Why Amazon Kindle 2.0 is Better than the iPhone

In the past few days, I have read all kinds of articles about how iPhone 2.0 crushes the Kindle, and how Kindle 2.0 is no better than the first Kindle. I love the iPhone. I think Apple has done a lot of good things to make the iPhone the best gadget in the world. At the same time, I think the iPhone is overrated. There I said it. The iPhone may have the best mobile applications. It may even be “cooler” than the Kindle. But it certainly doesn’t make you smarter!

I hear our leaders talk about how the U.S. has become less competitive in science and how we don’t have enough engineers. You know why? Because we spend more time on entertainment (videos, games, …) than actually reading good books. People just don’t spend enough time reading and learning these days. Sure. You read blogs. But a lot of those blogs are opinions and not facts. And let’s not forget that a lot of those blogs (maybe 90% of them) are written by folks who read blogs and not books. You see the trend? We spend less time reading material that is well-researched and more time reading opinions and link-baits. If you read blogs for an hour a day, you are at least trying. A whole lot of folks don’t read books nor blogs. They read magazines, but nobody has become the next Einstein by reading celebrity magazines.

I am not going to argue for the Kindle being faster or less weighty than the iPhone. I find those comparisons to be too shallow. Think about it. Amazon Kindle allows you to read books wherever you are and actually exercise the muscle that matters the most. If you are using the iPhone to read books 2-3 hours a day, then more power to you. But a lot of iPhone users don’t, and that is why Amazon Kindle is better than Apple iPhone.