With the encroachment of eReader competition, Amazon’s Kindle continually searchers for new differentiators. Whether it’s enough to make a difference or its too little too late is up to the consumer.
Kindle gets social…
The latest new feature is the introduction of a 2.5 software update for its Kindle users to share book passages with their friends on Facebook and Twitter feeds. The plan is to roll it out to a limited group of Kindle users now, with a full-blown launch scheduled for late May.
Coupled with this social feature, Kindle’s new functionality called Popular Highlights, lets users see what the Kindle community thinks are the most interesting passages in the books users are reading.
What’s up Doc?
Other new enhancements allow users to organize books and documents into one or more collections, zoom into PDFs to enlarge small print, tables and graphs. Users will also get two new larger font sizes for the visually-challenged and the existing fonts have "been sharpened up."
It speaks volumes…
While providing a Kindle app for the iPad, Kindle actually has inventory that boasts 7.5 times as many titles at launch, or 450,000 versus 60,000 according to media reports. Apple also failed to reach an agreement with publisher Random House before shipping the iPad, which means eager readers will need the Kindle app to download work from The DaVinci Code author Dan Brown and other Random House writers.
There are also many classics available for free to download on the Kindle. These books include Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, Charles Dickens’ Hard Times and Homer’s The Illiad just to name a few.
Does size matter?
Comparable in screen size with the iPad, the Kindle DX has a 9.7-inch screen, whereas the Sony Reader Daily Edition is 7-inches providing more displays and reading screen space for Kindle users.
So again – its up to the users if these features make a difference, and enough to sway a future customer in the Kindle direction versus iPads or the Sony Readers.(See Various Kindles)
For more detailed product comparisons between eReaders – see "Top Kindle, Nook & Sony eReaders’ Product Comparison Reports."
