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The iPhone actually isn't just a phone. In fact, it's arguable whether or not it's among the best phones out there. There are phones with simpler--i.e. phone only--interfaces, nicer form factors (little flip phones, for example) and probably better sound, clearer reception, etc.

The attraction of the iPhone is that it isn't just a phone. I don't have one, and probably won't get one for some time, but there are times--like when I'm traveling--that I would prefer to have one device that fulfills the functions of my Palm, my phone, and my video iPod all at once. The fact that this device does all this and more, including what I believe is a best-of-breed palmtop web access interface, puts it well outside the "just a phone" category.

But the real point here is not that it's the best thing ever. It's not. The point is that people only have (a) so much money, and (b) so much patience and space for carrying around gadgets. If people didn't want to carry a phone, a palm and an iPod, and consolidated them into an iPhone, then they aren't likely to want to add a new device for reading purposes unless there is something really revolutionary about the device. For someone who has to read on a portable device for a living, I can see them getting this and using it. If it were really cheap, I could see it being a popular gift. If the interface were sleek and simple, maybe it would be successful. But unfortunately, it's not all that awesome, and it's not cheap. I'd be very surprised if it gained more than a tiny niche audience.

People don't want one more thing to sync, to charge, to update, to carry, to protect. The iPhone is not the best at each thing that it does. However, it's good enough at a lot of things, including, potentially, at being an e-reader, that it's probably going to be tough for an expensive, single-function device to compete with it without some major advances.

I believe the Kindle was also going to be the size of a standard paperback book. That means its screen size is going to be a lot more functional for reading than the relatively small size of the iPhone screen.

This is something people are missing out on a lot. I have an iPhone, and it's great for mobile web browsing, but reading anything on that screen for longer than an hour or so your hands get cramped just from trying to hold it. The Kindle was designed to be held like a book. When we hold books, we shift the posture of our hands every time we turn a page, or shift from the left page to the right page. Why? Because hands aren't designed to be held crunched up in one position for hours on end. They need to move. Small screens like the iPhone weren't designed for the needs of book readers.

I feel the need to point out that there's a lot of FUD in the original article as well. I think the Forbes editors might have some AAPL stock perhaps?

From TFA:

There are also big questions about the device's wireless connection. The device will tap into fresh content via an EV-DO (Evolution-Data Only) wireless network. Will there be a monthly subscription fee?

No, they already said there was no monthly fee for wireless access.

How much of the Web will users be able to surf? Newsweek's Levy was able to download a copy of Charles Dickens' Bleak House from Amazon for $1.99, but anyone with full Web access can get the same title from Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) Book Search for free.

Actually, you can download eBooks in text or mobi format for free from the Kindle, so anything on Google book search should be free for the taking. Also, even though you have to subscribe to blogs if you want digital delivery of the content for offline reading, you can still browse to any blog or website and read it right from your Kindle. The only disadvantage: You have to use the next/previous page buttons to scroll up and down the web page. It's a limitation of the e-Ink technology, because you obviously can't smoothly scroll a page with a scroll bar that requires 1 second to update it's screen.

There is a lot of FUD out there about the Kindle, but I think it's going to be pretty amazing. Can you imagine having every O'Reilly book ever made on the thing, and the ability to do full text search/grep capability through your entire library of technical books? That alone is a killer app.

And don't even start me on this minor detail: that most of the defenders of Google Book Search have been all about "how you can't get the fulltext - you can search it, but not read an entire book" as their defence to the wholesale copyright games Google played with this.

You think if Apple and Google decided to make this available as a feature with GBS that the publishers wouldn't be screaming blue murder (and, in my opinion, rightly so)?

Agreed. The iPhone is a great phone (and general information-finding device), but peering at it for long periods of time on that tiny screen? No good, not for book-reading. This isn't to say that an iPhone-like solution might not be a really amazing reader... but the iPhone and the Kindle are trying to solve very different problems.

And as much as 'all-in-one' devices can be nice, sometimes you just make 'all' features suffer by cramming them into 'one' device. I think this is one of those cases; an eBook reader is meant to replace a book, which means it has different requirements (in terms of readability, power-use and form-factor). Trying to cram the functionality into other devices means the functionality suffers.