Amazon’s Kindle
This week, Amazon introduced a gadget that has the potential to change our world—or at least the way we read about it.
The Kindle (or just “Kindle,” as Amazon seems to prefer not to use the definite article) has the potential to be revolutionary. Which is not to say that it’s unexpected; there has been discussion, and a few largely ignored attempts, at e-book technology for years. But for the everyday reader, paper-and-ink books are still a technology that’s hard to improve. Until now, it’s been easier to carry around a paperback or hard-bound novel than to lug about a computerized device capable of displaying a book’s contents. And, unlike music, for casual readers there isn’t an obvious advantage to bringing your entire book collection with you wherever you go. Most people don’t read more than one or two books at a time, and I can’t see anyone wanting to put their bookshelf on “shuffle.”
So what does Amazon offer with the Kindle? As one of the world’s biggest booksellers, surely Amazon realizes that people like books. Well, for one thing, early reviewers say that Amazon has finally got the “electronic ink” technology right. Andy Greenberg, writing in Forbes, says that the Kindle “does a remarkable job of reproducing the feel of a book. The passive display technology produces no light, so a two-hour charge of its battery lasts for 30 hours of uninterrupted reading. In fact, it only takes thumbing through a few digital pages of a novel to forget that you’re using a newfangled gadget and become completely immersed in its content.” For Amazon, this is essential. The company claims that “reading Kindle’s screen is as sharp and natural as reading ink on paper—and nothing like the strain and glare of a computer screen.” As Jeff Bezos knows, one of the major knocks on the concept behind e-books is that no one would want to spend hours staring at a computer screen—something many of us do all day long at the workplace.
Kindle is also wireless, and uses 3G wireless technology (Sprint’s EDVO network, to be exact—and Amazon pays the charges) to connect to Amazon’s servers, from which its users will be able to download content for a reasonable $10 a book. This concept shouldn’t be too hard to sell, as the iPod/iTunes Music Store (and the Zune equivalent) have done the heavy lifting by familiarizing the public with the basic hardware/content model. Unlike your typical DAP, however, the Kindle works independent of a home computer.
As with any new device, early adopters will have to pay a premium to try out Kindle. Right now, Kindle can be had for $399, the same price as an 8GB iPhone, but without the flash and multi-functionality of the iPhone. (To its credit, Kindle also comes without any kind of subscription or contract commitment.) Amazon claims that there are 88,000 books (including “100 of 112 current New York Times Best Sellers”) currently available for download. That’s not bad, but it’s not yet very comprehensive, either.
And I’m not sure how people will feel about downloading books to a portable device rather than putting a book on a shelf. These e-books can’t be loaned to friends, for example. And as a parent, who is reminded constantly in the media that one of the most reliable indicator of academic success for children is the number of books in the home, I’m not sure I could feel as smug about Kindle’s 200-book capacity as I can about having a house littered with literature. (On the other hand, it would be nice not to need so many bookshelves.)
What are your thoughts about Kindle? Is this something you think you would want and use? Is this the inevitable next step for books? Or is it just another failed attempt to improve on a technology that basically starts and ends with Gutenberg?
I think it’s interesting & if it were cheaper, I’d grab one. It’ll NEVER replace books in my home, for many reasons, but for vacations and to keep in the car? Yeah, I’d do it. I tend to read quickly, so I can never bring enough books with me on vacation…
Comment by gabby — November 21, 2007 @ 9:44 am
I can’t see how charging more than the cost of a paperback is going to work in the long term. Many of the books I purchase end up getting read by 3 or 4 people if they are any good. In fact I’d guess that most of the books I’ve bought over the past three years are not currently in my house. The ability to share a book is part of its appeal.
The DRM is a related and troubling aspect. I have books that are over 100 years old. Are you going to be able to pass these books on to your children? If it flops is Amazon going to make all the movies free as Divx (the early pay per view DVD standard, not the compression format) did or will they do what MLB did and simply abandon their customers?
The one thing that I could see this being really useful for would be college textbooks. If there were a way to get those books relatively inexpensively and be able to annotate them in the device, that would be useful. But I’m guessing that English majors are going to be the only students that have any of their required reading material available on this.
On the positive side my brother mentioned the other day that he got to play with a prototype of this an found the e-Ink display to be easy to read. His main gripe was that a page turn took about a second to complete.
I have a co-worker that had an earlier (non-Amazon) e-Book reader and he loved it. But he was reading free books or downloading bundles of Sci-Fi books for cheap. When his device broke he searched to find a replacement in order to not lose easy access to the library he had built up. I think he found one on eBay, but was concerned that when that one died he’d be stuck.
