iPhone app release numbers swing toward e-books
Om Malik has just noticed that the iPhone is good for reading e-books, and calls it “the next hot e-reader”. He reports that, in September, book-related apps overtook games as a percentage of app store-released apps.
From August 2008 to August 2009, games was the category with the biggest number of releases, causing a drop in Nintendo’s revenues as people migrated to the iPhone and iPod Touch as a portable gaming platform. Now Malik thinks that the iPhone will also give the Kindle a run for its money. (Though I think he’s a little late in noticing this, given how it already has been for the last few years.)
Nonetheless, even after observing this swing from games to e-books, Malik thinks that dedicated e-readers will stick around “mostly because it is impossible to read large amounts of text on a smaller screen.” The fact that, as Malik himself reported, e-book apps are now the biggest category of app would seem to suggest not everyone agrees.
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:57 am
A little late? Om is necrotic. PDAs and cellphones were THE hot e-book reader years before anyone had ever heard of a Kindle. But the fact that he’s apparently just discovered a single cellphone’s utility as a reader doesn’t make it the next hot anything.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
It’s not impossible to read large amounts of text on an iPhone from a readers perspective, it is impossible from the ponit of limited battery life.
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Only for those who read more than 3-4 hours in a day before they can recharge the device… many of us don’t have that problem (would that we did!).