I wonder about the number of titles available. I enjoy reading books, but if the selection is limited to whats available on their lending library, I may still have to purchase many of the books I want to read which makes the $10 per month seem a bit expensive.
Is there a way to know in advance what titles are part of the program? The ebooks that I read tend not to be less than $10 USD - much more in some cases. I guess I will try it for a month and see whether it's worth it for me. I'm surprised to see negative comments about the Kindle App. It's worked pretty well for me for the most part. There have been a few instances where I had to re-download all of my purchases but from a readability and synchronization standpoint it's pretty decent. By default I always start with iBooks and only go with Amazon if iBooks is missing the title.
From a philosophical perspective I think it's a good idea to have ebooks curated outside of any device vendor's ecosystem just to spur innovation in the ebook (and app) domain. At some point there is going to be a throttling effect by having content captive inside all these silos. Nobody is excellent at everything and separation of concerns is a sound architectural principle when dealing with scalability. The problem is that the horses have already left the barn and the current megastore owners like Amazon have locked up the content in their own silos. My preference would be having online shopping malls that provide alternative ways to sell digital media. When you have millions of single type of content stuffed into a single store like iTunes or GooglePlay it's nearly impossible for the vast majority of content owners to get their work in front of customers on virtual store shelves for customers to purchase. As much as I love the App Store I think that it has long been in a state of denial about being the right model to really serve the needs of what it claims to serve. It has nothing to do with anyone making boneheaded decisions or being malicious, it's simply that we don't know any better so we're mapping the model to what we do know. What we have today is the equivalent of early airplane designs that had flapping wings - because that's what our reference model (birds) used. Once we figured out aerodynamics the flapping wings went away. We've yet to find the "aerodynamics" for the mass digitalization of human generated and initiated content.
It would be nice to see Audible books under this plan. All you can listen to for $120 a year.
Less than 8,000 titles that are "whispersync" (aka including audio) for Kindle Unlimited.
Audible itself has 40k (based on investor site) to 150k (from wikipedia) titles, which pretty much dwarfs the KU selection. Of course, at Audible I pay $180/yr for 12 credits - some of which give an immense amount of value (Cryptonomicon was 47h for 1 credit, very nice).
Though I'd like Whispersync, my audiobook usage is pretty limited to commutes so not useful for me, so I'll stick with Audible for now (usually use up all my credits and not much more aside from the BOGO specials).
No. Indoors, you can easily read on an iPad under any lighting conditions. Eink? You need to have a strong light to read comfortably.
Yes, you can read the iPad indoors, but it provides far more eyestrain than an e-ink reader. Unless I started traveling constantly as I used to, I would never buy a Kindle because I don't want to carry so many different devices, but I have to admit that the Kindle is far easier to read if all I care about is reading books. You have to give credit where credit is due.
An ideal device would somehow enable both e-ink and a retina display in the same physical device.
At least with the Kindle and Kindle app you have a choice to read on your phone, iPad, computer, or Kindle device.
When is Apple going to release an app for Android or Windows? It would seem to make sense because they could sell books to people who don't have an iOS device.
Comments
Is oysterbooks available in the UK? They offer the same thing.
eInk readers are far superior for reading than multi function tablets.
I think we see the writing on the wall why Amazon purchased Audible.com and Comixology.com. I can see similar offering in the future.
From a philosophical perspective I think it's a good idea to have ebooks curated outside of any device vendor's ecosystem just to spur innovation in the ebook (and app) domain. At some point there is going to be a throttling effect by having content captive inside all these silos. Nobody is excellent at everything and separation of concerns is a sound architectural principle when dealing with scalability. The problem is that the horses have already left the barn and the current megastore owners like Amazon have locked up the content in their own silos. My preference would be having online shopping malls that provide alternative ways to sell digital media. When you have millions of single type of content stuffed into a single store like iTunes or GooglePlay it's nearly impossible for the vast majority of content owners to get their work in front of customers on virtual store shelves for customers to purchase. As much as I love the App Store I think that it has long been in a state of denial about being the right model to really serve the needs of what it claims to serve. It has nothing to do with anyone making boneheaded decisions or being malicious, it's simply that we don't know any better so we're mapping the model to what we do know. What we have today is the equivalent of early airplane designs that had flapping wings - because that's what our reference model (birds) used. Once we figured out aerodynamics the flapping wings went away. We've yet to find the "aerodynamics" for the mass digitalization of human generated and initiated content.
According to press reports, Amazon is paying the publishers the regular wholesale price for each downloaded ebook...
If that's true, this could be a great way to funnel money from Amazon to authors and publishers. Pay $10 and then download 600,000 books. Hmm.
A quick look at the selection of books in the Unlimited section leaves me underwhelmed. I'm sure it's a great deal for someone - else.
It would be nice to see Audible books under this plan. All you can listen to for $120 a year.
Less than 8,000 titles that are "whispersync" (aka including audio) for Kindle Unlimited.
Audible itself has 40k (based on investor site) to 150k (from wikipedia) titles, which pretty much dwarfs the KU selection. Of course, at Audible I pay $180/yr for 12 credits - some of which give an immense amount of value (Cryptonomicon was 47h for 1 credit, very nice).
Though I'd like Whispersync, my audiobook usage is pretty limited to commutes so not useful for me, so I'll stick with Audible for now (usually use up all my credits and not much more aside from the BOGO specials).
By the way, you can read Kindle eBooks on any Mac, iPhone or iPad with Amazon's free software at http://amzn.to/1irka2c
Unlimited books to read, that's like my dream product. US only, *sigh*.
I guess I'll say it again, have you tried oysterbooks?
I guess I'll say it again, have you tried oysterbooks?
Their website looks good. I'll check it out, thanks.
Edit: Oh, it also appears to be US only.
Sorry then, I wasn't sure. Got to admit that over 500,000 titles is pretty impressive for a little known company.
By the way, you can read Amazon (Kindle) eBooks on any iPhone, iPad or PC/Mac with Amazon's free software: http://amzn.to/1irka2c
Until you go inside.
Even indoors
No. Indoors, you can easily read on an iPad under any lighting conditions. Eink? You need to have a strong light to read comfortably.
No. Indoors, you can easily read on an iPad under any lighting conditions. Eink? You need to have a strong light to read comfortably.
Yes, you can read the iPad indoors, but it provides far more eyestrain than an e-ink reader. Unless I started traveling constantly as I used to, I would never buy a Kindle because I don't want to carry so many different devices, but I have to admit that the Kindle is far easier to read if all I care about is reading books. You have to give credit where credit is due.
An ideal device would somehow enable both e-ink and a retina display in the same physical device.
When is Apple going to release an app for Android or Windows? It would seem to make sense because they could sell books to people who don't have an iOS device.