Comment by a random John — November 21, 2007 @ 10:01 am
I’m curious about it, but not about to plunk $400 bucks on the device.
A separate device just to read books? This step of technology development is important - but as a stand-alone device? Doesn’t really make sense to me.
Comment by danithew — November 21, 2007 @ 10:20 am
Bah, in the process of editing the last comment became redundant.
If I am remembering correctly, I read recently about the possibility that Apple will put out a tablet/laptop type computer. I don’t see why Apple (or some other company) wouldn’t figure out how to do what this Kindle does, and add it as a feature to a computer that does many other things.
Comment by danithew — November 21, 2007 @ 10:23 am
Another important distinction that I’ve seen mentioned online between the iPod and the Kindle is that the iPod allows you to listen to all the music that you’ve previously purchased for free. You just have to rip the CD in iTunes. The Kindle does not give you electronic access the books that you’ve purchased. Some have suggested that if Amazon were to give Kindle users e-book copies all the physical books they’ve purchased (and will purchase) at Amazon for free that they would find the device to be more compelling.
Because of the inherent limitations of DRM’d e-books somebody is going to have to do something innovative and unexpected in order to get the format off the ground.
Comment by a random John — November 21, 2007 @ 10:30 am
Sign me up as someone intensely curious about the Kindle but not ready to sign up. I don’t think it will necessarily succeed of itself, but it does hold promise for a new direction in e-books.
Comment by Supergenius — November 21, 2007 @ 10:33 am
Okay - sorry to be a comment hog … but I went and did some reading around and this Crunchgear review demonstrated that the writer was initially very skeptical - but after using it, he seems to really like what it has to offer.
The free internet seems to be a very key feature and more interestingly, the author raises the question of what hackers might be able to do with this device to make it even more functional and useful.
Am I going to run out and buy one? No. But I’ll keep on reading about it. I’m now very curious how this might be further developed.
Comment by danithew — November 21, 2007 @ 10:33 am
danithew,
You and I are on the same page (no pun intended). I was initially very skeptical, but after reading more about it, I’m skeptical but interested. I don’t think I’d buy one of these, but at the same time, this is a technology who’s time will come soon, I think. At a lower price point, I could be coaxed into buying one.
Comment by BTD Greg — November 21, 2007 @ 10:42 am
Here are my problems. Can I transport the data? i.e. what if the Kindle isn’t a hit? Even with my iPod I can mainly stick with non-DRMed stuff. (Although I have about a dozen songs from the iTunes store - but I’m pretty sure Apple’s staying around as well)
The other problem is that reading a book isn’t like listening to a MP3. I like having real books. (Except for reference books which can often be better in e-book format. And of course O’Reiley offers all their books electronically anyway)
Lastly $10 seems a tad high as a price point. I think John Gruber’s comments pretty well match mine. It would have been a ton better if Amazon gave you both the printed book and the electronic version. (Much like buying a CD gives you a ripped version for iTunes)
I’m skeptical it’ll get off the ground. Let’s be honest. Were it not for all the sharing of MP3s the iPod never would have got off the ground at all. What’s the equivalent for the Kinder? (And don’t say Wikipedia)
The final big issue is Apple. I don’t mean this “mythical pad” everyone’s talking about. (My guess is that it’ll turn out to simply be an ultra-lightweight MacBook possibly without the CD drive) I mean the iPhone and iTouch. Those both have pretty nice screens. They do a whole lot more. And with Safari you can do a whole lot with it. (Arguably a lot more than the Kinder which doesn’t have a real browser)
Comment by Clark — November 21, 2007 @ 11:03 am
BTW - the “free internet” is really just free in the sense that it’ll download books for you. It’s not free internet in the sense of a functional browser or email. I’m sure the limited accessing of Sprint’s network was necessary to get it included standard and at a reasonable rate.
Comment by Clark — November 21, 2007 @ 11:05 am
I don’t see why anyone would buy a dedicated device just for books, especially at this price. I want to have books on my laptop or my phone or my ipod, which I’m already lugging around. I don’t want another device to have to buy and then worry about losing or breaking.
Comment by MCQ — November 21, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
MCQ, I can’t imagine reading a book of any length on a laptop, and there’s no way I’d ever want to read a book on a phone or an iPod.
Comment by BTD Greg — November 21, 2007 @ 1:26 pm
Greg, the iTouch and iPhone have reasonably sized displays and capabilities. The screens are amazing. (I’m holding off for the 2cd gen since some important functions I demand aren’t part of them) But since a largish iTouch and the Kindle are the same price I honestly can’t see that many people going for the Kindle.
