Unboxed: Amazon Kindle 2 gets iPod treatment. Will it sell?

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 84
    That's what you have. After many months, even the original screen is amazingly easy to deal with. Yes, Classics on my iPT looks cooler, but I read more on the Kindle. Any existing color display at Kindle size would either mean hours of battery life (instead of days) or truly exorbitant cost.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by carloblackmore View Post


    I love that they kept the Amazon-factory styling for the exterior look of the package. But they could consider modernizing it a little.

    And I still can't stand the dull-gray MONOTONE display - are we back in the 20th Century?? I understand the concept of a simple page as a book would be, but would it kill ya Amazon to add a little nuance? Maybe an off-white page or true-black for the text or the occasional deep-red accent for a header?



  • Reply 42 of 84
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by teckstud View Post


    Yes, but how much will it sell for - that is the question. Will it be under $1,000?



    Considering that an unsubsidized 8GB iPhone is about $600 USD, it's hard to imagine a 7-10" version at much less than $1000. they can't just include a bigger screen inside a bigger case. They would also have to include a faster CPU, better GPU and, perhaps, more RAM to deal with the larger, higher resolution display. This would then require a larger battery and I would think people would expect a larger capacity device since the device is larger and more "computer-like." That alone would make it quite expensive though if sold through carriers, the way AT&T sells subsidized Dell netbooks, it might be more useful, but would such a large device be a phone or would there just be a data fee from the carrier. AT&T charges $60/month for unlimited data to a computer. All-in-all, I am not sure it would be a good move for Apple.
  • Reply 43 of 84
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by samiam View Post


    ... I agree with several other posts commenting on the lack of support for other formats. I think this will ultimately lead to limited success for the device. The ipod succeeded because it supported the legacy mp3 format and incorporating it into there own ecosystem. Amazon is trying to create a similar ecosystem by keeping everything closed. There are literally millions of free books out there in PDF or DOC formats. Making it easy to use these formats would seriously reduce the number of books sold. It is kind of backwards from the ipod ecosystem. Apple makes very little money selling music and gets their money from selling ipods. Amazon is trying to grab money with both hands. Close the ecosystem as tight as you can so you can sell more books and make money off of the device itself. I might work, but it won't work as well. If I am going to carry around a reader, I am going to want to read PDF and excel documents from work... word documents from home... listen to audiobooks... listen to music. I want to do it with simple sync and not email and conversion. ...



    I think you've really hit the nail on the head here.



    While the article compares it to the iPod physically and stylistically, the real power of the iPod model is in the way the product addresses the market and the usability as described above. I'm not so sure they really have time to perfect the Kindle as you describe however. One can't help but think that an Apple version of the same device running mobile OSX and "Pocket Preview" or some such would fulfil your vision and that such a device might be out before Kindle 3.0 ever leaves the factory.



    It would open up the book market in the same way as the iPod opened up the music market and put Amazon's money making machine in the same place as the record labels. Maybe Amazon is only even making the Kindle because they are so sure that this will eventually happen that they are trying to pre-emptively lock up the market with their own device to get whatever lead they can.
  • Reply 44 of 84
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by teckstud View Post


    Actually the Kindle 2 has 16 shades of grey vs 4 shades of grey on kindle 1- a big difference. I plan to get one this summer as I enjoy reading the newspaper on my commute each day. This will make that experience a whole lot better and I won't wind up with anything to dispose of.

    I am a little perplexed by the title of this thread "Will it sell?"

    It's already been selling big time (Kindle1) and this will be an even bigger success- it's been selling before it was even released.

    Jeff Bezos on Charlie Rose was excellent yesterday demonstrating it.



    It's been selling, it's just a question of whether it's a mass market or niche product. For something that's supposedly a popular product, Amazon is very reluctant to give actual figures rather than vague superlatives. Without actual figures, I can understand why people think it's a niche product, because big sales figures would help with the bandwagon effect, low sales figures would detract from it.



