Amazon Reader Hate

Books do not run out of battery power.

Books can be read while the polite stewardess informs others to turn off their electronic devices for takeoff.

The nice girl walking by at the beach can glance down at the cover of the book you’re reading.

Books make your coffee table look nice, and some books can in a pinch be turned into a coffee table.

Books do not give off toxic fumes when recycled.

Books can be lent out to friends.

There is no such thing as Oprah’s Kindle Club.

Books do not crash if ridden off the sidewalk.

Wait. That last was my anti-Segway argument. Well, nevermind. This is the next Segway.

They are charging $1.99 a month for your blog Robert. So figure .60 a month per person? It might help you pay for your Kindle but you are right – you’re not likely to get rich on it. Still every little bit helps with two kids to send through college one day.

Like I said before, go Sony Reader, all the better features, cheaper price, and without any of the Amazon forever-money-drip hooks. You are only “excited” as Amazon is courting bloggers and sending coin your way.

Robert…

Read the NEA’s report today on reading. We are a nation heading to a reading disaster. How can the Kindle help…maybe explore with your readers.

Been reading you for several years. Keep it going!

Ken…

Robert…

I may have been too cryptic: National Endowment for the Arts, “To Read or Not to read”

Ken…

The page-turning aspect is the biggest selling point of real books now. You can keep your place with one finger, while thumbing back to that one passage (or keep multiple places with up to 4 fingers on one hand). Or how do you go back and forth between passages easily? And can you write in the margins on this Amazon Book Reader thing?

I won’t buy an alternative “e-book” to books unless the (very small) device can flash up a digitized, fully touch controlled, 3-dimensional hologram-like representation of the actual book that I can then read while turning the pages. And even then, it’s hard to imagine how I would write in the margins…UNLESS! the device folded out into a portable (full-sized) keyboard from which I could type in the margins or insert comments within the text (a la Microsoft Word’s tracking/editing changes feature). And all this while losing none of it’s non-folded out functionality. (In addition to the whole 3-d hologram thing of course.)

So yeah…in other words, I’ll be sticking with actual, tangible, printed books for a long time.

PDF is not natively supported. Need I say more?

I want my library of computer reference books on it. I want some kind of easy lighting for low light as well as being able to read it outside. I couldn’t care less about fiction being on it though I might change my mind someday. But I have 5000+ books in my house and that includes lots of signed books by my favorite science fiction writers. Bezos was just on Charlie Rose pointing out that there was simply no way that the Kindle could match 100% of the book reading experience. But any good ebook reader should offer advantages over the standard paper book such as hyperlinking to definitions.

“go Sony Reader, all the better features”

Except for one minor – but significant – detail which is the transparent internet connection which makes a huge difference to the utility of the device in several ways, you can’t forget a book acquired through amazon as you can fetch it down should you need to. You can get a book in a hurry if you need to. Newspapers and magazines. And of course the acquired library is backed up.

Which is why its too expensive – you’re not just buying the device you’re also paying once, upfront, for lifetime infrastructure support of the device.

Not perfect, not going to wipe the printed book from the face of the earth, but whether this iteration lives or dies it will be significant in introducing the notion of the permanent connection and the fact that your library is in the cloud not in the device.

I think Robert is into this because he is NOT the kind of person who reads books. The people who are skeptical largely are. We know the benefits of books quite well. Two important unanswered questions are how many publishers will agree to be Kindled, and how much of their collections will be made available. I, and many others, would be reluctant to buy without that information.

I find my iPhone sufficient for most on the go without my laptop reading of news and blogs. But, I nearly always have a book with me, too.

I think Robert is into this because he is NOT the kind of person who reads books.

Well, good point, but I don’t think it extends beyond Amzaon courting him and promising some dollars. Bloggers only see things they are spoon-fed. And all the people fawning over Amazon’s offering seem clueless per any other devices. Indeed, no one mentioned the iRex Iliad (2.11), which is neck and neck with the new 505 Reader, maybe even besting, depending on your uses of, freaking expensive sucker however, but the Linux 3rd party development extends it well beyond Sony, and you get a “cloud” that is open to the world, not just Amazon’s locked-in fake playlands.

PS – Anyone complaining hard about Sony Reader DRM, doesn’t own one, as it’s easily overcome, thanks to good ole’ convert-lit.

According to Taleb, tinking is the way to success, so let Amazon tinker. You never know what will stick

There are things to reading an actual book – like being able to flip through actual pages for one – that eBooks can’t duplicate. Add to that a $400+ price tag, and it’s a definite no thanks for me.

Podesta: for someone who isn’t into books can you explain why we have more than 500 in the house here?

I think there are lots of reasons this thing will fail- here’s 10 of them-
http://www.notebooks.com/2007/11/19/10-reasons-the-amazon-kindle-will-fail/

“For $400 this device is pretty damn remarkable. It can be read out in bright sunlight (my $3,000 Mac can’t do that).”

And yes, Scoble can’t let the opportunity to bash Apple pass him by. I am sure that his $3000 Dell can’t be read out in bright sunlight either.

Dreadnought: I don’t have a $3,000 Dell, so that would be an incorrect statement. I do have a Sony Vaio, and that doesn’t work outside in bright sunlight either.

i will agree with several others here – the damned thing is fugly. What the hell were they thinking? Do they have any industrial designers in that company?

Robert, I suspect those books are just sitting there. Many upper middle-class people have libraries because they think they are supposed to. But, they are not readers. I don’t know enough about Maryam to fancy whether she is a reader. But, I know you are not.

Sony Reader will appreciate the competition from Kindle and improve its navigation and hyperlink capabilities. It is not good for Textbook because of these deficiencies. That said, anyone who wants this kind of device is not really put off by lack of wireless — speed is not an issue when you are downloading books that take weeks to read. I have the 500, it’s been great for reading TOMES (1000+ pages) and things that are too bulky to carry on the subway. If I want a magazine, I buy it so I can dribble on it while eating.

Podesta: interesting how you +know+ what I do at home. Do you have a web cam watching my every move?

Maryam’s an english major who graduated with honors from Cal Berkeley. She reads a LOT of books.

One can tell a lot from observing someone online for a period of weeks or months. That is especially true if the observed is someone who’s entire universe is himself. I know you are not a reader by the evidence. You write poorly. People who are avid readers are also usually better than average writers. You do not talk about having read books or make literary allusions. Readers do. You do not have a grasp of history or how things came to be the way they are. Readers of non-fiction or literary fiction do, partly because they were the kind of students who sought out such information in high school and college, partly because they still seek out such information.

Podesta: well, according to your own standards you aren’t a reader either then.