Can iPad Challenge Kindle DX?

Amazon Kindle is one of the most popular gadgets around. It’s supposed to be to Amazon what iPod was to Apple. In essence, it’s been designed to help Amazon reach more homes and sell more books and ebooks. But Amazon Kindle is not the only device capable of displaying e-books. In fact, you can read e-books on your iPhone thanks to Kindle app. The iPhone is decent for reading a paragraph or a few pages but reading on a large screen is way more convenient. The iPad will come with roughly the same screen size as Amazon Kindle DX. Many experts have already called iPad the Kindle killer, and they may have a point. Amazon Kindle has had a nice run, but it’s a one trick pony device that is not capable of things that iPad will be capable of.

In the content department, you have to give the edge to Amazon Kindle. It has the support of Amazon behind it, so you’ll have enough content to review on your reader. We still don’t know whether Amazon plans to offer its Kindle app on the iPad, but if that were to happen, Amazon Kindle would lose one of its biggest advantages. Another area of advantage for Kindle is its use of the E-ink technology to display text. Other than that, it’s hard to see any other area that the Kindle would outperform the iPad.

Apple has never focused on one trick pony devices. The iPad is capable of being a netbook and e-book reader at the same time. But the key to the iPad’s success will be the App store. As long as Apple can keep developers motivated to write innovative apps for the iPad, there are no devices that can compete with it. Many have tried and failed to beat the iPhone. Some companies have even tried to duplicate the app store. But Apple has got the right product ecosystem, and that will be hard to beat.

Steve Jobs did not think too much of the Kindle. He didn’t like the way netbooks were built and marketed either. The iPad gives him and Apple the chance to put things right and beat both netbooks and the Kindle in their own games. Amazon Kindle has had a nice run, but you get the feeling that the software is more important to Amazon at this point than the hardware. Still, it’d be interesting to see how Amazon responds to Apple’s new device. That’s something we have to watch and see.