    This isn't anything necessarily against Bezos, but the ball is in his court if he really wants to settle that discussion. I thought his Daily Show interview was amusing.
  • Reply 45 of 84
    bocboc Posts: 72member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by teckstud View Post


    Netbooks and ultra compacts are selling big time now. Too bad we don't have our own version of a 7-11" anything now.



    We will just watch as the hardware improvements make a 7-11" device practical rather soon.



    1. People do not comment on it hardly at all, but higher screen resolution (smaller pixel sizes) have been coming in more devices, leading to greater detail more like printing. iPhone is around 160 dpi. Doubling to 300 dpi or so will make a world of difference.



    2. Newer less expensive white LED technology for backlighting has been done in a university lab recently. Cost, weight, power & size are going to drop when backlight is needed (desired).



    3. Flexible circuits including those for displays are starting to be shown as development projects. The eventual rollout-rollup screen may make it in time.



    4. Ultra-dense storage mediums are being proven possible.



    5. Newer human interface modes which eliminate the need for complex keyboards for common uses are obviously practical and being refined by Apple and others.



    You can bet your life that when Apple gets the hardware at the right price to let it produce a superior iTablet or whatever, it will put one out.
  • Reply 46 of 84
    well, it looks neat, but at $359, it is a bit pricey.



    i may consider getting one, but at closer to $200.
  • Reply 47 of 84
    I had the kindle for exactly 3 hours.



    I will not even get into the features and benefits which may or may not be legit. Fact is, the device is extremely slick, and will very easily fall off a couch, table, whatever.... AND then you can probably kiss your Kindle display good bye!



    Exactly this happened to me, the Kindle fell off a couch from about 2 feet high onto a hard wood floor... which caused a corner area to no longer display anything. This thing is just NOT made for real world use as a book replacement. Thats my opinion anyway....
  • Reply 48 of 84
    zunxzunx Posts: 620member
    This is what Apple should do:



    Next Apple moves will be Books and Games?

    http://spidouz.wordpress.com/2008/09...ooks-and-games



    With the full Mac OS X inside (not just OS X). VGA-out port for wired videoprojector presentations using full native Keynote and PowerPoint files (no conversion required). Firewire for repairs via Target Disk Mode.



    We need thousands for our University.
  • Reply 49 of 84
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BoC


    3. Flexible circuits including those for displays are starting to be shown as development projects. The eventual rollout-rollup screen may make it in time.



    An e-reader with a flexible e-ink screen will be shipping in the fall.





    3 ounces, ARM11, up to 8GB Micro SD, 16 grayscale, 3.5G HSDPA, ActiveSync, Bluetooth,

    E-mail POP3/IMAP,\tRSS feeds (html & podcasts)

    html, pdf, doc, txt, epub, pdb, azw // mp3, aac, wma // jpeg, png, gif, bmp

    (athough the plastic transistors are prolly gonna cost ya)



    Kindle 1 => Compaq Portable I -- 1982, 28 lbs

    Kindle 2 => Compaq Portable II - 1984 , 26 lbs (much improved!)
  • Reply 50 of 84
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


    Personally, I'd love to see Kindle put overpriced textbook publishers on notice.



    You'd be surprised how much of the cost of the textbooks in the development of the primary and the auxiliary materials. While the marginal cost of the book and it's logistics isn't trivial and ebooks are likely the future, it probably won't have as huge an impact on the cost as one might think. Costs and profit are being squeezed out of the textbook publishing business.



    Trade and reference books are mostly one-off so there's no comparison.
  • Reply 51 of 84
    The Kindle 2 may be an improvement over the original model; but there has to be a reason why Jeff Bezos refuses to divulge Kindle sales figures, and it isn't because he doesn't want to embarrass the competition!
  • Reply 52 of 84
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Adjei View Post


    the cables looks similar to Apple's calbles.



