Surprising Facts About Amazon's Kindle E-book
Last April, I wrote a column titled, "Why e-books are bound to fail." Amazon's new Kindle e-book has proved me wrong. The Kindle is a game-changing revolution in buying, reading, managing and using electronic books and other content. It's also the hottest holiday gift you can buy this year for anyone who loves to read. In this column, I tell why it's such a great product, and also list some very SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT AMAZON'S KINDLE.
12:34 PM * PERMALINK * 5 comments
Comments:
Non transferable, DRM locked, overpriced books. Even **public domain** books are DRMd!!!!
More of corporate culture rental.
Pass...
No matter what gadget comes up, the feeling of reading a book is irreplacable.
It's a bit like any comparison between the physical and simulated or rather artificial world.
The physical world is far richer in information than the artificial. When you read a book there is the visual information, touching the texture of the pages, smelling the book, feeling it's weight.
Yeah, e-books could be used for divers, as replacement of waterproof charts in boats or something like this...a technical application...
The e-book is limiting the experience of reading...
i think that a totally new paradigm of accessing a book is needed for e-books to take-off..Emulating the feeling of the book is not going to get us far.
**** i think that a totally new paradigm of accessing a book is needed for e-books to take-off. *****
I agree with that, but think Kindle is that new paradigm. Books are instantly buyable, newspapers and magazines arrive way before print subscriptions do. Your notes, "clippings," highlights, etc., are backed up and forever associated with your books. And -- best of all -- Wikipedia, Web and dictionary searches directly from the e-book over a very fast, free and widely distributed wireless network.
This is the paradigm shift. It's going to succeed.
Mike
AA says: "...touching the texture of the pages, smelling the book, feeling it's weight."
Listen: that may be true if you are some kind of paper fetish porno weirdo, but for 99.9% of normal people, reading is for the mental stimulation it provides. The physicality is a tiny part of that.
I read about 150 books a year (across many genres), and I do not for one moment identify with ridiculous piffle about "limiting the experience of reading."
Tard.
In the end, the device still has the following limitations that prevent me from using it:
1. Miserable design
2. Poor refresh rate (as bad as the Sony device)
3. Poor response from the keyboard to onscreen feedback
4. Insufficient onboard storage
5. Lack of defacto standard PDF support.
6. Absurd and seemingly arbitrary fee for mailing your device content.
As someone who reads over 200 books a year using eReader on a Treo, I strongly STRONGLY believe in this technology. I just wish that people would quit screwing it up!
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