Amazon’s ever-popular Kindle device and apps are the main factors which brought e-reading and premium digital content to the mainstream, and impacted the publishing industry as a whole.  At this point, there’s really no going back. The reason behind its popularity is the fact the Kindle is available to sync a single account across all the prominent mobile platforms, introducing the personal cloud to e-reading the way no one else did before.

“Amazon’s ability to keep pace with iPad production in December is a sign that the Kindle “is going to mass market from niche market” and that the iPad’s erosion of Kindle’s market “is not obvious,” according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Equity Research.”

iPad production has definitely dropped but it may just be due to the upcoming launch of  iPad 2 – a potentially fierce competitor for the Kindle to reckon with. Nonetheless, with the emergence of more and more attractive features including U.S-only eBook loaning which we covered here more extensively and even related FB groups, expeditions that 4.5 million Kindle units will sell in Q1 2011 may just realize.

The Kindle has seen tremendous growth in 2010, and siliconANGLE covered the highlights. That includes the time when the Kindle officially beat Harry Potter as Amazon’s all times best seller, the introduction of a Windows Phone 7 app and the Android Kindle app’s pre-installation on supporting Verizon devices.