The IPhone Becoming Popular for Reading E-books

The Amazon Kindle may have been out of stock for the holiday shopping season, but that doesn't mean the popular online retailer's e-book device is dominating the growing digital book industry. There is also the Sony Reader, perhaps the biggest competitor for the Kindle, and a host of other digital reading devices manufactured by smaller companies. But the popular Apple iPhone might just be overtaking these dedicated e-book readers in both sales and popularity.

While Amazon refuses to publicly release sales figures for the Kindle, a recent article in Business Week suggested sales for 2008 were about 380,000 units. The Kindle's biggest selling point is that it allows users to download e-books wirelessly, a feature that breaks users free from the tether of having to download to a computer and then transfer to the device.

The Apple iPhone is quickly taking over the market for e-book reading devices. Ever since Apple released the third-party application store on it's popular iTunes interface back in July, both e-book applications and e-books themselves have rocketed in popularity.

Why has the iPhone become such a dominant player in the e-book market so quickly? This question takes on even greater significance when you consider that the iPhone was never specifically intended to be a e-book reading device, at least not by Apple. Steve Jobs, the founder and current CEO of Apple has even said that people don't read anymore (source).

To answer the above question about why iPhones have become so popular as e-book readers, here are a few important points to consider:

Price

As of this writing, an Amazon Kindle will set you back $359 USD direct from Amazon's website. The Sony Reader will cost you $399.99 USD from the Sony website. But the iPhone, with the price dramatically lower now than when it first came on the market can be bought starting at $199 USD. And those prices just reflect your cost for the device itself.

Now consider that most e-books Amazon sells average about $9.99, slightly more than a mass market paperback from your local bookstore. Sony doesn't fare much better. The iPhone, however, gives users a range of options for e-books where average prices are around $.99! And let's not forget the multitude of other features the iPhone brings with it, which takes me to my next point.

Convenience

The iPhone is a cell phone, personal organizer, MP3 player, movie player, internet device and so forth all wrapped into one. So for $199 you get a lot more bang for your buck than just a device that stores e-books.

This plays into the convenience factor. With all the electronics on the market, the public is increasingly burdened by having to carry more and more with them. The iPhone, with all of its features, greatly reduces that problem and still provides for a comfortable e-book reading experience.

A good example of the "convenience factor" at play is when I'm out and about I carry my iPhone primarily as a cell phone to stay in touch. But if I'm in a waiting room, or have a few minutes to spare anywhere else, it's very convenient to open up the current e-book I'm reading and get a few pages read. With a standalone e-book reader, on the other hand, I would have to carry it with me on the go, something I'm not very inclined to do.

Conclusion

Based on the success of the iPhone in all its functions, and specifically as a device to read e-books with, it appears the market at large is moving towards consolidated gadgets, rather than an individual gadget for each need a consumer has.

What does this mean for devices like the Kindle and the Sony Reader? They will probably keep their place among e-book reading gadget geeks and will hopefully keep e-books in the public spotlight. Beyond that it's hard to guess.

However, the iPhone isn't alone. The still-popular RIM Blackberrys are also able to read e-books as well as many of the Palm devices. Does this mean e-books are going portable? I'd say yes it does. People like the convenience of a smaller device that does a little bit of everything, rather than a device that is larger and has only one primary function.

Sources:

Olga Kharif, "Move over Kindle; E-books hit cell phones", BusinessWeek

Steve Jobs, Quote of the Week, Paper Cuts by the New York Times