Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

What happens when the Kindle, a device that wasn’t really supposed to succeed, announces its App Store?

Well, people start writing about how the Kindle App Store is going to fail miserably. Kindle critics have something new to hate .

Thankfully, some people feel it will succeed so we have a good set of arguments and counter-arguments.

Kindle App Store bound for failure – the Critics

Fast Company thinks the App Store Idea itself is flawed

Let’s start with Fast Company which goes as far as to say that App Stores are not the business model for the 21st century.

Apple’s app bonanza won’t end anytime soon, but you’d be a fool to ignore the long-term trend in software — away from incompatible platforms and restrictive programming regimes, and toward write-once, run-anywhere code that works on a variety of devices, without interference from middlemen.

Talking about how the open Web is better than closed App Stores is all well and good. There’s just one small problem - free and open people don’t want to pay for anything.

We are going to see more and more developers and content creators embrace the ‘closed, evil’ app stores because they’d like to actually make money off of their work - How evil of creators to want to get paid. They should give away their work and starve – that would prove they are true artists.  

Fast Company also thinks Kindle App Store means the death of eReaders

Boy, Fast Company must really hate the Kindle.

Kit Eaton at Fast Company comes up with some strange points which is not surprising given that he’s never even seen a Kindle (Have added my counter-points in italics) -

1. Amazon is very, very late to the App Store game.  That makes little sense because it’s the first eReader with Apps. Apple Apps, Facebook Apps, Kindle Apps – they’re all different beasts.
2. The International Edition of the Kindle is a joke. By ‘joke’ he must mean 60 second downloads and free wikipedia in 100+ countries.  
3. Mr. Eaton has never seen a Kindle (he lives in Europe). This explains a lot. It’s an argument we’re very familiar with – Since I’ve never seen a lot of Kindles they couldn’t be selling.
4. The eInk is so slow to update that it’s not useful even for web browsing. This is patently false. A 0.5 second refresh speed rules out video – However, browsing works. It’s the limited browser on the Kindle that sometimes gets in the way – which is an argument in favor of a Kindle Store.

Given that Mr. Eaton has never even seen a Kindle it makes a lot of sense that he’s writing utter nonsense.

Everyone hates the Kindle App Store

The predictions of death and misfortune are everywhere -

1. Digital Daily asks – How large is the market for crude monochrome apps? It goes on to call Kindle Apps ‘a little sad’.
2. JK on the Run would like Kindle to give up because it could never take on Android powered eReaders. Bonus points for finding a negative other than Apple already has Apps.
3. TechNewsWorld thinks the restrictions are too much -
   

   Developers have several restrictions. They can’t include Voice over IP (VoIP) functionality, put advertisements on their apps, collect customer information without the customers’ express knowledge and consent, or use the Amazon or Kindle brands in any way.

   “Having those restrictions is like throwing a party no one is going to and making it really hard to find,” Josh Martin, a senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, told TechNewsWorld.

Quite frankly, the fact that you can’t advertise via apps is a god-send. It’ll keep out all the geniuses who write free apps hoping to make money off of ads. Lesser free apps means a higher chance for talented developers to create great apps and make a ton of money while providing value to customers.

Amazon’s decision to keep advertising out of the Kindle App Store also removes an attack vector for rivals i.e. buying Kindle App Ads to circumvent the Kindle Store.

Kindle App Store bound to succeed – the Supporters

The ‘We don’t know what Developers will create’ Angle

Steven Burke at Channel Web thinks we’ll see hundreds of innovative apps and rightly points out that an App Store is only bounded by developers’ imaginations -

Amazon itself has conceded that the Amazon Kindle Development kit and the Kindle App Store will open new doors it never imagined possible.

“The Kindle Development Kit opens many possibilities — we look forward to being surprised by what developers invent,”

People don’t realize that things like the eInk screen limitations are considered challenges by developers. A true coder doesn’t think -

There’s no color screen. I couldn’t create a game for that.

It’s a challenge and a chance to show just how innovative and skillful you can be.

