“Ahh the Oprah effect. Consider that the talk show world’s version of King Midas recently featured the electronic book reader from Amazon.com dubbed Kindle on her show, hailing it as the greatest thing she’s ever seen, and even had Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on to tout Kindle’s virtues,” Jim Goldman reports for CNBC.
“It’s one thing to have Oprah praise something; but sales can go stratospheric when she gushes like this,” Goldman reports. “She gushed. And these sales since have been other-worldly.”
MacDailyNews Take: We couldn’t find any hard sales numbers for Amazon’s Kindle in Goldman’s article or, for that matter, anywhere else. It all seems to be a big secret. So, we contacted Mr. Goldman and asked:
Do you have any real unit sales figures for Kindle?
It seems to be a big secret.
To us, it seems quite easy to “sell out” of something if you don’t make very many to begin with – especially if you have Oprah sending her audience in concentrated quest of a device that really might not exist in meaningful quantities.
Please let us know if you can find hard units sales numbers.
Mr. Goldman promptly responded via email that according to his sources, Kindle will sell somewhere in the neighborhood of 425,000 units this holiday quarter (790K units total for 2008).
In his article Goldman continues, “Amazon now finds itself in the rarified air of Nintendo’s Wii. The Kindle has supplanted Apple’s iPod and iPhone, the Ferbie (do they still make those?) and just about everything else as this year’s must-have gadget under the tree.”
MacDailyNews Take: Whoa, there, Jim! Tens of millions of iPhones and iPods will be sold this holiday season. Versus 425K Kindles (which, as we’ve written before, looks like something John Dykstra superglued together back in 1975). Let’s look the numbers: Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster estimates 18.5 – 19 million iPods + 6.4 million iPhones. That’s 24.9-25.4 million devices or an average of 11,759 iPod/iPhone units per hour. In other words, this quarter, Apple will outsell Amazon’s total quarterly Kindle unit sales in just over 36 hours!
While we still highly recommend Jim Goldman’s work, in this case he’s obviously fallen victim to “the Oprah effect” himself. We simply cannot fathom how Goldman could write “The Kindle has supplanted Apple’s iPod and iPhone… and just about everything else as this year’s must-have gadget under the tree” with a straight face.
Maybe Jim was joking and we missed it?
Goldman regains his footing a bit and continues, “You’d think after the sell-out last year that Amazon would’ve gotten wise to its supply constraints and done something about the problem so it wouldn’t leave customers out in the cold again.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: On October 02, 2008, Andy Greenberg and James Erik Abels reported for Forbes, “It’s official: The iPhone is more popular than Amazon.com’s Kindle. And not just in the obvious categories like listening to music, browsing the Web or the other applications where Kindle barely competes. Now, the iPhone is also muscling into Amazon’s home turf: reading books… Stanza, a book reading application offered in Apple’s iPhone App Store since July, has been downloaded more than 395,000 times and continues to be installed at an average rate of about 5,000 copies a day.”
In their article, Greenberg and Abels didn’t even mention the sales of eReader, another popular free digital book reader for iPhone and iPod touch, or other digital book reader apps that are available via Apple’s App Store.
Huge fan of the Classics iPhone app. Have already read two books on it. Best $0.99 I have spent in a while.
I want a bi-fold device with two 8″x10″ displays hinged on their long sides. Overall dimensions when closed no more than 9″x11″x1″. So each side needs to be 0.5″ or less thick.
I want inline images, and touch screen controls for zooming text (which will reflow so it doesn’t spill off the side of the screen) and images. Gesture in a text block and the text zooms. Gesture in an image and the image zooms. Flick right to left and pages 2 & 3 change to pages 4 & 5. Flick left to right and the opposite happens. Drag (or flick quickly) right to left or left to right and you flip through the pages quickly. Add a brightness control, at least 8 hours battery life, and at least 1GB memory. Meet these minimum requirements and then I’ll be interested in buying an electronic book reader.
