This article claims that the iPad will put the Kindle out of business. I’d like to offer a counter-argument to this prediction and try to stem all this Apple related mania that seems to be littering the interwebs.

It’s true that the iPad will be able to do more things than the Kindle. But why do I need to play games, watch movies or check my email from an eReader? What difference does it make to the user who simply wants to read books or newspapers on the go? The basic Kindle weights 10 ounces and is the size of a midsized paperback novel. The fundamental principle behind the kindle is to do a few set of things very well because its purpose is to satisfy a need that is decidedly niche.

People own laptops and smart phones and desktop computers already. The idea that I would own up to three different devices (a smart phone, a laptop and an iPad) that have a large convergence of functionality seems overly consumptive and wasteful. Less is more. Nothing is more bothersome than owning a device whose full functionality you employ only about 10% of the time.

Why not focus on actual design? The Kindle is meant to act like a book. Thanks to its display technology, it can be read in sunlight, it looks like a paperback, it’s the size of a paperback, and you can actually treat it like a paperback for days at a time because its battery can last for up to two weeks if you turn off the wireless. Yes the iPad’s color display is quite lovely, and the concept of having interactive media on the page while reading is a cute gimmick that will appeal to some demographics (I imagine that designing a children’s book for the iPad would be fantastic), but are these features necessary for an eReader?

Quite frankly, the idea that someone who wants the functionality of a Kindle device would instead get an iPad seems contrived. The two items are in completely different price ranges. The cost of the basic Kindle Model is 259$. No subscriptions, no fees for wireless, your costs are all handled out of the box. The iPad will cost 499$ for the basic model, plus peripheral devices, plus a wireless plan...the initial cost will end up being closer to 800$. Furthermore it is estimated that books for the iPad will range between 12.99$ and 14.99$, versus 9.99$ for the Kindle, not counting the independent titles you can obtain for 1.99$.

The iPad is going to have lots of great content created for it, this much is a given. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and claim that it will immediately render perfectly capable devices obsolete. The Kindle satisfies a niche market very well, at a price point that makes sense, it’s market isn’t going anywhere fast.

Lastly, all the hype that the iPad has generated feels unwarranted. It has yet to prove its necessity in the mobile computing industry, and making grandiose predictions about a device yet to be released on the market seems counterproductive.

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