It also raises the question of how Amazon’s move to put its reader app on other (non-Amazon) devices will affect its wireless strategy. My understanding is that, in the US, the cost of the wireless is built into the cost of a book/newspaper purchase. This isn’t going to work when the customer is buying the book from within their iPhone. Perhaps that’s why they are currently insisting that the books be purchased from their website rather than directly from inside the iPhone app.

And if this is the case, it might indicate that Amazon has been caught on the hop with this move to the smartphones. If it was planned from the beginning, I doubt Amazon would have taken the wireless route that it did with the Kindle.

The US based devices use the Sprint CMDA/EVDO based technology, but of course there are many, many more GSM/UMTS based users around the world–and many in the US too now that AT&T has rallied around the iPhone.

If the Kindle remains an Amazon exclusive device, carriers (or other competitors) will be struggling against Amazon’s momentum. Even if it were to remain Amazon’s device, it will need to work on other wireless technologies in Australia and NZ where CDMA is being abandoned. Wireless technologies will have a big impact on device costs… Typically a device manufacturer wants advance purchase of at least 100,000 devices to do a custom run.