iPhone looks more and more like a Kindle competitor
By Marjorie Kehe | 12.23.08
In the race for the digital book market, the iPhone just took a big step forward. ScrollMotion, an iPhone application development company, has launched Iceberg, an e-book reader for the iPhone.
Iceberg is now offering titles from major publishing houses including Random House, Hachette, Penguin, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Simon & Schuster.
Iceberg claims that its software comes closer to the experience of reading a book.
“What makes the software different,” ScrollMotion’s chief literary officer Calvin Baker told Publishers Weekly, “is that each book is a self-contained app. You download the book, not a piece of software.”
According to Publishers Weekly, “Iceberg mimics the natural reading experience, allowing the user to ‘flip’ the page with a swipe of the finger and uses the iPhone and iTouch’s interface to allow for scrolling, shrinking and expanding text, bookmarking and note taking.”
Iceberg will also be offering a wealth of attractive titles. Among the first two dozen or so immediately available are “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer, “Extras” by Scott Westerfeld, “Brisingr” by Christopher Paolini, “Shadow Country” by Peter Matthiessen, and “When We Were Romans” by Matthew Kneale.
Within a couple of weeks, the company says, about 200 titles will be available.
But Kindle maintains a few advantages nonetheless.
Among them: Kindle users buy books using Sprint’s wireless network – no Wi-Fi needed.
Also, on Kindle most titles sell for $9.99 or less, compared with standard retail prices for Iceberg-formatted books.
However, according to Wired, ScrollMotion’s deal with such big name publishers is “a big step forward” for the iPhone in “becoming a legitimate competitor to products like the Kindle and Sony E-Reader.”
Comments
2. William | 12.24.08
A little known fact is that there are MILLIONS of free books available for download on the Kindle, not just the 10$/book stuff on their network. I have a Kindle, but am eager for the egronomic upgrades due out soon. The iPhone folks still have a long way to go to catch up. I agree with Carl; its just too small to be that user friendly. Merry Christmas readers!
4. marvinlzinn | 12.24.08
iPhone can do anything. . . until the battery runs out and there is no electricity to charge it. This is why I prefer a book I can read in sunlight.
5. Mike H | 12.24.08
Is the author kidding me? The iphone dimensions are so small that you might read a sentence or two at a time. Not a very practical way to read a 700 page novel. Pay attention to what you are writing. Don’t be a ***** for Apple.
6. unshrub | 12.24.08
I love my Kindle. I get the morning newspaper delivered to me before I wake up and I subscribe to several weekly and monthly magazines. I can go online and select from over 200,000 books and have then downloaded within minutes. The money I have saved from buying the kindle version instead of a hardcopy has paid for the kindle in 6 months and for $ 4.79, I can purchase the entire collection of many classic authors’ works. It doesn’t have many fancy graphics, but the screen is easy to read for hours without getting eye fatigue. For someone who just wants to read it is great and cheap.
7. John | 12.24.08
I heard that a new version of Kindle is due out in 2009, which is the only reason I didn’t buy a Kindle this Christmas. Now comes news about iPhone’s reader. To Carl’s point about the iPhone’s screen being too small for a decent reading experience … I’m also older (53) but am amazed at all the reading I find myself doing on my Blackberry … and my hunch is iPhone’s reading interface will be much sharper/clearer than the Blackberry’s. I’m going to give the iPhone (as a reader) serious consideration. (The relevant footnote problem is that - in practical terms - the iPhone as a reading device requires me to give up my BBery as a phone - can’t carry two. Kindle and Sony’s reader wouldn’t require me to change my cell phone carrier.)
8. RD Foley | 12.24.08
The one thing that slows down reading speed and contributes most to eye strain is ‘rereading’. This is when the eyes stop scanning from left to right and return to the left to reread words already read. If you imagine an audio version of this pattern it will become exceedingly confusing as bits and pieces of information are overwritten, inserted in the improper location creates GIGO - garbage in garbage out. It is truly amazing proof of the vast capabilities of the human mind that it is able to decipher such huge masses of GIGO. With certain training and methods the rereading bad habit can be reduced providing several benefits: comprehension goes up, speed goes up, memory retention goes up. Some tests have shown that the human eye and mind have the ability to read at speeds that most would not believe without personally witnessing such an event. While in high school, nearly 50 years ago, I had the opportunity to complete a new high tech speed reading course. The course used a machine, actually and enclosed projection box about the size of the original Mac. A slide about three inches by ten displaying about six pages was inserted. The screen could display the entire page, just a few lines, or part of a single line. It could then reveal the first two words or the first 20 words. It was designed to identify at what word count you back tracked. It would then display only your first scan, then go to next few words at the same number. This absolutely prevented and broke the habit of back tracking. As a user’s use of back tracking is broken their speed, comprehension, and data retention increase dramatically. Think of the mind as a disk drive. It can take in one 16 bytes of information in one chunk. If you increase the speed of input to 18 bytes in the same time block the drive crashes. The human mind however can adapt and increase its input speed, provided the purity of the data stream is maintained. You don’t really need a whole page of text displayed, or a whole paragraph, or a whole sentence. We need a reading program that can we can adjust to our needs and ability. Hopefully, it will also be able to assist us in increasing the speed, accuracy and retention of the material we read. The iPhone is more than capable of displaying a half line of normal text at large point size for old eyes. When this program becomes available on the iPhone, I would then consider it to be worth it price and cost of use. Not before.
