In-depth review: can Amazon's Kindle light a fire under eBooks? - Page 2

Originally Posted by filburt

The review could've done without Ann Coulter plug.

Originally Posted by filburt

One of the main problems mentioning Ann Coulter is that she is highly controversial political figure. Frankly, I am disappointed that AppleInsider decided to hint their political affiliation by mentioning someone like her.

Originally Posted by bigpics

The real potential: On campus??

Meanwhile, the encyclopedic review only briefly mentioned in passing what I consider the likely killer use of this device: all your textbooks you need to drag around campus and to and from the campus in a leatherbound less than one pound package, and at a discount to the limited press run prices printing them causes. There are millions of college students and tens of millions of others. Who need multiple spendy books every term.

And for taking notes there are so many options from legal pads to digital devices that the (first gen) lack of these on the Kindle isn't fatal.

Yet the review only said this wasn't likely to happen, and gave no indication why. If I were Amazon, I'd be hooking up with universities, state dept's of ed., college bookstores, etc. and working on device and content distribution deals.

Some colleges already ensure all their students have PC's or Macs. Why not a Kindle for all approved (or many or most) texts.

Anyway, if someone can 'splain to me why this can't/won't work/is unlikely to be a good biz model (and boon to burdened down students), I'll listen.

Originally Posted by NYCMacFan

You guys are too tough. This is a flawed first model, but I think this will transform reading as it improves. The whole point of this is that you can read it for hours and it is just like paper.

It does have the following issues:
*Poor ergonomics
*Cheap design
*Putting info in/typing is not that efficient
*Refresh rate could be faster
*If refresh rate is improved, then a touch screen would be great

I assume later versions will fix this and ebooks are here to stay. So get used to it. This is a whole new world of screen technology. Not as good as our modern LCDs for anything but books, but great for that, which is what it meant to do.

Steve Jobs is not at all fearful of this right now, but I bet he was impressed with the effort and sees some potential for this in the world (he probably just does not see a big profitable market potential).

P.S. You are not reading War and Peace on a laptop screen, an iphone or a PDA. A few people do read on them, but this is an exception to the rule. For most people the font is too small and screen hurts the eyes (an LCD is a flashlight pointed at your eyes after all).

Originally Posted by filburt

One of the main problems mentioning Ann Coulter is that she is highly controversial political figure. Frankly, I am disappointed that AppleInsider decided to hint their political affiliation by mentioning someone like her.

Originally Posted by bellicelli

Never again. The only way this business is going to succeed is in openness. The only way I plunk down another single dollar is when I have non-DRM and portable, interoperable content.

I'm not holding my breath for that.

Originally Posted by jackson5

Oprah Winfrey said the Kindle was one of her favorite things and offered a $50 discount which ends Monday. I first read the story here: kindlehelpdesk.com

Originally Posted by Roger Knights

The review should have mentioned that Amazon's e-books can be shared with up to five other Kindle owners--friends and family, IOW. Their accounts are registered with Amazon by the owner.

A couple of commenters objected to the inability to highlight: but the Kindle actually has that ability. (I forget if the review mentioned that fact.)

A couple of commenters worried about loss of their library if they lose their Kindle. But users can re-download any book they've bought from Amazon.

As for the need for book pricing to go lower: I think this will happen maybe five or ten years down the road, due to competition among publishers, and to competition from famous authors bypassing publishers and offering their works via kindle "self-published" at half the price. In the interim, there's nothing radical Amazon can do about pricing, because it's just a middleman.

The review omitted one of the Kindle's main flaws: they made it about 1/2 inch wider than the Sony (although the screen size is the same), with the result that it won't fit in the pockets of most sports jackets or suits.

The keyboard would be improved if it were a wider, landscape-oriented clamshell, which would also make the device more compact. (Assuming landscape-mode perusal were also enabled.)

It'll be interesting to see what sort of arrangement Amazon works out with Google to enable Kindle users to purchase books (or snippets thereof) from Google's scanned-in library. (It was recently announced that Google has settled a lawsuit by publishers and will pass along royalties to them from downloads by readers.) (Presumably Google is going to have to include some sort of DRM at the behest of publishers. It would be amazing, and unlikely if not. Will that DRM work on the Kindle? If not, can it be patched to handle two kinds of DRM?) Or maybe Google will sell the items directly without involving Amazon?

Regarding the textbook market: There was a press release a few months ago that said that Amazon had signed a deal with several major universities to do that, presumably on the 8.5" by 11" large-format Kindle that is rumored for release in 2009. A device of this size will be able to display PDFs natively (without conversion), which is a must for books containing large tables or artwork.

The E-Ink company is rumored to be working on a color version of its product.

