The Amazon Kindle appears to be the current hot “must have” gadget on the market at the moment. It seems very much as if the ebook reader is an idea whose time has come – and the kindle ebook reader is undoubtedly the best example of such a device on the market at this time. It is also, and let’s make no bones about it here, cool.

The Kindle has often been compared to the Apple iPod – which, incidentally, now has a kindle application that permits you to read kindle books on it – by a number of industry watchers. In fact, going all the way back to the launch of the first Kindle in November of 2007, Steven Levy’s Newsweek cover piece proposed that the Kindle was the “… iPod of reading”. Two and a half years later it appears that drawing a comparison between the two devices might go some way towards understanding the current phenomenal success of the Kindle – and perhaps even allow some insight into what may happen in the near future.

Amazon supremo Jeff Bezos is quoted as stating, again way back in 2007, that “This [the Kindle] isn’t a device, it’s a service.” – and that is absolutely fundamental to understanding why the Kindle works so well in Amazon’s business model.

Some criticisms have been levied at the Kindle’s high price – it currently sells at $359 for the Kindle 2, slightly lower than the original Kindle price of $399. The original iPod was priced at $399 when it was launched – prices have fallen as the product was first accepted, and then passed through mainstream to as near as makes no difference ubiquitous. At the same time functionality has risen.

Apple is, and has been for some time now, synonymous with music downloads and has increased the available range of products to incorporate videos, games and a host of applications for the iPod. In a similar manner, Amazon is strongly linked with books, making the kindle a perfect choice of product for them. The recent unveiling of the larger Kindle DX is very significant, not purely because of the various technical upgrades that it boasts, but because it improves Amazon’s capability to provide newspapers, magazines and even educational textbooks to its customers.

It would be unwise to overlook the technical advantages of the Kindle series of readers completely of course, but it appears that, for Amazon, the technology is a means to an end and not the end itself. In fact, as far as e-book reader technology goes, Amazon are a little late to the party when you consider that there have been previous contenders – for example; the Franklin ebook (no longer being developed but still available from some sources) on the market since 1999, and Sony have had ebook readers for quite some time. There are other examples, some have already dropped out of the market, others are soldiering on without, currently at least, gaining anything like the volume of interest generated by the Kindle.

Another significant advantage enjoyed by Amazon at the moment is the 3G wireless technology utilised to allow Kindle users to download their ebooks in under sixty seconds without the need for a computer or a wifi connection – and without being tied in to a monthly contract or having to pay a download fee. It’s a fantastic example of the way Amazon have [leveraged the technology to provide a perceived benefit for their customers.

No monthly connection fee and no download charges means that customers do not feel tied in or committed to the Amazon service, an important factor considering the relatively high selling price and the current economic climate. Of course, whilst customers will be able to buy ebooks elsewhere to read on their Kindle, it is still going to be considerably simpler for them to buy from Amazon’s large, and ever growing, selection of Kindle friendly books. Amazon are going tolot of repeat business – just as Apple do with their iTunes store.

Using the iPod experience to predict the Kindle’s potential future, it seems improbable that the Kindle will have everything its own way. As previously stated, there are already a number of existing alternative ebook readers on the market – the Sony PRS is probably the most significant player aside from the Kindle at the moment, but there are others. These will either improve and provide strong competition for the Kindle or disappear from the marketplace.

Also worth considering is the fact that there are a number of new readers in development. Plastic Logic, has a Kindle DX sized reader in development which has been scheduled for launch in 2010. Rumours abound concerning the launch of an Apple tablet based notebook, thought to be aimed at the gap between an iPod Touch and a full blown MacBook. It wouldn’t be too fanciful to suppose that Apple might grow their iStore to include ebooks just as they expanded it to incorporate videos after the release of the iPhone and iPod Touch.

And it’s not just fiercer competition based on enhanced reader technology that Amazon might have to face. In March of 2009 Google and Sony announced that Google’s giganic library of public domain e-books would be made available gratis on Sony’s reader. That’s a total of 600,000 titles and is a clear signal that the ebook reader marketplace going to be strongly contested in future.

At the moment Amazon is sitting pretty. It has a vast and, most important of all – the Amazon Kindle is cool. Whether or not it develops into a ubiquitous iPod type product or not in the face of what will certainly be strong competition only time will tell. Amazon have been more than smart so far, so it seems probable that they will be a serious player in this emerging market for a long time to come.

One thing seems certain, we will all have the option to read books, magazines, newspapers and even college textbooks using portable digital readers in the immediate future. As competition, volumes of scale and advancements in technology combine to drive prices down this will become an increasingly popular choice for many, possibly even a majority of, readers. The way we read is poised to change, perhaps more quickly than you might think.