Amazon's Kindle. Hum.

November 19, 2007

I am all wrought up today over Amazon’s new Kindle device.

As you probably know, I take my reading pretty seriously. But I also take my technology seriously. That’s why I’m all clenched about this.

Amazon’s $400 device is specifically for reading stuff: books, newspapers, magazines. It has an e-ink display, which mimics the look and contrast of a printed page. OK, I appreciate the focus (there is a lot of bellyaching in various tech-centric blogs and forums today about how reading should really be done on multi-purpose devices and cell phones–I totally disagree.). I actually appreciate the eschewing of other wingdings like a full-blown Web browser, in a strange way.

But here’s where the problems start.

Have you seen this thing? When the photos were circulating this weekend, everyone was sure that they were of the prototype device because no product since Soviet Russia has looked so bad. What is this thing? A prop from Star Trek TNG? A mutated calculator watch? If I’m going to spend hours a day with a device, it needs to be hot. Not just functional. Hot.
Attention to detail. Sure, you can buy books directly on the device and it’s always connected via EVDO (a la Sprint phones), but when I watched the demo video I was struck by how ugly this process is. I noticed in not one, but two shots that the page to buy the book didn’t even fit on the screen–the “Buy” button was cut off. The buttons and page elements are ugly. I think it’s actually pretty awesome that the device is only black and white, but the designers of the UI need to embrace that, not fight with it.
Price. Not so much the unit (though $400 is a hefty chunk), but the $9.99 per book. Remember what you lose: the tactile, color gorgeousness of the book on your shelves, making your life brighter. All that’s left is data after that. I know I sound like one of those people who’s having a hard time giving up vinyl for MP3, but still.

What do you guys think? “Revolutionary” as they claim, or just another piece of garbage to throw on the e-book heap?

3 Comments

Chris Higgins says:

November 19, 2007 at 2:48 pm

I blogged this thing today too. I’m pretty baffled by the design — your TNG reference is right on. WTF?

Personally, I’m gonna wait and see. I’m very interested in seeing one in person — I want to better understand the screen contrast, for one thing. I don’t mind the “books in the cloud” thing so much (there will soon be a breaking point where I need to stop buying physical books, or deal with my existing book problem) but only because I believe Amazon will be around for a long time. I very much like the notion that they’ll let me re-download stuff — I think that’s a big failing of the iTunes Store.

Another interesting thing I saw is that you can have up to 5 or 6 Kindles on one account, and multiple units can read the same book simultaneously. Imagine getting a couple of them (ouch, spendy…but still) and sharing books with your friends. Sort of neat, no? Not quite as neat as literally handing the book to a friend when you’re through with it, but still.

Anyway, I’m kinda meh. In some ways I hope it works, because I think it’ll benefit small publishers (the long tail blah-blah), but I also really like physical books. As soon as we start seeing Kindle-only content, I’ll start worrying.

;Chris

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Brett says:

November 20, 2007 at 1:50 pm

1. Can we hype something when it’s actually hype-worthy? E-readers are so 2003. Amazon has broken no new ground here, this has been tried before. (See: sony, etc)
2. Who cares about wireless connectivity? Books take time to read. I don’t need to download a new book RIGHT NOW. Leave it off, make it cheaper and have longer battery life.
3. Why is there a keyboard? Maybe I’m missing something, but all I really need to do is turn a page. See interface for PDF readers.
4. Hardware: I think everybody can agree that nobody at amazon has any taste. Look at their website. Couldn’t they have made it look more like, oh I dunno, A BOOK?
5. Accent the usefulness of electronic reading; don’t try and be a book replacement. Allow sharing and commenting on favorite passages, uploading of comments from scholars to help you through difficult passages, dictionary lookup of words, cross references, full text search, etc. Stats on which passages you read the fastest, etc. There’s all kinds of interesting stuff that could be done, but Amazon seems to have missed it all, and is simply hawking a book replacement.
-Brett

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amazon kindle says:

May 24, 2010 at 7:40 am

Its truly a wonderful device for reading.I would advise you acquiring kindle.It’s certain a obtaining. Wireless is a distinctive function I will say and that’s make truly value for dollars. 3G wireless and global coverage, I personally travel a lot and truly worthy for me. You’ll be able to have any newspaper at any location. Paper like display, 1500 books storage and list is on.I love this small magic book. book prices of kindle are much cheape

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