It seems that Apple’s sleek iPhone will not overthrow Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP in the worldwide market for portable and mobile games in the near future. Instead, it will challenge Amazon’s Kindle to become the next HOT e-book reader. According to analytics firm Flurry, in September and October 2009, the number of books-related applications submitted to the App Store surpassed the Games category for the first time ever.
The graph below illustrates the surge in the supply of books to the App Store, and compares the number of books and games released to the App Store per month, over the last four months, as a percentage of all released applications.
In October, one out of every five new apps launching in the iPhone has been a book. Publishers of all kinds, from small ones like Your Mobile Apps to mega-publishers like Softbank, are porting existing IP into the App Store at record rates. In its July post on ‘Flurry Smartphone Industry Pulse‘, the folks there first touted the iPhone as an e-Book reader.
“With Amazon investing heavily in Kindle, iPhone has quickly emerged as a direct competitor in the eBooks category, further demonstrating the impressive reach of Apple across all digital media.”
Despite the iPhone’s smaller four-inch display compared to the Kindle’s six-inch display, they believe Apple is positioned take market share from the Amazon Kindle, and predict that the iPhone will be a significant player in the book category.
“Further, with Apple working on a larger tablet form factor, running on the iPhone OS, we believe Jeff Bezos and team will face significant competition.”
So will the iPhone succeed in the growing lucrative e-Book industry? Well, I personally think it won’t. I would have to always squint my eyes to read the tiny words on the screen, all thanks to iPhone’s relatively small four-inch display. It’s definitely not going to be an e-Book reader! Maybe , which will be launched on February 2010, will steal some market share from the Kindle, but this won’t happen for the iPhone.
The iPhone is meant to be a phone (that’s why it’s called ‘iPhone’ and not ‘iGame’ or ‘iReader’), used to make phone calls, send SMS-es, surf the web, and read e-mails in a touch-screen interface. Seriously, the sleek gadget will neither become a gaming console like Sony’s PSP or Nintendo’s DS nor an e-Book reader like Amazon’s Kindle. Never!