[mechanical_fish]

The problem is that a Kindle is a tool for readers. But iPad is a more general-purpose tool: While usable by readers, it also serves up color rendering of web pages, TV, movies, and whatever else there is an app for, not the least of which is interactive games.

So iPad is going to swamp Kindle in the press, just as the audience, gross profit, PR, and media for the typical movie dwarfs that of the book or comic from which it was derived.

Amazon can't realistically have expected more from Kindle. The product remains successful, it continues (as we can see) to drive interest in Amazon ebooks on other hardware platforms, and most likely the hardware (or similar e-Ink hardware) will remain available in one form or another for the relatively small number of buyers who fit its use case. But it will never out-hype the iPad. The potential market is just too small.