10 Responses so far

1. 1. Paul Jessup on Feb 9th, 2009 at 3:02 pm

   It’s even more than that, actually. Let’s say you have an iPhone (or a blackberry or whatever). Amazon is saying that in the near future, not only can you *buy* amazon e-books to use on these devices, because of the WhisperNet technology, it will keep a list of all these books on every device and even remember what page you’re on.

   So, let’s say you have a Kindle for reading in bright well lit places and a cellphone for the cell stuff (with a Kindle reader on it). You buy a book and it’s available on *either* device and it remembers your notes, what you were reading, etc.

   That to me makes it an even bigger game changer.

2. 2. Tobias Buckell on Feb 9th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

   Yeah, that’s pretty damn cool, yeah.

3. 3. MarkHB on Feb 9th, 2009 at 3:20 pm

   The absense of self-illumination is half of what makes the Kindle useless to me. I read eBooks to I can keep pageflipping ’til 3 in the morning without keeping the wife awake. That’s what eBooks are for. If I’m in a setting where I have lots of light, then I’ll enjoy the smell of paper and ink, the comforting weight in one’s hand, and the immediate visual feedback that I need to slow the hell down or I’ll run out of book too quickly!

   The other part is the stupid, idiotic DRM. Perhaps Amazon have shareholders who think that plaintext/PDF/RTF/HTML display abilities would destroy the publishing industry – just like DRM-free audio and video encoding has destroyed music and film. *koff*. Baen showed *years* ago that providing eBooks in every format under the sun, freely distributable, just got people buying real printed books. There’s no excuse or sane argument for a format-locked eReader. Even if it had a backlight, not being able to dump Baen’s Free Library to the device would stop me buying it.

   Incidentally, Bookshelf for the iPhone will gleefully connect to self-same library, or one’s Webscriptions page, and book up your iPhone with the firing of three whole user neurons. And sorry for ranting, I think this is one of my personal pet peeves.

4. 4. Tobias Buckell on Feb 9th, 2009 at 3:23 pm

   Just a quick fyi: you’re confused about the DRM. You can put Baen books on the Kindle. It’s the Kindle books with DRM that you can’t put on other devices.

   Not that I’m for DRM, but you *can* actually dump all of Baen’s free library to your Kindle. My agent reads submissions and docs on his Kindle, from what I see on his blog, all the time.

5. 5. MarkHB on Feb 9th, 2009 at 3:28 pm

   Ahhh, so. Important, that. Though I assume there’s no pathway off the thing to other formats? I like the sync/sharing idea of being able to access owned books from multiple devices. If I can do that, then that’s a big, big step towards that “Buy it Now” button.

6. 6. Michael Canfield on Feb 9th, 2009 at 7:34 pm

   Hm, I had this incredible insight last night that Amazon should do something exactly like that. Now I realize I skimmed the same report and picked it up unconsciously. I think this is an excellent idea. If iPhone puts out a e-paper quality screen one day I will be even happier.

   AT&T partially subsidizes iPhones to hit that $199 price point. It would be nice if Amazon or the publishing industry (yeah right) came up with something like that for Kindle ’cause $359 is steep for a single-use device. How about ten free books with your new Kindle, a value of up to $100?

   I’m getting an iPhone next because of its seemingly limitless uses, and waiting for an (entirely unanticipated) windfall before I look at the Kindle. If it were more elegant in appearance that would help too. But I seriously covet the epaper screen.

7. 7. Wyman Cooke on Feb 9th, 2009 at 11:13 pm

   I believe, since I don’t have an iPhone I’m not certain about it, that Webscriptions is now making e-books available on cell phones.

8. 8. Julia P on Feb 11th, 2009 at 12:30 am

   Something about the description on Amazon.com bothered me. The idea of having a book disappearing in my hands… well, it takes away some of the reading pleasure. Even with journal articles online, I like printing them out and feeling the paper. Now, I am not against kindle in theory– but I dislike the idea of replacing my overfull bookshelves with something electronic. Books have histories behind them– when you first read them, where you were, why you read them. Seeing them all online takes that away, I think.

9. 9. Fred Kiesche on Feb 11th, 2009 at 10:47 am

   You can put non-DRM books (like Baen’s, and you can dump all your **purchased** Webscription books there as well!) on the Kindle, but the Kindle (and other devices) have an artificial barrier where you can’t, for example, put books you buy at Fictionwise on a Kindle. And you can’t, for example, put eReader (the program from Peanut Press, then Palm, etc.) files on your Kindle (or your Cybook, in my case).

   “Artificial barrier” = a scheme from keeping us from using our legally purchased stuff except where they want us to.

   As for the Amazon hints for cellphones, color me skeptical. Amazon is becoming the 500-pound presence in the room for eBook readers. Is this more than vaporware? An attempt to scare off any potential competition (“Well, we were going to develop a cellphone reader, but if Amazon is going into the market…”)? When they ship it, I’ll believe it.

   On illumination, the eInk technology won’t allow for backlighting, or so I’m told. So for my Cybook, I bought a little flex-necked book light (powered by a small battery, but you can also plug it into a USB port) that attaches to my Cybook. I can read all night, if I want!!!!

   

10. 10. MarkS on Feb 14th, 2009 at 7:56 pm

    I would like to buy a paper version of a book from Amazon, but then have an option to “add” the Kindle version for a nominal charge of a few dollars rather than having to pay full price for the Kindle version as well. And this would be great not just at the time of purchase of the original book, but also some time down the road. Amazon maintains your purchase history so it should be easy enough.