Kindlemania could suffer from bite of the Apple

A strange thing happened at Christmas. Well, two really. Amazon.comreported that its Kindle eReader had become the "most gifted" product in its vast inventory; and on Christmas Day sales of eBooks on its site exceeded those of physical books. The phenomena are, of course correlated: all those recipients of Kindles needed to buy something they could actually read on the devices. But the combination of the two "facts" has further ratcheted up speculation that 2010 will be the Year of the Kindle and the end is nigh for the printed codex.

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There is, you see, a shadow on Amazon's horizon. If industry gossip is to be believed, 2010 will also be the year in which Apple releases its Tablet (variously christened the iPad, iSlate and iTab by fevered commentators; not since Moses has a slate been the subject of so much advance speculation). This is a problem for Amazon because while the Kindle is probably the best of the current eReader breed, it is actually a rather clunky and primitive device...

John Naughton in The Observer