Will the new Kindle come with imagination?
I haven’t been all that enthusiastic about or interested in trying out the Kindle. I saw one shortly after they were introduced. It looked painfully clunky, but the person using it said she really liked it. She paid a lot for it, and from what I understood, the selection of books for it was not that great. But that’s to be expected for a newly introduced product in this industry. Publishers seem to be really wary of putting their stuff out there where just anyone can get copies and do terrible things with them.
But my lack of interest was more basic than whether a book I wanted to read would be available anytime soon or whether the device lacked the elegance of the iPhone, or even it’s hefty price tag. It was the DRM. I just object, philosophically, to having my books tied to a specific vendor with a specific device. I felt the same way about DRM on music files. Never bought music from the iTunes store (geez, can that be true? not even one little song? you know, I just don’t recall ever buying one). I just bought a CD from time to time, ripped it immediately and loaded it onto my iPod and iPhone, and stored the disc away in case I needed to rip it again. Things happen to digital files.
But, when I learned that the Administrative office here at UT Austin’s Libraries had purchased one and that the Administrative staff were taking turns using it to get a feel for it, I decided to give it a try. Wouldn’t cost anything (even the download of a book or two would be paid for by the Libraries), and I do like to know firsthand about such things. So, I looked for several books that friends had recommended recently and not surprisingly, none of them was available. But finally, I hit upon Obama’s Audacity of Hope and thought that might be a nice read (it was). I finished it in about a week, and, to my surprise decided to download another, Thomas Friedman’s Flat, Hot and Crowded, which I’m about 1/3 of the way through now. I am recharging the battery, which says something right there. It lasted comfortably through one book but not two. It only takes about 2 or 3 hours to fully charge the battery though.
So here’s what I think: downloading the books whose owners are willing to make them available is quick and easy. The wireless connection is great. I can’t imagine any device that hopes to keep up not having its own ability to send and receive information. But that’s about where my praise ends.
I was ok with the screen readability and adjustable type size, but there are big tradeoffs with eInk. The flashing thing that happens every time you turn a page is really annoying; no backlighting is really annoying. You have to have external good light to read in.
I absolutely hated the way you go from page to page (the location and operation of the keys that one presses to make these functions happen): clunky doesn’t begin to describe it really. The design could not have been worse, at least not that I can imagine. You can barely touch the device without skipping to the next or a previous page. Building those keys into the edges of the device, practically top to bottom, is just plain stupid. And its angular edges give the device a hard, angular feel that I just didn’t like. It’s little keyboard has a rigid resistance that makes typing a chore. Well, it’s always a chore on any keyboard that small, but when you add in physical resistance to touch, it’s too much. Of course, there’s not much typing one would do on a Kindle. Sort of makes me wonder why the designers rejected a soft keyboard. Oh, wait a minute, that would suggest a touch-screen. Right.
That pretty much sums it up. The books need to be freed from DRM and the reader needs touch-screen technology. Get rid of all the buttons and that oh-so-1990′s move-the-cursor-up-and-down-the-page, line by line and click-on-a-line to select an item; make it easy and intuitive to highlight, bookmark, look up words, connect to the Internet for additional research. Oh, wait a minute, again. I think I’m describing my MacBook with touch-screen or an iPhone that’s a little bigger. Neither of which exists yet, but ought to.
So, from what I hear, a new Kindle will be announced Feb 9, a week from today. I’d advise a little imagination, a little bravery on the part of the publishers and Amazon: move to a DRM-less flowable text format for content; don’t try to freeze the form of the book at dawn of the 20th century digital (ie, nothing more than a static book in digital form; no real taking advantage of future possibilities); make the device cool and desirable by making it do more; make it easy to do whatever it is it does. Clunky boxy can’t stand to hold it NO; Slinky sexy beautiful can’t live without it YES.
