Amazon is clearly concerned about the Apple tablet, judging today’s news.
Though it has yet to be unveiled, the impending arrival of the iPad, or iSlate, or whatever it may be called, is likely to shake up the market for digital books in a big way.
Apple is in talks with the major publishing houses in an effort to secure content deals for the tablet. If it succeeds in working out deals, integrating e-book sales into the iTunes store would be a cinch. Add to this that the tablet is expected to boast a large colour touchscreen, and you have an e-reader on steroids.
Until now, Amazon has controlled the market for digital books. Despite a flood of recent entries to the market, its Kindle has remained the most popular and best-reviewed of the e-readers, and Amazon has held the mantle as the largest seller of e-books.
Sensing that could all change fast, Amazon has begun making some quick concessions. Yesterday it announced that it would begin giving authors and publishers a larger share of the split for books sold on the Kindle. And today it announced that it is releasing a software development kit that will allow third parties to design applications for the Kindle.
Apple can’t be too concerned about apps on the Kindle. With a small, greyscale E-Ink screen that is slow to refresh, it’s hard to imagine a very compelling suite of applications that would rival the 100,000 games and utilities in Apple’s App Store.
Indeed, with the iPad around the corner and a host of other tablet computing devices on the way, e-readers like the Kindle, one of the hottest gadgets of 2009, are facing a suddenly cloudy future.
