Amazon Enters Gadget Market with Kindle, an eBook Device

[Zadillo]

So is it just me, or is this like wearing digital googles with camera mounts instead of eyeglasses to correct your vision...?

I mean, 400 bucks... you know how many books I could buy with that...?

Or maybe I'm just partial to books because I used to make flip books out of them in class...

You could also buy a ton of CD's and a walkman for the cost of an iPod; the idea behind an eBook reader is to allow you to have a single device with electronic ink that gives you the experience of reading a book on the printed page, but with the ability to have hundreds of books with you at a time.

This Kindle thing adds another wrinkle by having an EVDO connection to allow you to purchase eBooks directly from the device, with the stated goal seemingly to be that you could eventually access any book ever printed on this thing.

 

[sunfast]

Have Apple come out with an e-book reader that resolves the above issues along with allowing easy markups and highlighting, team up with ebook.com to allow all those e-books that were sold to god knows how many PDA users to be used on the iReader, integrate ebook.com's inventory into a store in iTMediaStore, convince most of the major publishers to get on board with the ebook train, get some of the more major collages to create ministores in iTMS to allow students to download their text books, and finally allow spotlight indexing of all your books along with the markups.

Never really thought about eBook readers before but that sounds awesome.

 

[AceWilfong]

An object in need of an Ive.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Electronic ink is hardly "archaic" technology; and Apple isn't likely to have some supersecret full color e-ink technology coming out any time soon.

Without high PPI displays the presentation will be degraded considerably.

 

[MikeL]

And like all e-book readers before it, it will fail. Why? People don't want to read books on a computer. A big part of a good book is escaping into it.

 

[Cloudane]

About time! I wondered when someone would finally do something aimed specifically at eBooks. i.e. screen optimised for it etc.

Snot pretty like, and not sure what to think of the keys going off at angles!

 

[irishgrizzly]

And like all e-book readers before it, it will fail. Why? People don't want to read books on a computer. A big part of a good book is escaping into it.

Yeah, nothing beats the smell and feel of a real book.

 

[arkitect]

Apple Tablet System will cannibalize the sales upon it's release.

You say that with such a lot of confidence.

 

[Zadillo]

Without high PPI displays the presentation will be degraded considerably.

I don't think that's really a big issue. I believe the Sony Reader has something like a 170 ppi display, and I wouldn't describe the display as degraded considerably. I think I read that Sony has described the new PRS-505 eReader as somewhere between newspaper print and a paperback book print, which seems about right to me based on what I saw of it at the SonyStyle store.

-Zadillo

And like all e-book readers before it, it will fail. Why? People don't want to read books on a computer. A big part of a good book is escaping into it.

I don't know, in a pinch I can even escape into something I am reading on a regular computer.

The big benefit I see from e-ink displays is allowing for the replication of something much closer to the printed page, which has always been the biggest thing I've been looking for.

I think I can escape just as easily into something that is in an eBook reader as much as a regular paperback book.

-Zadillo

 

[arkitect]

Yeah, nothing beats the smell and feel of a real book.

That is true, and I am not contemplating snuggling infront of the fire with an eBook reader.
But what about research? The possiblities for writers, students etc are wonderful!

I hope it does come to fruition and I hope it is a success.

Sad that most comments are only concerned with how it "looks".
Have some foresight for goodness sake. How about what it just might be able to do?

And who else — when it comes to books — but Amazon can do this?

 

[eXan]

O M G​

It is impossible to make devices UGLIER than this one O_O

 

[mdriftmeyer]

You could also buy a ton of CD's and a walkman for the cost of an iPod; the idea behind an eBook reader is to allow you to have a single device with electronic ink that gives you the experience of reading a book on the printed page, but with the ability to have hundreds of books with you at a time.

This Kindle thing adds another wrinkle by having an EVDO connection to allow you to purchase eBooks directly from the device, with the stated goal seemingly to be that you could eventually access any book ever printed on this thing.

I play music in the background. I don't read books in the background. The iPod works of a sense that doesn't need first priority to continue to absorb it: the human ear.

I don't think that's really a big issue. I believe the Sony Reader has something like a 170 ppi display, and I wouldn't describe the display as degraded considerably. I think I read that Sony has described the new PRS-505 eReader as somewhere between newspaper print and a paperback book print, which seems about right to me based on what I saw of it at the SonyStyle store.

-Zadillo

I write publication work at a minimum 600 dpi with 1200 dpi being more standard. 170ppi is considered acceptable because you're lucky if your Operating System UI is running at 100dpi or possibly 120dpi. We've gotten used to displays not being truly easy on the eye for crisp geometric curves because of all the pretty pixelated color patterns and rich color depth.

 

[Zadillo]

I play music in the background. I don't read books in the background. The iPod works of a sense that doesn't need first priority to continue to absorb it: the human ear.

Right, I get that.

But again, the ultimate promise of an eBook reader is to allow you to access hundreds of books at any given time from a single slim device, without having to carry an entire library of books with you.

-Zadillo

I write publication work at a minimum 600 dpi with 1200 dpi being more standard. 170ppi is considered acceptable because you're lucky if your Operating System UI is running at 100dpi or possibly 120dpi. We've gotten used to displays not being truly easy on the eye for crisp geometric curves because of all the pretty pixelated color patterns and rich color depth.

Right. All I can judge is what I see with my eyes though; and I think they are getting closer with these e-ink displays; the latest version of the Sony eReader, the PRS-505, looks at least as good to me as the print on a newspaper page.

