Will it or won't it?
The Internet is burning up with speculation about Apple Inc.'s plans for an “iPad,” a potential new entrant in the e-reader market of low-power digital devices whose displays approach paper quality.
Amazon's Kindle and the Sony Reader together cracked the million-unit mark last year, but everyone – especially those in troubled publishing industries – is looking to the iPod maker to potentially bring digital reading into the mainstream, and transform their businesses forever.
Things have changed since early e-readers tried and failed to find a market in the late 1990s. The spread of mobile computing and the new gadgets' greater usability and convenience are fostering what a recent series of reports by Forrester Research calls an “eReader Revolution.”
Xerox researchers have created printable organic electronics, light, flexible backplanes on which electronic circuitry can be literally printed. The ereader of the future may be created with similar technology. This prototype illustrates the use of printable electronics as a radio frequency ID antenna.
Electronic-ink technology has made long-lasting, slim devices possible, notes Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, and there's a lot more content available. Kindle owners can buy Amazon's books directly through the device, and Sony Readers can access half a million free books from Google, as well as from the Sony e-store. As a result, the number of e-reader owners has jumped by 150 per cent between the second quarters of 2008 and ‘09.
Amazon's introduction of the $400 (U.S.) Kindle in 2007 launched this new phase of electronic reading, tapping into the online generation's demand for instant gratification. “The immediacy of being able to fulfill a desire for new reading material on the go has great appeal for Kindle adopters,” writes Rotman Epps in her report. “Kindle owners echo the delight that iPod owners felt at being able to carry their entire music collection in a slim portable device.”
This summer, rivals hit back with a flurry of e-reader announcements, advancing both the technology and e-reader business models. One of Sony's two e-readers and a new unit from Samsung sport touchscreens. In Japan, Fujitsu has come out with the first colour e-reader. U.S. book chain Barnes & Noble, meanwhile, is trying to turn iPhones and BlackBerrys into e-readers by selling downloadable books.
And everyone is waiting for Apple to show its hand, with most betting on a hybrid tablet – something between a notebook and a Kindle-style pad – offering not just downloadable books (from iTunes, of course), but e-mail, music and other features. The company is already a de facto player in the market: There are more installed e-book apps on iPhones than on Kindles and Sony Readers combined.
E-readers' adoption is still tiny – just 1.5 per cent of American consumers own one, and fewer in Canada – but Ms. Rotman Epps believes these gadgets will change our reading habits while throwing several industries into turmoil.
Book publishers are truly facing a revolution. They're looking at a future where more of their revenue will come from e-books than from print, and the overall [revenue] pie will be smaller. — Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps
According to her research, book publishers are where music publishers were in 2001 when the iPod launched: Their content has already been digitized, but until now there's been no compelling way to buy and consume it. “The rate at which book publishers' content is getting to full digitization is very rapid,” she observes, with Google's digitization initiative having already passed the million-book mark. “Book publishers are truly facing a revolution,” she says. “They're looking at a future where more of their revenue will come from e-books than from print, and the overall [revenue] pie will be smaller.”
