The Kindle

I've had a Kindle for a couple of months now and my reactions largely follow James Fallows' first impressions right down to the fact that at this point I've become very attached to my Kindle and don't want to give it up, but at the same time have no intention of eschewing traditional books entirely.

One added observation, however, would be that the Kindle actually suffers from several ridiculous flaws. James refers to the inability to "flip" multiple pages at a time. It also doesn't let you cross-reference Kindle "locations" with brick-and-mortar page numbers. And you can only highlight whole lines at a time rather than starting with specific words. There are various other things like that. They're annoying. But at the same time, these are problems that I'm sure have solutions. When the basic technology of the Kindle Reader and Kindle Store are married to a design team (either at Amazon or at a competing firm like Apple) that's somewhat better at thinking this stuff through then I think you'll have a product a lot of people want to buy.

Comments

Yes, technology behemoths like Apple and Microsoft can and do eventually perfect operating systems, software and remove annoying glitches. After all, after several decades we finally were gifted Vista.

Posted by steve duncan | July 28, 2008 9:01 AM

Can you make marginal notations? If not I'd never buy one since I'd then only be able to use it for fiction and, while I enjoy reading fiction, I don't get to read enough of it to make a Kindle worth while.

Posted by matt (not the famous one) | July 28, 2008 9:29 AM

I've become very attached to my Kindle and don't want to give it up, but at the same time have no intention of eschewing traditional books entirely.

Some standard of success ya got there.

Posted by bab23 | July 28, 2008 9:48 AM

So, when are you going to have your book available in Kindle format?

Posted by ylight | July 28, 2008 9:57 AM

Yes, you can make marginal notations and, when you want to read them there is a menu that will list all of them with their text (bookmarks and highlights show the text at their location while marginalia, or notes, show your text).

Posted by Circus Freak | July 28, 2008 10:33 AM

When Steve Jobs was asked about the Kindle he said;

"Who cares. Nobody reads anymore."

Posted by judson | July 28, 2008 12:07 PM

At $350, I need a better selection of titles and more features. Paying for newspapers and blogs, which I can view for free on my computer, is also an unattractive trait of the device.

So, this is my idea: combine the iPhone and the Kindle into one multi-media device.

I think the iPhone is too small to mimic my laptop-based experience online: it’s much more difficult to read The Washington Post on the iPhone than on my Macbook, or any laptop or desktop, for that matter.

I would like to see an iPhone/Kindle hybrid that will allow me to use the new iPhone 3G wireless capabilities in accessing the internet; I’d rather pay for the internet service on the device, and have the browsing freedom I have on my laptop, than subscribe to the numerous blogs and newspapers that I presently read for free.

The Kindle is bigger than the iPhone, but still easy to carry, so one can easily differ the burden to a purse or briefcase. When you go on a break, you pull out the unit (let’s call it the iAwesome) and you can easily surf the internet and check email, or continue the book you’re reading.

Like the iPhone, the iAwesome will have a touch-screen, making page navigation easier. Remember: the iAwesome has a bigger screen than the iPhone, so reading a blog or newspaper will be easier anyway.

The iAwesome will also allow you to view movies and television shows (downloaded from, say, a quasi-iTunes service). Watching a movie on the iAwesome will be much more enjoyable than watching it on a such a paltry screen as that of the iPhone, too. In terms of portability, the iPhone is too small, and a laptop too big. The iAwesome will bridge the best of both worlds into one technological amalgam.

Another benefit with the touch-screen is this: say you come across a word while you’re reading that you’re not familiar with. Instead of having to highlight the entire line of text, as you do with the Kindle, you tap on the word with your finger, which will define the word for you in a pop-up box. Simply tap the definition box when you’re finished, and you’ll return to the page you were reading.

Posted by Nate | July 28, 2008 12:46 PM

I have had my Kindle for about 3 months and love it. My biggest complaint is that I can't loan out the books to other people after I read them.

What I like best is that it makes reading easier! The screen is relatively small and there is more space between lines. After I had read a few books on the Kindle, I realized how much more carefully I read and how, when faced with a page in a printed book with a lot of text in small type, I often skim.

BTW, Steve Jobs was wrong.

Posted by Lisa | July 28, 2008 12:58 PM

Nate - I also very much want your iAwesome, but the big problem right now is battery life. Because the Kindle uses electronic ink (or whatever it is they call it) instead of an ordinary screen, it has a much better battery life. The iAwesome, by comparison, would probably last about 3-4 hours of reading time (basically the same as video, since it would have to keep the screen lit the entire time, unlike with music on an iPod). Now, there's probably a solution that will be developed soon enough - whether more energy efficient screens, better batteries, or both - but until then, I think we're stuck with single use ebook readers like the Kindle.

Posted by Charles | July 28, 2008 1:02 PM

+ lets you page through multiple pages at a time (it's hard to tell given the way they count it, but I think between five and ten pages at a time). Also tapping the next button multiple times (quickly) has a similar though more controlled effect (it doesn't reload each page in sequence, just goes to the place you end up).

Posted by Mark | July 28, 2008 10:25 PM

Hasn't that been the problem since the first ebook readers, like a decade ago?

Posted by Anthony Damiani | July 29, 2008 2:47 AM

Cross-referencing locations to page numbers isn't a big deal unless you need to make a citation. But even then, it's only the academic community, and editors aiming at scholarly presentation, who will enforce requirements that citations have page references.

What's the answer? Give up on page numbers. When you have a full-text-searchable e-book as a source, a direct quote gives you all the information (the text itself) that you need to find it in its context. The academic community needs to let go of artifacts of the past, such as page numbers, where they've been superseded. As a think-tank editor myself, I'm very prepared to do this.

A concern, here, is the books on the Kindle store that are released as .tbz files. I'm not clear on the technical distinction between these and plain .azw files, but the two I have (both academic titles) have embedded fonts and are not searchable. This promises to make locating content very difficult unless the book comes with a table of contents that drills down to low-level subheadings (if they're present in the text).

Posted by Benjamin Hourigan | August 5, 2008 2:04 AM