    I own Kindle 2, and its awesome, but a real coincidence is the printed text on the back that says model and serial info looks and is laid out EXACTLY like the back of the iPhone. Well almost.
  • Reply 53 of 84
    *Ignorance Alert*



    Ok, so this is only available in the states? re: the download service.
  • Reply 54 of 84
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by zunx View Post


    This is what Apple should do:



    Next Apple moves will be Books and Games?

    http://spidouz.wordpress.com/2008/09...ooks-and-games



    With the full Mac OS X inside (not just OS X). VGA-out port for wired videoprojector presentations using full native Keynote and PowerPoint files (no conversion required). Firewire for repairs via Target Disk Mode.



    We need thousands for our University.



    Uh...VGA and FireWire? Did I click on a thread from 2002 by accident? I'm pretty sure if Apple wanted to, they could whip up some sort of repair mode that worked over USB, and if they use any kind of video-out (unlikely for a handheld tablet), it'd be miniDP plus whatever adapter(s) you add on.



    Also, the desktop Mac OS X Aqua UI is just plain not suitable to be a touch interface. That's why they more or less started from the ground up with the iPhone UI and then threw in some familiar kinds of controls if they still made sense. Expecting me to use my finger to grab scroll bars (there's a reason they aren't even there except as indicators on the iDevices), poke tiny window control buttons and navigate menus is kind of ridiculous, even if all of the above were scaled up via CoreUI's resolution independence ? you'd end up with the Aqua equivalent of Windows Mobile and PalmOS, both of which missed the point and tried to shoehorn a mouse-based UI onto touch devices. Even if they did put desktop OS X with revised UI conventions on such a tablet, I'm pretty sure any developer who wanted to get their app on it would have to include an extra set of touch-appropriate NIB/XIB/whatever files, in addition to the ones which would get called up on normal Macs. Come to think of it, it'd be a LOT more hassle than just scaling up the iPhone/iPod touch version of OS X, which is already built around the idea of touch control, and has legions of developers already making touchable, tiltable software for it.
  • Reply 55 of 84
    dentondenton Posts: 725member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jamsian View Post


    "The real killer app (if it can be called an app) would be college textbooks."



    I work in publishing and textbooks are the worst possible use for a Kindle. We publish hard and soft science books and the Kindle's 6 inch screen is woefully inadequate. A full 65% of the artwork in our textbooks (mainly engineering, mathematical, forensics, but some social science and humanities) cannot be displayed on the Kindle without severe loss of detail. The devise is limited to a single font, making math texts very difficult to display, the lack of color makes forensic titles irrelevant, and the lack of Unicode support means the chemistry, physics, cultural, and language studies books we we co cannot be displayed without expensive rework. Kindle is for trade paperbacks and nothing else. I hope the Kindle 3 gets with modern standards and allows us to move textbooks forward.



    Cool comic, love that series and will check to see if it is available on my Kindle



    I stand by what I say: when Amazon figures out how to get textbooks on the Kindle, colleges will close down their bookstores. What I say is perfectly compatible with your problems being solved with a future release of the Kindle. Perhaps having important colour figures online, and only the text on the Kindle is an option. My experience is with math texts, and there is little in any of them that would not be easily modified for a grey-scale display.
  • Reply 56 of 84
    A year ago I thought this product would tank...

    Fortunately I wasn't foolish enough to make that prediction on any message board



    I decided to purchase the Kindle 1 in January... since many of the textbooks for the doctoral program that I am in are available via the Kindle...

    For example.. Most of the books I am required to read are in the 25-35 range for the physical copies... the Kindle copies are 9.99... So each book I save anywhere from 15-25 dollars..

    I have to read 14 books this semester... so I have saved at least 210 .... and I will have all the books on my Kindle for easy reference for my dissertation work..



    My biggest concern when I purchased in Jan 09 was that they would put out an upgrade soon after... (I guess this is a common worry amongst this technology hungry population)...

    Amazon stated the product was backordered and my shipment would come sometime in Feb...

    Great news is that I got an email in Early Feb telling me that I would be getting the Kindle 2 instead!!

    I will be getting it in the next day or two.. and I'm really looking forward to it... as much as I am awaiting the next video iPhone !!!!
  • Reply 57 of 84
    dentondenton Posts: 725member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    I don't see how that will change anything, the same industry is going to be the ones that will provide the ebook version. You would have to find authors that bypass that industry and sell straight to the ebook companies, and I don't know how they'll be able to afford an illustrator to make any diagrams they may need.



