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Should Apple go into eBooks?
Today Amazon launched the Kindle reader to much fanfare. The $399 device downloads and displays books, blogs, and magazines. Users can pay one-time fees for the books or monthly subscriptions for blogs or magazines.
eBooks are a risky business, to say the least. The market has yet to really take off with consumers and is still light years behind video and music in terms of adoption.
There's no indication whatsoever that Apple wants to get into the business of eBooks. If they did, however, they'd eat Amazon for lunch.
Apple already has most of the pieces in place for a system far superior to Amazon with the iPhone/iPod Touch and the wireless iTunes store: Both devices have wireless internet capabilities, both run OS X software that could be easily updated with Apple's existing PDF reader. The touch-scroll and landscape features lend themselves very well to eBook formats. Furthermore, Apple already has a payment system in place with the iTunes store. Subscription fees for blogs could also be done away with by integrating RSS support from Safari, and there wouldn't be any need for additional data transfer fees.
If Apple were to cut a deal with the publishers to put books on the iTunes store for a similar or cheaper price than Amazon and then bundle a mobile store feature into the iPhone/Touch, it could be game over for the Kindle almost overnight.
Would you pay $399 for Kindle when, for the same price, you can get a smartphone and video iPod that also delivers eBook subscriptions and lets you view blogs free of charge? It's no contest.
If this isn't already in the works, perhaps it should be. If for no other reason, it would be nice revenge for the NBC fiasco.
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