_iPhone the most popular ebook reader: “Forbes is reporting that the iPhone has become the country’s top eBook reader. The claim is based upon the number of downloads of Stanza [App Store link], an ebook reader for the iPhone and iPod touch (395,000 and counting), versus the number of projected US Kindle sales (380,000). "
I can add that everyone I know with an iPhone has a copy of Stanza installed and that it’s a major winner with the public transport commuters here in France. And that’s only Stanza - there are a number of other eBook readers for the iPhone, but none as popular (or as good, in my opinion)
The big question is whether this will make Steve Jobs reconsider the statement that “nobody reads any more”. You must consider what he actually said which was quoting statistics that “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year” which is a sad indictment of the modern state of affairs, but it leaves out a couple of interesting factors.
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People are reading fewer books, but getting more and more of their reading material from electronic online sources and reading on electronic devices
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The people that do read, read a lot
Audiobooks
Apple has recognized the potential in some specific markets with the inclusion of audiobook in the iTunes store via Audible (although I seem to recall seeing something about Amazon buying them earlier this year so it’s up in the air if that relationship will continue). Audiobooks are the ideal “reading” method for an automobile based commuter where your hands and eyes are busy. It’s also the obvious extension of iTunes since it’s all the same kind of media.
But as people start tightening their belts and dealing with rising gas prices and various other economic woes, public transport will (or should, anyway) start rising again. Then you have your hands and eyes free again to flip through a book or magazine on the bus or train (except those unfortunate enough to suffer from motion sickness while reading in a vehicle).
Who’s reading what?
The change in habits towards more electronic reading as opposed to paper is becoming ingrained in the younger generations - they may read fewer books, but they often have pretty impressive RSS feed lists. There’s also a cultural shift going on - in my generation and older, you read for pleasure on paper and what you saw on a screen was more likely to be work. The younger generation doesn’t make that distinction and if they do, it’s in the opposite direction - paper books equals school and electronic reading is entertainment.
The people that do read books read more than their fair share when you consider that less than half the US population read a book last year. That subset of the population is keeping the publishing industry in business. That looks like a market to me - and I suspect that there’s a serious intersection in the market of iPhone owner who are generally affluent, educated and likely to be readers.
Where to go, what to do?
Just like music before iTunes, the current state of online eBook purchasing is a pretty scattershot affair with little consistency of formats and rights management, and just like music, with a surprisingly robust peer to peer sharing community.
After trying out Stanza on the iPhone, I started seriously thinking about designing an eBook library management tool so let me clean up some of scanning errors and metadata issues as well as add in additional information like series and universe tags with ordinal tags so you know what order to read them in. But the more I started mocking it up, the more it started looking like iTunes. As soon as I see that I start to wonder if it’s worth heading in that direction when it’s a very likely next step for Apple.
I think right now that there’s a market waiting to be pulled up out of the fringes and into the mainstream. Apple’s got all of the necessary pieces in place with the iTunes Store infrastructure - all that needs to be added is content and a reader. They can placate the powers that be in the publishing industry with Fairplay protected material.
iPhone vs Kindle
Now a big question that needs to be addressed is the Kindle as competition. But it has a few failings that I’ve outlined in other articles concerning mini notebooks and UMPCs. It’s just a little too large to fit conveniently in a pocket and it’s (despite the browser) basically a one trick pony. The iPhone’s convergence of all of my mobile media consumption into one device is a game changer. Each morning in the train I have the choice of listening to music or podcasts, catching a TV show recorded via EyeTV, checking up the news via my RSS feeds, reading a book, playing a game…
Compromises
Now one point that keeps coming back up is the size of the screen. Yes the iPhone’s screen is relatively small, but with a reasonably sized font, the reading experience is such that you forget very rapidly that you’re reading on a screen. There’s a compromise here and that’s size. Remember when everyone first saw the MacBook Air and said it was horribly overpriced and underpowered? Then the second wave of reviews started coming back in noting that thinness and lightness really were important features that shouldn’t be underestimated. I feel that way about the iPhone. Would I like a larger screen? Sure, but not if it means that I can’t pop it into a pocket. If someone comes up with a flexible OLED touchscreen that you can fold or roll out with no seams or perhaps an iPhone DS with just a hairline hinge it would be practical, but given the current technology it’s the best compromise we have right now.
Next steps
My suggestion would be for Apple to buy eReader to acquire their distribution channel and Stanza for the openness of handling multiple formats. Those two assets with some relatively minor tweaks could be integrated very quickly into the iTunes media universe and we’d find out just how many people like to read.
But even if they don’t, I’m more than happy with my current toolkit for the moment.
Epilogue
There’s still no replacing a good paper book in front on the fire on a winter evening, or loafing in a hammock in the summer with an appropriate beverage at hand, but for all those times I’m stuck in a lobby, a train, a bus or just have a few minutes to kill between meetings, Stanza on the iPhone is just about perfect.