Not that many people think Kindle App Store will succeed

It’s a bit depressing to read through dozens of articles all making the same fundamentally wrong assumptions -

1. No good apps can be made because Kindle is in black and white. 
2. No good apps can be made because you don’t have video and animation.
3. Kindle App Store is aimed at Apple.
4. App Store means Amazon have given up on keeping the Kindle a single purpose device.  
5. There aren’t enough Kindles to sustain Apps.
6. App Stores in different markets compete against each other. If that were true only one out of Apple App Store and Facebook Apps would be doing well.

It wouldn’t even be an issue if they at least did some intelligent analysis and gave coherent reasons. At the very least they could spend a few days actually using a Kindle before writing.

Kindle Advantages and Amazon’s focus on customer service

People are mistaking Kindle Vs other eReaders for something else

It’s a sign of how difficult it is for some people to grasp that anyone might want to read and might want a dedicated reading device that they translate everything into a multi-purpose device Vs single-purpose device argument.

For people who love to read picking a device optimized for reading is pretty important - It’s a sign of the supreme self-centeredness of tech bloggers that they can’t recognize that.  

The Kindle App Store is primarily about -

1. Adding to the Kindle’s value proposition.
2. Making Kindle the clear #1 eReader.

Have written about why eReaders Apps are crucial for eReaders and Amazon recognizes this. The Kindle App Store is ensuring Kindle stays the #1 eReader.

Amazon is not competing with Apple with its Kindle App Store.

There are advantages to compensate for Kindle’s shortcomings

Kindle does have some advantages -

1. Battery Life.
2. Screen that’s great for reading.
3. Larger screen size than most cellphones.
4. Users are waiting for features. Look at any kindle forum for all the features users are asking for.
5. The bar is very low - The only ‘apps’ users currently have access to are super limited calendars and very basic games.
6. There is very little competition.

Why aren’t people pointing this out?

It’s because some people just can’t get over the fact that the Kindle isn’t a cool, sexy device and that Amazon doesn’t run Kindle Ads telling people they’ll be cool if they buy it. They’re probably the same people who would rather watch Anna Kournikova play tennis than Roger Federer.

Amazon is basically a ’no hidden costs’ company

Think about it -

1. Kindle gets Free Internet without a wireless subscription. 
2. Kindle Apps won’t be allowed to advertise and trick users.
3. Kindle Apps won’t be allowed to capture user information without permission. 
4. There’s a focus on unitasking and helping people use their time well Vs distracting people endlessly.
5. Amazon sells actual physical goods at prices cheaper than most other places as opposed to virtual goods or made-up things.

Amazon is basically doing a great job of customer service by staying away from hidden costs and manipulative advertising.

Kindle Customer Base and Opportunity for Apps

People are underestimating how big the Kindle Customer Base is and how much it’ll grow

A lot of tech bloggers have a picture in their mind of the Kindle as a device with a few thousand users that is bound for extinction.

They couldn’t be more wrong. The Reality is that -

1. There are millions of Kindle Owners.
2. Millions more Kindle owners will be added this year.
3. eReaders are just beginning to take off.
4. We will be getting new technology in eReaders this year – flexible screens, color screens.
5. Multi-purpose devices are not going to slaughter the Kindle.

The money-making opportunity is huge -

1. If you can get even 1% of the Kindle customer base to buy your app that’s tens of thousands of users.
2. If you can code a really good app like a Folders App you could get 10-20% of Kindle Owners. Make it a $5 app and you’re looking at $500K to a million.
3. We are just at the beginning – In another 1 to 2 years we will be looking at 10 million+ Kindles and then a $1 app with 1% penetration would generate $100,000.  

There are obviously going to be ‘everything should be free’ people taking time off from stealing books and pondering if they should code free apps for the Kindle – hopefully they focus their efforts on creating free apps for open platforms and leave the Kindle App Store unpolluted.

Closing Thought – Kindle Apps that add to Reading

There are lots of apps that add to reading and to Kindle’s use for various forms of reading -

1. Auto-Scroll.
2. Speed-reading.
3. CookBook App.
4. Journal App.
5. Reviews and Guides.
6. ReadLater/ InstaPaper style reading apps.

It’s a lack of imagination and refusal to see reality that forces some people to automatically assume a Kindle App Store means eReaders are dead or that Amazon is trying to make a multi-purpose device.

Amazon is basically letting 3rd party developers make the Kindle better. It’s still going to be an eReader – just a much better one.

Filed under: kindle app review Tagged: | bias, kindle app store