Kindles, Readers, and iPads, Oh My!
Patricia Watkins
Issue date: 2/3/10 Section: Diversions
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According to a recent Wall Street Journal article  even more e-readers are on the horizon as estimates of e-reader sales are forecast to more than double from five million sold last year to 12 million in 2010. But dedicated e-readers aren't the only gadget in town-just yesterday Steve Jobs unveiled the Apple iPad, a $499 tablet-style device with 3G connectivity from AT&T and iBookstore application "putting the iPad in competition with other e-book readers" as "Internet in your Hand" according to an AP news release.
New electronic book-reading gadgets were already on display during last month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and now manufacturers are racing to cash in on the market that Kindle, Sony Readers, and soon, the Apple iPad, dominate. This new breed of e-readers promises even more interactivity with several features in common: lightweight and thin, black-and-white 'e-paper' screens for easier reading, touch screens, longer battery life, color screens, web browsing, book-marking features, and 3G or wi-fi for Web-browsing.
The Amazon Kindle, which was introduced in 2007, dominates the market in sales. Kindle owners buy e-books exclusively from Amazon's own bookstore with book prices ranging from $2.99 to $9.99 for booksellers. And though Amazon has more copyrighted digital books-over 400,000 - for download to Kindle, than does Sony's online bookstore, the Sony Daily Reader Edition, Sony supports multiple formats like PDF and the more open ePub, allowing for access to over one million free public-domain titles from Google Books. Watch, too, as publishers jump into the fray, digitizing books to best take advantage of the e-reader market.
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