- Sunday, 15 November 2009
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Don't plan to sell your first chip - Bob Colwell, former Intel chief architect
Amazon's Kindle is too ugly to succeed
E-BOOK READERS have gotten significantly skinnier and prettier over the years. Think Britney Spears' transformation in reverse. OK, so not that many readers are actually buying ebook readers, but at least they are prettier. For the last few months there has been a lot of cloak and dagger rumours going around about Amazon's new reader – the Kindle - the ebook reader to rule them all.
The one that would catapult ebooks from the geeky niche into the mainstream and saves billions of poor trees in the process. Instead, we got the Kindle, quite possibly the ugliest piece of consumer technology launched in recent years. I actually spat my tea at my defenseless PC monitor when I read one story that heralded it as the 'iPod of ebook Readers'. I mean, who would have thought that an ugly calculator from the 1970s could be the Messiah for ebooks? Compared to the svelte and stunning looking Sony PRS-505 Reader, which is $100 cheaper, the Kindle is Jade Goody in cling film.
When Apple launched the iPod, at least it was pretty and design folk gushed, scratched their goatees and and ‘oohed’ appreciatively. Then the world bought them in their gazillions. When Amazon launched the Kindle this week, there was a collective ‘Huh?’ I realise that image isn’t everything. Women tell me that all of the time, as they pat my shoulder and look at me with open pity, before leaving . It’s one of the reasons I have had to work hard on other important ‘attractive-in-men’ traits like being amusing, sensitive, a good listener and rich – OK, that last one is a complete lie. But, when it comes to consumer technology – especially something with £200 price tag that people will see you with all of the time – looks count.
To be fair to Kindle, it has a better chance than most of becoming the most popular ebook reader, for no other reason than Amazon is behind it and, despite its outdated design, it has a number of smart features. And, let’s not forget that the ebook reader market is not exactly the cut-throat console arena.
When it comes to online shopping for anything, Amazon is pretty much top of the heap and around £5 per book for the Kindle is not too shabby, compared to the dead tree alternative. Amazon has 90,000 books available at launch as well as lots of newspapers and magazines to subscribe too. Oddly, you can even subscribe to online blogs and RSS feeds from sites that are generally free. The device weighs in at 10ozs, is around the size of a paperback – albeit a bit thick around the waist - and it can store around 200 books on its internal memory, which can be expanded with SD Cards. Battery life is a week and even with the wireless connection on, you’ll still a day or two before a recharge is needed.
However, the really clever thing about Kindle is how you get your books. The Kindle allows you to get them without ever going near a PC, laptop, Wi-Fi café or network. Readers can dial-up the Amazon bookstore using the EVDO network from Sprint - just like a mobile phone - browse the books on screen, choose, pay and have them downloaded to your Kindle in less than a minute. And, Amazon picks up the tab for the call. Of course, the user pays through the high initial cost of $400 and a cut from the subscriptions to various mags and feeds – but the illusion is sound: once you own the Kindle, you won’t have pay connection or call charges to get your books. Amazon is banking on people buying enough stuff that the cost to it of providing the free calls will be more than covered.
As ideas go, it’s smart. Equally smart is its umbrella invite to technophobes – that’s most of the planet over a certain age. There are millions of regular folk out there with limited technical knowledge, who approach PCs and Wi-Fi cafes like they were unexploded bombs. For them, the Kindle is an idiot-proof way of getting and holding onto all of their new books in one smallish device.
The Kindle, potentially, offers the easiest ebook system for people to use, not to mention the largest number of ebooks on offer. In this way, there is a similarity to iTunes – just without all that PC nonsense in the middle. But, while it might become the biggest fish in a small pond, there is no indication that the pond is going to grow fast anytime soon. I’m not convinced that Kindle can drive the ebook market by itself because, despite how green we like to think we are, we still like our reading presented on good old fashioned dead trees. µ
See Also
Amazon’s
Kindle e-book: hot or not?
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When will we get a e-Book that has white and black display?

I tired of looking at monchrome LCD displays with their grey-green backgrounds and this Kindle looks like its just another version with low contrast e-Ink. 

After all it's got a grey background with darker grey text.

They must be using old e-Ink technology. Some manufacturer in the far East must be laughing at being able to get rid of their old 1st generation panels. 

With colour e-ink around, this book is using a pretty old display panel isn't it?

I'll wait till they sort this out.

Wow, I really like it and the cost is worth the free monthly charge for sure, But I also like collecting as old electronics as I can get. It will update it's looks if it becomes popular enough to live. 

If the Inquirer is available on it then I would be set for life, as I spend way too much time reading this web site. 

I'm getting one for me and one for mum, maybe one for sis too, as she is a Stephen King fan. 

This could certainly replace most anyones PC because most only use that for Internet.
It's really not surprising why bookreaders have never sold well. Why spend several hundred for a device that does little, or nothing, else?

We started out with PDA's which have been morphing into Smartphones. Then digital music players, and later, digital video players, which have been converging as well.

Now, we have phone/music/ video/PDA's.

Get the trend?

Buying another piece of equipment to carry is simply not in the cards.

Most Smartphones will also serve as a book reader with either the FREE versions of software, or the upgraded versions for a small price.

While it's true that a dedicated bookreader has a bigger screen, why does that matter?

The ability to store many books at a time on a digital device has nothing in common with the need to keep a book to a certain size. Larger pages results in fewer pages, making a book easier to manufacturer, and hold. No such limitation exists in digital.

In other words, there is no reason for a device holding books to conform with more standard page conventions. I use my Treo 700p quite well as a book reader, using one hand to hold it, and to change the page.

Perhaps, if the companies offering book readers thought of them as the razor, and the books as the blades, a really cheap (or even free as an incentive for a subscription service) device might work.

But, the books are too expensive too. This is the same problem we see with digital songs and videos. They must be cheaper than the printed versions to sell well. ,Why should one buy a digital book for MORE than the paperback version when the costs of production, and distribution, are but a fraction?
... the license agreement almost made me turn to stone.
My little boy (aged 4) and myself spend a lot of time watching "Mighty Machines" on which they divulged the great big secret of what happens when dead trees go to the mill. Lots and lots of them are too twisted, gnarly, splintered, and rotten to be made into good lumber, so they go to the chipper.

And then the chips go to some other place where they get made into paper.
So what's the consequence of e-books, will it be to dry up the market for the gnarlies? Cuz what else are they good for?

I'm afraid that in the future the forests will be harvested only of straight and handsome trees, and all the warty, bumpy, ugly trees will be the only ones left behind, which could have an impact on tourism.
When I read the line "...the Kindle is Jade Goody in cling film...", I just had to Google her (I'm an American that doesn't watch much TV). DAMN YOU!!! THE HORROR!!!
...but out of date and over priced. Why go for this when you can add *.txt, *.doc, *.pda etc file readers to a UMPC, some mobile phones, internet tablet or just buy an ASUS Eee? The aforementioned even provide colour, have more functionality and they do not usually need to have files converted to specific formats for use.