Originally Posted by melgross

there has to be some economic advantage to this textbook size model. I can't find one.

Originally Posted by solipsism

This is the best I can find.

Nuclear Energy (Landolt-Bornstein: Numerical Data and Functional Relationships in Science and Technology - New Series)

$6,200

Kindle version
$7,800 Hardcover version ~ by Zeynel Alkan (Contributor), Bertrand Barré (Contributor), Rudolf Bock (Contributor), David Campbell (Contributor), Wolfgang Grätz (Contributor), Thomas Hamacher (Contributor), Klaus Heinloth (Contributor), Dieter H.H. Hoffmann (Contributor), Ingo Hofmann (Contributor), William J. Hogan (Contributor), Wolfgang Kröger (Contributor), Ernst Kugeler (Contributor), Kurt Kugeler (Contributor), Grant B. Logan (Contributor), Kanetada Nagamine (Contributor)

Originally Posted by melgross

Despite the advantages, the prices are still too high. It's likely that Amazon has sold a few hundred thousand, which is remarkable, but that's still peanuts.

Originally Posted by vinea

Kindle 2.0 Articles

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thre...omes_kind.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...082301365.html

"One person that has seen the device says it is as big a leap from its predecessor as the iPod mini was from the first iPod. Theyve jumped from Generation One to Generation Four or Five. It just looks better, and feels better, says the source."

But who cares? As stated above, I wouldn't get a Kindle until the DRM wasn't so horrid as to make the Kindle AZW books unusable in any other form. Jeez, why does Amazon care ANYWAY as to which reader you use? I'm not forking over $200-$300 for another device I gotta carry around when I already have serveral devices I can use to read ebooks that I carry around already.

I understand Apple's model...they sell hardware. iTunes was a mechanism to make their hardware best of breed. That's thier forte.

Amazon's forte is selling books. With less than 240K "storefronts" out there, they ain't selling many eBooks.

"New York Times Co. executives said today during the company's second-quarter earnings call that the newspaper has sold a ``small amount'' of subscriptions on the Kindle. "

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...PcM&refer=home

"I have been tracking the sales of Kindle editions of our books against sales of the printed versions for the past almost eight months. Kindle sales have declined noticeably over the past few weeks, while print editions continue to sell at a steady pace."

http://waltshiel.com/2008/08/13/has-...eaked-already/

I have Stanza (300K downloads) and eReader reports 250K paying users.

"As of the end of August eReader had been installed on just under a quarter million iPhone/iPod touch devices. Over 300,000 ebooks have been downloaded onto the iPhone/iTouch platforms from our store, and that does not include downloads of free books from places like Manybooks.com (for privacy reasons we dont track anything about what people do from the app if it does not involve our own stores).

Add in Stanza, bookshelf, and other iphone ebook offerings and it is abundantly clear that many more people are reading on the Apple devices than Kindle. There really is not even a question about it anymore. iPhone/iTouch required only about 90 days to exceed even the stratospheric end of the estimates for Kindle that Amazon themselves said were extremely high."

http://www.teleread.org/blog/2008/09...ks-from-store/

Amazon should have released a AZW reader on the iPhone. They STILL would have sold 200K+ Kindles but then they really WOULD have jumpstarted eBooks.

Instead Kindle kinda took the wind out mass market eBook sails (or sales if you prefer). It's niche and it'll stay that way as long as it's locked to one device that practically nobody buys.

Originally Posted by melgross

That's right.
Ten ounces is also pretty heavy by todays standards for a one trick pony as this is.

I can easily afford this, but I'm at a loss to come up with a reason as to why.

Originally Posted by Roger Knights

Ten ounces is lighter & more compact than ten pounds (of textbooks).
A year's worth of college textbooks costs more than a Kindle (the average cost of each college text today is well over $50--or that's what I remember reading somewhere), even a large-format Kindle (I hope). (If not, two years' worth of textbooks will cost more.
Even used copies of those textbooks would cost more than a Kindle (at least over four years of college)--and used copies often don't last long enough to sharply decline in price, because publisher's regularly come out with new editions to make them obsolete.
E-book textbooks can be updated annually to keep up with new developments in the field, so the average textbook on a Kindle will be more up-to-date, and previously purchased versions can be updated with supplements.
Students can hang onto their textbooks for reference, since there'd be no reason to sell them to cut down on clutter or pick up extra cash. (Resale would be impossible anyway.)
A student can use his Kindle for his other reading, both during and after college, amortizing his costs. He would thereby save money (in comparison to new books, anyway) and avoid clutter by buying his other reading matter that way.
A Kindle is "greener": less waste paper to pulp, less transportation and labor, fewer trees cut down, etc.