O'Reilly: "Why Mobile Will Win"

Andrew Savikas, writing for O'Reilly responds to a comment (as well a posting here) I left on his last article, with his rationale for mobile devices overtaking eReaders.

He brings some very valid arguments to the table, and if I were Amazon, I'd be paying very close attention. I still say the 3.5" screen argument is the biggest hurdle, but his larger point is well taken: mobile devices probably will win. Just not pocket-sized cell phones.

To a certain extent, eReader manufacturers already get this - they are all starting to ship with at least WiFi, and many with 3G network access. They can be completely standalone from your computer, as can many of the best cellphones which sync contacts, calendars and tasks directly to the cloud. Want that information backed up? Don't sync your phone to the computer, also sync your computer to that same cloud. I don't equate mobile with mobile phone, and that's the key.

Amazon gets it: They want an app store for Kindles, although it's going to be hard to compete with a device not saddled with a half second refresh time and all colors in the world as long as they are one of 16 shades of grey.

The biggest issue I have when I read on the iPhone rather than my Kindle or nook is how few words appear on a screen, and how often I have to hit that button to advance a page - it's very disruptive. Even on an eReader, I try to anticipate it. Since it can take a half second (Kindle) or full second (nook) to change pages, I usually hit the button a sentence or two ahead of finishing the page. Even on a physical book (remember those?) - I had lifted the page in the corner and had my finger all ready to turn so when I hit the last word, I could instantly move forward and continue.

I'd love to see a prototype eReader (would work best with a very fast page refresh time) with a camera in the front. It would and could be a very low resolution camera, just small enough to watch your eyes. When you hit the end of the page, it could advance the screen for you. The technology already exists. The biggest distraction in reading (not counting things like the 6 week old infant in my house) is getting to the next set of content. On a 3.5" screen, I find it crippling.

What should be scary to eReader manufacturers is not that Apple is going to come out with a reading device (they aren't), it's that they have this nasty habit of doing things better than the competition. It isn't that the iPod has more features than the competition. It's that it does it better. It was the easiest device to get music onto, the easiest device to buy music for, the easiest device to navigate around, etc. They out-simplified you, and at it's core - it's a fantastic music device.

An Apple tablet might do books as well as Blio, while still running circles around the competition by letting you watch HD movies and sync your music and surf the web in glorious color and check your email, and may even come with that rumored multi-touch version of iWork that would let it edit documents. Whether you think iWork is as good as Office or not, it's certainly better than Documents-to-Go in terms of being a full service application suite. Might I still want a Kindle? Certainly not a DX, if for a couple hundred more I get the iGrail or whatever it ends up being known as. At $259, I start to think... it's cheaper but does less. It's smaller but doesn't fit in my pocket. It's got $9.99 bestsellers but the photos are largely gone and there's no video extras. It surfs the web... but not very well. It has apps, but not 3D gaming. It doesn't cost $30-$40 a month of wireless data but I have to pay by the megabyte. Right now, Amazon only competes with our eReader vendors. That's a fairly level playing ground.