Vittorio Pasteris

Via Techcrunch

Q: Has your opinion of e-readers changed?

A: I’m sure there will always be dedicated devices, and they may have a few advantages in doing just one thing. But I think the general-purpose devices will win the day because I think people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device. You notice Amazon never says how much they sell; usually if they sell a lot of something, you want to tell everybody.

We don’t see that it’s a really big market at this point. And in the future, the more general-purpose devices will tend to win the day.

I’m not sure that Amazon, as an example, really cares that much about being in the hardware business. If I were Amazon, I’d love selling stuff where I didn’t have to have a warehouse, didn’t need UPS.

Translation: We’re making a tablet, and eBooks will be a part of those.

Jobs isn’t saying Apple isn’t interested in eBooks, he’s saying that Apple isn’t interested in making a stand-alone eBook reader. And they shouldn’t be. While the devices will exist for a while, eventually the thought that this won’t be a functionality wrapped into other devices is silly. Why carry around multiple devices when you can carry around one? That’s kind of Apple’s thing, isn’t it?

Amazon ha lanciato l’applicazione per Iphone per trasformarlo in lettore di e-book in grado di dialogare con il suo Kindle-store. La si trova nell’Apple store, ma non in quello italiano.

Amazon.com today introduced “Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch,” a new application available for free from Apple’s App Store that lets customers enjoy over 240,000 books, including 104 of 112 New York Times Bestsellers, on the iPhone and iPod touch using Apple’s Multi-Touch user interface. Amazon’s new Whispersync technology saves and synchronizes a customer’s bookmark across their original Kindle, Kindle 2, iPhone and iPod touch, so customers always have their reading with them and never lose their place. Kindle customers can read a few pages on their iPhone or iPod touch and pick up right where they left off on their Kindle or Kindle 2.

Il test del Kindle-Iphone di Walt Mossberg

As I predicted in my review of Amazon.com’s Kindle 2 e-book reader last week, the giant bookseller has moved quickly to make the 240,000 book Kindle catalog available on other devices. On Tuesday night, the first Kindle software reader appeared, and it’s a free iPhone app. Called Kindle for iPhone, the app replicates the basic book-reading functions of the hardware Kindle device, and can be thought of as a complement to that device, which has more features. However, you don’t have to own a hardware Kindle to use this app. You can now choose instead to use your iPhone or iPod Touch as the reader for books from Kindle’s catalog.

I tried the new iPhone Kindle app moments after it became available on Apple’s App Store (AAPL), and my first impression is generally positive. But first, let me note the key features of the hardware Kindle that aren’t carried over to the iPhone app. It doesn’t support periodicals. It doesn’t read books aloud. It doesn’t allow you to enter notes or highlight text, look up words in a dictionary, or perform searches.