It was only a few days ago when the whole tech land was disturbed by the release of Amazon’s second generation e-book reader – the Kindle 2. Some of us may still be getting over the buzz created by the Kindle 2 and here comes Amazon again announcing the new Kindle for iPhone application.
The Kindle for the iPhone application tries to mimic what the Kindle does. By installing the application on your iPhone, you can practically purchase kindle electronic files (books, magazines, and newspapers) from the Amazon Kindle Store and have it directly sent to your iPhone. But that is not without any limitation. The process works only if you are within the coverage area of the Kindle’s Whispernet.
Now, that may be appalling for some especially since the iPhone unlike the Kindle is available worldwide. But of course, there is always a walk around. Like if you own a Kindle but you’re outside the Whispernet coverage area, you can always purchase Kindle materials from Amazon and have it downloaded to your PC. This issue is true only for those outside the Whispernet area. But for those within the coverage area, the beauty of the Kindle for the iPhone application is the fact that if you subscribe to a blogs or newspapers, updates and new contents can be automatically push to your iPhone. I don’t know about you, but for me that is absolutely awesome, right?
But the reason for the question in this post’s title has nothing to do with the coverage area but rather on a larger perspective. Is there really a need for a Kindle application for the iPhone? Have Amazon thought about this? What would be the implication of the Kindle iPhone application to the sales of the Amazon Kindle? What is Amazon really promoting, it’s catalog of paid electronic publications or the Kindle.
Certainly, those who are contemplating about getting a Kindle to use it for reading e-books might be having second thoughts now. I mean, what’s the use of getting a Kindle if you can read Kindle books, magazines and other materials on your iPhone?