Comment by Clark — November 21, 2007 @ 2:57 pm
Unless this thing aquires the patina and wonderful smell real books gather as they age, it will remain unwelcome in my world.
Comment by tracy m — November 21, 2007 @ 3:46 pm
Yeah, I’m all about the musty smell of old books, too.
Comment by Susan M — November 21, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
i’m all about simplicity and a big fan of reading library books rather than owning my own. i would try this out if it were given to me for free..but will not buy it at that price..i’ll let it work out it’s kinks and try it in a few years.
Comment by aubrey — November 21, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
this e-ink technology has been in the works for a while. i saw a demonstration of it a few years ago, and it is very cool. nice to finally see a commercial product.
but while i like the idea of Kindle, i worry it opens the door to massive book piracy. most novelists are already poor little dogs to begin with and when people are stealing all their stuff they won’t be able to make it up with touring.
for most of the 1800s American writers couldn’t turn a dollar b/c weak intl copyright laws allowed US publishers to just steal stuff written in Europe. so we have precious little worth reading from that period while English novelists were flourishing. the folks who would have been our great novelists had to keep their jobs in Carnegie’s steel mills instead.
Comment by Sean Cassity — November 21, 2007 @ 8:17 pm
Really? Why?
Maybe your laptop is no fun, but there are many laptops on which this would not be a bad experience at all. I already do an enormous amount of reading on my laptop, amounting to hours per day. I don’t see why reding books that way would be a bad thing. Also, tablet PCs are already available that are very much like this kindle thing, but better, since they are, well, you know, PCs.
Comment by MCQ — November 23, 2007 @ 1:19 am
I can’t read on a computer screen either. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but it’s just not the same as curling up with an old book.
Whoever said they’d prefer to read books on their ipod or iphone must have exponentially better eyesight than me. I don’t see how anyone can do anything on those little screens. What are they, 2″? Then again, I think the idea of watching a TV show or movie on one of those miniscule screens is pretty ridiculous but folks do it all the time.
Comment by Brian V — November 23, 2007 @ 7:39 am
There is a good Newsweek article on the kindle that mentions other people having this problem with it. But after reading on it for a while they realized it wasn’t the smell they liked, it was the adventures while they were reading that they associated withe the smell. One of the authors that got to try one out said it didn’t take long for him t forget he wasn’t just holding a paperback.
Comment by jjohnsen — November 23, 2007 @ 11:07 am
On the kindle you can increase the size of the type to whatever you want. Any book can become a large-print version.
Comment by jjohnsen — November 23, 2007 @ 11:08 am
Fiction is a smaller part of the publishing market than one might think. The biggest amount of publishing is in text, reference, and non-fiction books. All of these, I’m convinced, will soon be found online only, along with newspapers and magazines.
Fiction will continue to be printed, but these electronic book-readers, when combined with internet sharing, are definitely the future. If you can curl up with one and not tire your eyes, there’s no need for a household of books.
Libraries are already throwing out millions of books every year — no more need to store them.
Comment by D. Fletcher — November 24, 2007 @ 10:04 am
Cicero
Comment by tracy m — November 24, 2007 @ 7:37 pm
All the people who say they will never embrace this because of they love the “smell of old books” and “curling up with an old book” (not just on this site, but everywhere you go there are people who say this) remind me of all the people who said they would never give up their LPs for the sterile sound of CDs.
Once this technology gets integrated nicely with other devices and they sort out the usage model, it will be nothing short of a revolution in the way we interact with books. Just think how nice it will be for every book you own to be searchable?
Comment by Jacob J — November 25, 2007 @ 12:44 pm
Jacob, I love the idea of searchable books. But I have that right now with my laptop and Google.
What isn’t as clearly useful is this product as a reader. I think something like the iPhone makes more sense. But to be honest for books I’m not doing research with I simply don’t want to read on a computer.
Comment by Clark — November 25, 2007 @ 2:26 pm
Oh, I’m not saying I wouldn’t ever use this technology- I’m just saying it won’t ever completely replace bound and printed books.
Just as e-commerce, convenient and easy though it is, will never totally replace brick and mortar stores. People like to touch, hold and experience things. Call me a Romantic.
Comment by tracy m — November 25, 2007 @ 4:25 pm
[...] on some other (non-Apple) products. Specifically, he makes an argument against the idea that Amazon’s Kindle is going to go anywhere. Mr. Jobs doesn’t actually criticize the product’s engineering [...]
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