Amazon vs Apple: The battle for books by Damon Brown

People are talking about Apple muscling in on Nintendo’s portable gaming territory, but its biggest competitor of late has been Amazon. You know, the one with all the books? Apple’s got your ears, but now it’s started fighting for your eyes too.

Follow this: a couple months ago Amazon – out of nowhere – released Kindle for the iPhone. A little, free program, the Kindle app lets you read electronic books purchased on Amazon’s e-book reader. A month later, Amazon announced the Kindle DX, a big version of its Kindle reader, formatted for newspapers, magazines and other periodicals – things that we have been reading on the iPhone for the past two years.
It is doubtful that, even without Amazon’s cock-blocking, the small-ass iPhone would ever overtake the book, magazine or newspaper industries. However, power moves like the Wall Street Journal’s new polished iPhone app are making the iPhone the go-to place for news (and reading) on the go.

Damon Brown is author of “The Pocket Idiot’s Guide To The iPhone”. His latest book, “Porn & Pong: How Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider And Other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture”, is out now. Read his writing at www.damonbrown.net

Damon writes a fortnightly column for iPhone Kung Fu and also features in iCreate Magazine each month.