    DRM, my friend. The publishers will have tight-control over their books. If the second-hand market disappears, there will never be a saturation of second-hand textbooks available to students for cheaper than buying a new textbook. One reason that textbooks cost so much is because publishing companies force their authors to release new editions every other year in order to keep moving sales in new textbooks. Without this, the price of a new textbook may end up being less than the current prices of used textbooks. Everyone wins; from the publisher (whose unit sales per edition increase), to the authors (who need not update their textbook needlessly every other year), to the consumers (who pay lower prices due to decreased costs).
  • Reply 58 of 84
    vineavinea Posts: 5,585member
    I wrote (some) of this a little while ago but it seem germaine for the Kindle 2:



    Saw this over at Pournelle's blog. The author is Francis Hamit that has been doing e-Books for a while.



    Money Quote:



    Quote:

    And iPhone is the obvious future of e-book publishing because it has attained the kind of critical mass; the installed base, needed to produce significant sales. There are over 15 million iPhones and ten percent of them already have e-book readers on them. Compare that to the putative numbers for the Kindle and the Sony Reader. Then compare the price and the additional functionality and you see that the market advantage of IPhone will continue to dominate this new market.



    Link



    If you look at amazon's history with ebooks you can see why some folks are not quite as enthused about the prospects of Kindle 2.



    I use both Stanza and Bookshelf and have quite a few ebooks. I won't be buying a Kindle 2 given the DRM. Not that I care that much about DRM in general but I read my ebooks about evenly on my laptop and iPhone.



    If Amazon was serious about eBooks they wouldn't have locked .azw to just the kindle. Even assuming that the Kindle 2 does twice as well as the Kindle, it's really unlikely that it will ever reach the iPhone ebook reader penetration numbers...and therefore will probably never have critical mass to become a mass market product.



    I'm not lugging a Kindle around every day. I may lug a netbook around and I always lug my iPhone around. Which means when I'm stuck somewhere and would like to do a little reading the odds are really high I can from my iPhone. Or perhaps my netbook. But never for a one use item that's just as expensive as a cheap netbook.



    Any failure of the Kindle 2 has ZERO impact on the potential for a 10" touch pad from Apple IF it can fill the netbook niche. That's debatable without a real keyboard.
  • Reply 59 of 84
    teckstudteckstud Posts: 6,476member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    It's been selling, it's just a question of whether it's a mass market or niche product. For something that's supposedly a popular product, Amazon is very reluctant to give actual figures rather than vague superlatives. Without actual figures, I can understand why people think it's a niche product, because big sales figures would help with the bandwagon effect, low sales figures would detract from it.



    This isn't anything necessarily against Bezos, but the ball is in his court if he really wants to settle that discussion. I thought his Daily Show interview was amusing.



    I suppose the numbers are fine when you take into account that the reading of books in itself is a niche market nowadays when compared to such mass market habits as listening to music or viewing various forms of entertainment.

    I don't think they need to disclose numbers actually as long as the product delivers. I really don't think users care about how many Kindles sell as long as it works for them and I haven't heard of many complaints.
  • Reply 60 of 84
    teckstudteckstud Posts: 6,476member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by palex9 View Post


    I had the kindle for exactly 3 hours.



    I will not even get into the features and benefits which may or may not be legit. Fact is, the device is extremely slick, and will very easily fall off a couch, table, whatever.... AND then you can probably kiss your Kindle display good bye!



    Exactly this happened to me, the Kindle fell off a couch from about 2 feet high onto a hard wood floor... which caused a corner area to no longer display anything. This thing is just NOT made for real world use as a book replacement. Thats my opinion anyway....



    Well firstly it's an electronic reader not a book replacement! Anything electronic could/would probaly suffer damage if dealt the same fall.

    But that's too bad- did Amazon replace it? There must be some kind of warranty-no?
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