You couldn’t pay me to use a Kindle.
Now, if Apple could work with just one or two book publishers to pilot digital books for the Touch and iPhone. Not sure how much I would use it, but I can think of some instances where I would. I certainly don’t need another electronic appliance, such as the Kindle, in my Timbuk 2 bag for TSA to question as I go through security.
My wife, stepson, and a coworker all have a Kindle and love it. There seems to be a large number of people who look at a portable electronic device and only see the things it can’t do but they think it should and then rate it badly based solely on that impression. This is a lot like the early iPhone detractors who complained about it not being an open platform, or not being able to download songs from the iTunes store over the network, or a host of other things that it can’t do (or couldn’t at the time). All those things were true, but it was still a very popular device and those who did buy one by and large were very happy with what it could do.
The vast majority of Kindle users love it, even though it’s admittedly not perfect. The display is not back lit, but it is very good for extended viewing, which is what people who read a lot do (and, contrary to what Steve Jobs says, there are a *lot* of people who still read). It also has very good battery life if you don’t leave the wireless on. One of the best features, though, is that wireless service (which is free forever, by the way – not a subscription). You can browse books at Amazon, buy one (or more), and be reading it in literally just a couple minutes. And while the Kindle is not a good general purpose web browser, it’s still an effective way to check your gmail and browse largely text-based sites.
My stepson is 19 and is in the Army and is among the last people you’d think would like a Kindle (even he was skeptical, in fact). However, after using it for just a day or two he discovered that being able to carry around literally hundreds of books in his pack so he can take advantage of the many periods of “hurry up and wait” one typically encounters in the Army is invaluable. In fact, at least one of his buddies at his new base is also going to buy one because of how handy it is. Many soldiers in Iraq have similarly found it to be quite useful, even though they don’t have wireless access. They can load books via the USB connection to a computer and they’re set for quite a while. It turns out it’s pretty easy to use a Kindle while it’s sealed in a zip-lock bag to keep sand out of it – try that with a laptop.
So, everyone who thinks the Kindle sucks should hold off until they’ve actually tried it. It’s not a laptop, but it doesn’t pretend to be. It’s an e-book reader, and it serves that function very well.
The kindle doesn’t suck. I use Stanza for most of my reading on my iPhone, but the “free wireless” associated with the Kindle, along with its easy readability is a winner. I think it’s a great product.
I’m reading this while listening to a l0cc concert from Montreal in 78 from Wolfgangsvault.com.
@Kendall,
Thanks for the good laugh. That was funnier than shit.
However, I have used a Kindle, but I don’t own one. For what you get (tons of books, magazines and newspapers – over a cellular network – and a great screen to boot), it isn’t bad. But I have to wonder if it’s really worth the price considering the fact that you are paying what I think is a bit much for the electronic books. True, the prices for the books are a lot less than hardcopy, but not as much as I would expect. If Amazon cut the price of the device to $200 then I could justify it.
One more thing – the Blackberry Storm sucks major rhino ass.
@ “Reality” Check
What does the Kindle have to do with Apple?
The article attempts to incorrectly assert that Kindle has “supplanted” Apple’s iPod and iPhone. Which you would know, if you’d read more than just the headline.
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@biziaw:
“@ Famous Grouse
You’d have to turn your Kindle off during takeoff & landings as well, not just your iPhone.”
That’s exactly the Grouse’s point: the Kindle and every other “electronic device” have to be shut down turning takeoff / landing.
I’d say that on an average domestic flight, this denies around 45-60 minutes of reading (per flight segment). There’s only so many times you can read the monthly magazine or peruse the never-changing catalog.
Also sticking to dead trees…they have infinite battery life too!
-hh
@Gabriel
I don’t think Goldman’s point was that the Kindle is selling more than ipod/iphone…just that it’s “supplanted” ipod as the “it” thing to have: something that a lot of people want and it’s hard to get…like the Wii, Cabbage Patch dolls, etc.