It seems pretty clear that the technology is not too far away from replicating completely the look of the printed page of a quality book (right now it seems to be on par with some of those cheap paperbacks, etc.).

 

[isoMorpheus]

This reminded me of a high school project I did for which I created an invention called iText that as a display store all your heavy and expensive college textbooks. Looks kinda the same too, except it was all touch control.

 

[darklyt]

Math Majors rejoice

Apple needs to get in on this.. I would absolutely LOVE to be going to grad school in a year with one of these so I have all of my theorems in my bag at all times. Just to have all the theorems in Lang's Algebra, Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis, and Munkre's Topology in one place in my bag, searchable for phrases (to easily find some of those theorems) and editable (to fill in the gaps for some of those theorems) would make an effective version of this wonderful. And if there was a way to easily print out some of the pages of a book or hook it up to a projector? Sound like an educational revolution?

Reading isn't all about mysteries, science fiction or romance novels, it's the backbone of the intellectual society. If it was possible for a person to have access to all of their text books at once (in addition to the other reading), I think we would have taken another huge step as a society on the whole.

The best part is that Apple or Amazon or Sony or whoever ends up leading the market might be able to push the prices of textbooks down, like Apple is battling to do with other forms of entertainment. Maybe to something somewhat reasonable. THAT would be the best part of all perhaps..

 

[MikeL]

I don't know, in a pinch I can even escape into something I am reading on a regular computer.

The big benefit I see from e-ink displays is allowing for the replication of something much closer to the printed page, which has always been the biggest thing I've been looking for.

I think I can escape just as easily into something that is in an eBook reader as much as a regular paperback book.

-Zadillo

Really? You'll have WiFi. Where you don't have WiFi, you'll have EVDO. You'll have access to your e-mail and the web. For many of us, those are temptations. To check forums, for instance. Any and all of which runs counter to escaping into a book.

And it'll never feel like a book.

The best part is that Apple or Amazon or Sony or whoever ends up leading the market might be able to push the prices of textbooks down, like Apple is battling to do with other forms of entertainment. Maybe to something somewhat reasonable. THAT would be the best part of all perhaps..

Not gonna happen. I work in education. All of the publishers have e-book solutions, and all of them have business models that maintain or improve their margins. Suprise suprise, eh?

 

[J@ffa]

"Would you considering buying Kindle?"

I can has good grammar plz? Kthxbai!

 

[arkitect]

Reading isn't all about mysteries, science fiction or romance novels, it's the backbone of the intellectual society. If it was possible for a person to have access to all of their text books at once (in addition to the other reading), I think we would have taken another huge step as a society on the whole.

That is what makes me, personally, excited.

Imagine this hooking up with the British Library or the US Library of Congress?

*faints*

 

[Zadillo]

Really? You'll have WiFi. Where you don't have WiFi, you'll have EVDO. You'll have access to your e-mail and the web. For many of us, those are temptations. To check forums, for instance. Any and all of which runs counter to escaping into a book.

And it'll never feel like a book.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the web browsing experience of this device will not be that good; it might be serviceable in a pinch, but I wouldn't expect more than that. Same with reading e-mail on this thing.

Either way, temptation or not, I think an eBook reader's benefits can still make it worthwhile.

And yes, I know it won't feel like a book. It'll feel like an ebook reader. I personally at least am not so hung up on the exact feel of a paperback book (and in fact there are some things I don't like about physical books, such as keeping them open, etc.).

Just because it doesn't feel exactly like a physical book doesn't mean that someone couldn't "escape" into it.

-Zadillo

 

[koobcamuk]

Has anyone else commented on how cool it would be to use multitouch to flick through pages as if they were real. I know some websites allow pages to be flicked over...

 

[dernhelm]

this is so ugly -.-. oh my god..

how can this relate to iPod??

the Design...the UI.....

the keyboard??? LOL....gosh.....

Yeah - have to agree here. Ugliest cool-device I've ever seen. Amazon has the content, and can sell the books at a loss in order to sell the devices, but the devices are so hideous. Too bad - because I like reading better than listening to books, and the idea of a cheap book in digital form is something I like. Of course the hyper-restrictive DRM is bad, but if the book amounts to the cost of a throw-away paperback, then OK. The unfortunate part is that I wouldn't want to carry that ugly thing around.

How big is it BTW?

 

[i0Nic]

I don't know, part of the joy of reading a new book it's the feel of the cover, pages, etc.

I think Ebook Readers are the future of books, it will be how we do most of our reading. However, 'paper' books will still have their place , they will be in very short distribution and expensive, kinda like collector's items. A book you really love you'll buy in paper-back, as an experience rather than the convenience of ab ebook reader.

 

[dicklacara]

Here's the thing. Something doesn't become the "iPod" of anything because the company releasing it declares it so.

Can you imagine Apple, upon launching the iPod, claiming it was the "walkman" of digital audio players, or something like that?

If the Kindle achieves the kind of popularity of the iPod, then it will become the "iPod of reading" or whatever, but only then.

-Zadillo

Mmmm.... I wonder if this ZunEbook, er, Kiddie, um, Kiddle, ah, whatever.. will be listed in the Amazon Top 10 Best Sellers?

 

[ergdegdeg]

omg, this is so ugly. how can they possibly present such a crappy design?

 

[Project]

It's OK if you only read ebooks/newspapers/magazines on Amazon, but, I guess I need to upload my PDFs to the reader...

Is it just a USB mass-storage device so I can put the file by drag & drop ?
or do they provide iTunes-like software to manage ebooks ?

You also get a private Kindle email address where people can forward you PDFs/text files etc and it will download and display them