When I was five my parents told the three of us they were going to have another baby. They were very careful to explain to my sister, who was then only two, that this did not mean she would be replaced. It did not mean she would be loved any less. It simply meant that there was going to be another person to love and to share with and to play with.
I think more and more that my parents should have had that little talk with the world.
Because everywhere I turn it seems that the lay blogs and tech pages and geeks at my husband’s job are insisting that the iPad (still a dumb name) is going to be the Kindle Killer. The publishing industry seems to be certain that the two devices together are going to be the Killer of Print Publishing.
When I woke up this morning the first thing I did was take two pills. Then I felt around the nightstand for my eyeglasses and put those on. When the world sharpened into focus I saw beside me an iPhone, a Kindle and eight shelves crammed with books. Trade paperbacks, mass market paperbacks, hardcovers.
People in the marketing world like to think that folks will see one product and drop the other in favour of the new. There doesn’t seem to be a realisation that most folks can make room for a new baby while still loving the ones who came before.
It’s odd to find myself cast in the role of Kindle apologist. Less than a year ago I wouldn’t have cared if all the world’s Kindles fell off a high building and were then driven over by a procession of ice cream trucks. But now after nearly ten months of being able to read again on those days when arthritis had made it impossible to hold a book I am as devoted to my Kindle as Hawking is to his wheelchair. It’s that simple.
My husband, who carried my plate downstairs after dinner, pointed out another reason why folks like me aren’t going to give up our Kindles. Apparently the iPod is about a pound and a half. If I can’t carry an empty dinner plate, I don’t see how I can comfortably hold that thing for reading.
Yes, the Kindle does look like something designed in the 80s, as one pundit somewhere has said. But I still listen to 80s music on my iPhone. And last weekend I bought, among other things, a paperback book. So clearly there is room in this old world for all the new.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Well said, though I have to ask where you’ve been reading all the good press on the iPad. I love the thing (and can’t wait to get my hands on one), but it seems like Geekdom is straining its collective braces trying to out ironic each other in their cynicism about it. Everyone online that I’ve read is spending more time going on about what it lacks (camera, new GUI, GPS,butt-wiper) and ignoring what it IS. Nuts to them. A year from now when Apple has sold a million of them, they’ll be the ones who are the greatest apologists for it. It takes courage to stand up to the masses and tell the they’re wrong.
As to you point about there being room for multiple reading devices, I couldn’t agree more. I’m reading a book on the MacBook and I’m finding the experience clunky and tiring, but I’m still giving it a chance. I think you and I will be the last two people on earth to give up paper.
As to your comment:
“I wouldn’t have cared if all the world’s Kindles fell off a high building and were then driven over by a procession of ice cream trucks”
I just have to say, I WOULD CARE. ‘Cause that would be awesome to see.
Well … BETA was a much better format for home taping than VHS. And a lot of folks saw no reason to stop using it just because VHS was more popular. But the manufacturers decided they’d rather chase a big payoff than a small one. So BETA disappeared. We have a winner-take-all economy for a whole range of manufactured products. So I wish you well keeping your Kindle, but I have the feeling that you may need some luck as well as simple common sense.
I’m sorry, but that analogy doesn’t wash. Because the issue isn’t one of two devices that do the same thing in a different way. It’s an issue of two devices with one common set, but which are essentially created for two different purposes.
Now, I have no doubt that things will change with the Kindle to make it a better e-Reader, or that another e-Reader will come along to replace it at the top of the heap. The days of the e-Reader are still very young and the e-Reader marketplace is evolving, picking up steam in the last six months or so and still a long way from saturation.
But I don’t see the iPad, or indeed any smartphone/PDA/netbook (which is truthfully the iPad’s heritage) replacing e-Readers for the academic and avid reader.
I DO see them serving as casual e-reading devices for the busy person who reads on a subway commute, an overseas flight or an hour in the evening before bed.
I said it over at Aunt B’s but I’ll say it here too. No device with a backlit screen is going to own the eReader market. I know several people with eReaders and every single one of them got one because in large part because they don’t like reading on a computer screen.
I love being analagous to an iPad, even if it is only your analogy. I too think there will be pluralism in ereaders, and I would bet that kindle battery life wins. Plus 1.5 pounds is extremely bulky sounding in a world toting around micro Nanos and shuffles.
Ps. You should google the madtv ipad parody they did like 4 years ago.
I have a Kindle, and I love it. I have to say that one of the best statements I have read about it was saying that the Kindle is not a flashy ultra-tech device. It just is a way to read easier. It gets out of the way and lets you read, without all the unnecessary bells and whistles that would distract.
And yeah, now that I have one, it won’t ever replace my love of the written word, but I can’t imagine not having one.