this were another market. Say, media players. Whoever would pay something like $300-$400 for a single-purpose device that plays only music? No-one, that's who. Apple would make something like this and call it like iPlayer or iPod or something and charge $299-$399 or more and no one would ever buy it because clearly that's far too much for a single-purpose device.

(Yes, iPods are *slightly* cheaper now... but they weren't always.)

[garbuhj @ Jun 16th 2009 4:25PM]

@ oGMo

iPods do WAY more than just play music (other than the low end iPod shuffle). On top of being a music player, iPod Classics and iPod minis can play videos (tv shows, movies, etc.) play games (3 pre installed and something like 50 or so more you can buy for $5 each), play podcasts (radio shows, video podcasts, etc.), display your photos, hold your entire contact list, your calendar, act as a portable computer disk, plus lots more stuff, and yes, it even does e-books. No one person uses all the features of course, but most people use their ipods to do more. Plus, the ipod is much smaller than the kindle, so people only want it to do a couple of things, but the larger a device is physically then the more people want it to do for them if they're gonna have to lug it around all the time.

The iPod isn't perfect, no device ever is, but I just hate when people talk bullshit to try to make a product look bad, whether they're trying to attack Apple, Microsoft, Linux, or whatever.

[oGMo @ Jun 16th 2009 6:36PM]

Um, first, learn what sarcasm is.

The original iPod played music. It didn't have all those features like video or other apps/games/etc that it does now. It played music and had a black and white LCD. That's all there was to it.

[birder @ Jun 16th 2009 2:02PM]

I like the concept of the cell phone... but the cost is too high. I make 1 or 2 calls a month and at $30/month vs. free or .50 phone booth it's not worth it. Also, who needs an iPod? Music plays at most places and my car has a radio. People buy cars 2-3 times more than what I did. Why do that?

I hear this constant whine about the cost of an e-ink reader. Interestingly enough, it's from people who have never used one. Now fair enough, if you don't read, it's hard to see it as a meaningful expense. Just like someone who doesn't have a license to drive doesn't see the need in buying a BMW. But the whining about their costs is so tiring. They are amazingly useful devices. The readability is outstanding vs any lcd based device (portability, size and glare/eye strain). Incredible battery life. Your entire library in your hand. Lots of other advantages that make their cost, which isn't much comparatively - we're not talking about thousands of dollars here. And the Kindle has free Wifi access.

Anyway, if someone can't afford a few hundred for a gadget, why are you looking at a gadget site.

I have a Sony PRS, over 2000 books loaded in it. Best thing I've bought in years.

[Todd @ Jun 16th 2009 2:46PM]

Every device has its sweet spot, though, and even as a gadget adict $350+ to read books seems high. If the device could be priced around $199 (I'd even allow some type of contract/commitment), I think it would start to find mass apeal. Just look at what the $199 price tag did for iPhone sales...

[va jj @ Jun 16th 2009 2:03PM]

kindle spooning? incest?

[vincent.chan @ Jun 16th 2009 2:12PM]

Wow, that thing is huge. I haven't expected it too be that big.

[ash chapman @ Jun 16th 2009 2:19PM]

...that's what she said.

Sorry.

[Louis @ Jun 16th 2009 2:34PM]

I would buy one without hesitation if there were more than 2 or 3 books that I actually want to read on it. Everytime I buy a book I check, but there are rarely kindle versions.

[kesherz @ Jun 16th 2009 9:53PM]

I have to wonder just what the heck you read, then.

[Gert @ Jun 16th 2009 2:40PM]

Because fat people need something to make em feel small. How about making our mp3's and other portables recharge by walking.

[Eddy120876 @ Jun 16th 2009 3:00PM]

The only issue I have against the Kindle is the lack of color in the screen when you want to read a mag like sport illustrated,ESPN the Mag or even some colorized Manga. Aside from that I think the Kindle is the best way to deal with the paper waste and recycling of paper that is not healthy for our enviroment

[klamerus @ Jun 16th 2009 3:10PM]

Not likely unless Amazon suddenly gets religions and recognizes that the world didn't need for them to try to replace pre-existing standards for eBooks, which were perfectly fine and supported by the other suppliers they want to entice.

But hey, PDF isn't anything anybody uses anyway right! or *.mob, etc., etc.

[rainsux @ Jun 17th 2009 9:01AM]

The PDF reader does not support embedded bookmarks ... WTF?

[David @ Jun 16th 2009 5:50PM]

Eddy120876 - Have you compared the energy expended to produce a Kindle to the energy expended to produce a book? Me either. We need to get away from the knee-jerk expectation that something billed as "green" actually has a smaller footprint on the planet. With what it costs, energy-wise, to produce the screen, batteries, etc. That go into a Kindle, you coule produce an awful lot of books.

[clicclic @ Jun 16th 2009 7:40PM]

I was in St Louis airport last friday and saw three people reading their Kindle. I was like "holy crap, where have I been, in a cave!?"


Truth be told, how many friggin devices do we need on our person? Your cell phone can easily become an e-reader. No one does it (not even me). I guess we're all just big babies about e-reading. The Kindle is gorgeous but do we really need another damn device to lug around? it's nuts...

[kesherz @ Jun 16th 2009 9:55PM]

Most folks find the small screen of a cell phone/iPhone too cramped to be comfortable for long reading sessions. Others find the contrast & backlighting very hard on the eyes. Hell, the last PDA I enjoyed reading on was my grayscale Handspring device.

[Richard @ Jun 17th 2009 12:12AM]

My Kindle DX came on Monday. It's my first e-reader thing. I bought it because I can't deal with all the dead trees appearing as daily issues of the WSJ, floating around my place.

My initial thoughts: Negroponte - when he said that computers would never replace printed documents because of poor [screen vs. print] resolution - has finally been proven wrong! The reading of this thing is a joy. No glare, great (not tremendous) resolution and good enough contrast.

But:
1. When reading a paper or magazine - you can't look at a list of contents. You can see a listing of sections and the number of articles in each section, but not the article titles themselves.

2. You can't interact with the articles - bookmark them in delicious (for example) or email them to your friends (an article - or even link - to my friends from my @kindle.com address would be good marketing - methinks).

3. I haven't figured out how to click a link and have it open the browser. I think that , perhaps, that can't be done.

I'd rather be reading on the Kindle than on the iPhone - or my WinMob phone - because of the easy on the eyes display. But it sure would be nice to have a little more in the way of connectivity...

...and a $2.00 monthly charge for Engadget or Autoblog is asinine - especially when I can't manually force and update and the RSS feeds are free to my Fuze.