Macenstein

I would no more expect a pro-Apple article from a site called “Windows IT Pro” than I would expect a pro-Microsoft one from a site called Macenstein, but I WOULD expect them to be more professional than we are and actually get their facts straight before twisting them. After all, “Pro” is in their name.

However, in his recent article “Sorry, Apple: Kindle Was Number One This Christmas”, Paul Thurrott omits a pretty important detail as he gleefully points out that this holiday season, Amazon’s Kindle out-sold the #2-ranked iPod touch as the most popular electronics item on Amazon.com.

You see, for some reason Thurrott does not think it is worth mentioning that while you can buy an iPod touch on Amazon.com, Apple.com, Target.com, Best Buy.com, Wal-Mart.com, B&H Photo, and just about any online electronics retailer, you can also buy an iPod touch at any of those major chains’ thousands of brick and mortar stores across the country, not to mention at my local grocery store. On the other hand, where do you think you can buy a Kindle? That’s right. You can ONLY buy it on Amazon. (or maybe from a random guy on eBay at a jacked up price). So it kind of makes sense that given Amazon is the only game in town when it comes to the Kindle, they would have pretty decent sales. On a related note, I’d even go so far as to wager that BMW dealers sell more BMWs than Ford dealers do. So realistically, the only real comparisons that should be made in Amazon sales figures are between items that are widely available everywhere.

Amazon has decided not to release actual sales figures for the Kindle, but it’s a pretty safe bet that the Kindle’s #1 sales figures will likely not equal 1/10th of the sales of the iPod touch this holiday season.

Now, never one to miss a chance to put a pro-Apple spin on things, if I wanted to go really nuts on the Kindle sales figures, I could point out that Amazon claims the Kindle was also “the most gifted” item this holiday season. To my mind, that means no one really wants it, they just couldn’t think of anything to get the patriarchs of the family this holiday season. I figure it likely came down to the question of “What do we get Dad THIS year?”, and since everyone got him a digital picture frame two years ago, and a GPS unit last year, (and probably an iPod for Father’s Day), the Kindle was this year’s expensive-Dad-will-never-use-this-but-at-least-we-got-him-something-expensive-to-assuage-our-guilt-at-not-really-knowing-our-father-at-all present.

One final thing worth noting in Thurrott’s article is his final parting shot at Steve Jobs. He mentions that he finds it odd Apple is rumored to be working on it’s own “Kindle-like” device (the iTablet) despite Jobs’ “infamous claim that ‘people don’t read anymore'”. However, Jobs may have been right, as Amazon claims that Kindle books outsold “real” books for the first time on Christmas Day. Given that the Kindle owner base is still insanely small when compared with the literate population in general, for digital books to outsell real books implies not many people are reading books in ANY form, real OR digital. (Oh, OK, I know, you’re thinking “Who buys a book online ON Christmas?” Obviously the explanation is the 5 new Kindle owners wanted to actually try reading something on their new toy, and that outsold real books 5 to 4.

(Ok, that’s probably an exaggeration, but I just had the momentary gut reaction all Apple fanboys experience when our beloved leader is called into question).