9. krquet | 12.25.08
I’m an avid reader. I read mostly the non-fiction and classics. I’m not much of a ‘NYT bestsellers list’ guy, nor do I seek out the latest greatest Oprah recommendations. I prefer books I can hold, smell the pages even, put it in my private library shelves. A thousand years later, whenever I return to my books, it feels like a friend. So, to me, the pleasure in reading a book is not just reading its texts. I have not held a Kindle in my hand. I’m sure all you Kindle fans like yours. I’m not looking for a time to replace my ‘analog’ book reading habits. So, I’m not in the look out for a dedicated digital reader. Kindle, therefore isn’t for me, probably. Having said all this, I do own an iPhone and I have downloaded a few of the apps that allow me to read the e-books. Like Stanza and Classics, for instance. I was blown away how easy it was to read Honor De Balzac or Gibran Kahlil on my iPhone. Brilliant. It is not going to replace any from my physical library shelves. But I’m glad I have the iPhone that is not trying to replace my books either. It’s a casual reading device (on top of being a phone and a mobile computer) when I’m commuting on a public transport. And I’m not sure a dedicated book reader like Kindle will be such an easy carry as the iPhone has been for me.
10. Dennis | 12.25.08
I had no idea that there was a kindle. I will look it up tonight. Why hasn’t anyone told me about this before?
12. Jack1234 | 12.27.08
Hey everyone. I am a longtime Kindle user and thought that the iPhone as a book reader was such a comical joke. Then, my brother (who is a big tech lover) got the iPhone and had downloaded several books onto the phone and I must admit that it is pretty user-friendly. He downloaded the Classics, which was nothing spectacular and The Shack, which made me re-think the iPhone. It was amazing with the clarity and layout of the wording/pages. It also had automatic bookmarking and had nice features for word size adjustment and personal notations. Who knew?
13. Dumbledore | 12.27.08
I personally think the iPhone is the one to beat. I certainly respect what Bezos did and can honestly say that I’ve met no detractors to the Kindle (who have used it!). That said, let’s get real. People do not read in the droves that they listen to music, play videogames, watch TV or even download movies. So, we’re getting into another argument of old thinking versus new. There are a helluva lot more iPod Touches than kindles and a ridiculous amount more when you add iPhone numbers to the mix. So, once that fact is accepted–the notion that no one will want to read on a small device really becomes a silly argument based on no facts. They read texts, e-mails and video info every second on cellphones and ipods and yet the notion that they would not be willing to make the jump to carry a novel or two around on their phone or ipod (pocket) as opposed to worrying about space in their house for a book that they won’t want after they’ve read it–is just silly. It’s as if you were the same critics who said..no one will ever want a kindle when they could buy a book and feel it’s leather or smell its’ pages. Times are changing — accept it and to he who makes convenience king go the spoils. Itunes and apps like Iceberg–need to hit the price points–otherwise, I do not see where Kindle really matches them accept for size.
14. Joe | 12.31.08
But the Kindle isn’t meant for sustained reading either, right? If I can get my hands on a book, gosh darn it, I will. The Kindle uses the Sprint network precisely so you don’t have to be on a Wi-Fi network. If Amazon imagined most users would use their Kindles expressly in their homes, then they would have given it a Wi-Fi chip. However, Amazon seems to have envisioned the Kindle for use ON THE GO, so users can download the latest issue of the WSJ, NYT, and Financial Times while they commute to work on commuter rail, or so they can catch up on their favorite books on a long trip without having to carry those many physical books.
The iPhone is a competitor to the Kindle because most Americans still prefer reading physical books. While the Kindle offers undoubtable convenience, there is still something nice about having a home full of books. The Kindle’s most fantastic features employ the Sprint network, as in when the user is on the go. Otherwise, the only notable feature of the Kindle is its “electronic ink” and would you really pay such a high price for a glorified LCD? Extensive electronic libraries have been around for years, why not just read your laptop?
15. Anne | 03.11.09
Now that there is a Kindle application for the Ipod Touch which is better to view books on? Is it better to buy them through iTunes and look at them on the Iceberg reader or to buy them through Amazon and watch them on the Kindle app.?
There is also a cost difference. In iTunes a book can run 9.99 but in Amazon for Kindle it might run 6.50.
So it comes down to the reader I guess.
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1. carl | 12.23.08
I’ve seen many people talk about the iPhone as a Kindle “competitor”. Maybe I need to take a 10th look at the iPhone’s dimensions, but there is no way I can imagine that reading on the iPhone is a more comfortable experience than the Kindle. The iPhone is just too small for “real” reading; sure, it renders web pages nicely and one can read on it, but for a sustained period of time? Hey, maybe I’m just old.