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Amazon Announces Kindle 2, With Slew of New Features
Engadget is reporting that Amazon has announced the new Kindle 2 for release on February 24th at a price point of $359. Thinner than an iPhone and coming standard with "Read-to-me" text-to-speech capability, the new device also has seven times more storage, faster page turning, a 16-level e-ink display, longer battery life, and a new five-way joystick. Looks like life just got a lot more interesting for fans of the original device. Engadget also has live coverage from the Kindle 2 press conference.
Cripes, after reading the post, the only thing missing was the soundtrack from the Six-Million Dollar Man...
Better, stronger, faster than ever before...
Oh, c'mon, what do you mean you've never heard of The Six-Million dollar man? Steve Austin, you know the pilot who...shit, nevermind.
Damn, I'm getting old.
Convince me not to.
It is the ease of getting new material that appeals to me, I like to read but I am terrible at buying books.
The price is a bit steep. Eventually these have to come down in price? Anyone any ideas when there will be a decent sub $100 ebook reader?
Will it blend?
Also, what will happen to DRM on the device? Is it still going to be essentially rentals, since they don't like to let people own what they buy?
Come on Amazon. It still looks like a plastic toy. For god's sakes, team up with Sony or Apple (kidnap Jonathon Ives). Alternatively, license out your DRM tech so Sony can build a reader compatible with your service.
Frankly, I can't wait until someone figures out a way to make a digital version of the public library. Make it like O'Reilly's Safari: Monthly subscription, X amount of titles on your "shelf" at any given time (tiered subscription?), with the option to "buy it" for permanent downloads (or just buy it outright and skip the sub-shelf), etc. I'd gladly pay $15/month for something like this, much like I already do with Napster To Go.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
with the release of the original Kindle. Perhaps they still can.
The Kindle here is somewhat of a disappointment to me but its aesthetics are much better than than the first generation. Yet, the screen is only usable for fiction novels and the like, and the form factor is such that the keyboard takes up half the space. Either way, they should have eliminated the physical keyboard for an onscreen version (really, you can't exactly type a thesis with that thing as it is now) for that searching or annotation convenience. For serious annotation, the iRex iLiad and DR1000S have a wacom enabled screen with stylus. In this way, you can really go for a small reader that fits in a purse, or use that existing or slightly bigger form for 10x8 screen, allowing to display 11x8.5 pages sans margins.
I don't know how they sell the new york times on something like that. I can see it on the even smaller iPhone but only because of multitouch and reverse pinching (zoom in) to the exact story someone wants. But I would not pay for an ereader at current prices in the fiction novel page size; I would glady pay money for something that allows me to read reference guides and textbooks without scrolling horizontally, perhaps not vertically.
All the other readers I see on the market are toys. Like iRex, which sells there models as finished products but are woefully in the prototype stage even after years of development and being on the market because lack of serious money behind it, I suppose. One symptom there is that despite the promise of e-ink not using energy other than when the page is being changed, their CPU doesn't really go to sleep, requiring daily recharging of the device and thoroughly defeating half of the purpose of a good ereader in the first place. I tried the Sony, it wasn't bad but nothing great.
If the Kindle should get credit for anything, it was the Sprint EVDO connection in the first and now 3G in the second without stupid monthly fees - it just being there. That alone will make it the winner in time, everything else stay the same.
If Apple had been keen on building their media empire, they'd should have gotten into ebooks when the 1st gen kindle was released tbh. The market was ready for something with a decent interface and good hardware/software integration. They already sell music, movies, tv shows, and this will consolidate the last major piece of the list. Before someone says "color" screens, or Plastic Logic's flexible screens or the like, that's precisely what upgrades are for. Now, I'm afraid, the worse is better philosophy won out again.
Other than screen size, this model looks like a winner.
I was considering buying one of these once the new version came out. One of the media release photos, meant to show the slimness of the device, has the Kindle leaning up next to a copy of pop-sociologist Malcolm Gladwell's new book, "The Outliers."
A few days ago, I was invited to the Union League in Philadelphia to see Mr. Gladwell speak to a group of roughly 550 local leaders, CEOs, etc. We were all provided with a "free" (in quotes because there was an entrance fee on all tickets, so the book was paid for by that cost) copy of his latest book and breakfast, and then afterward Mr. Gladwell did a Q&A session followed by a book signing.
It was the collaboration at the event, with people scribbling notes in the margins of the book, discussing certain paragraphs, and having the author sign each copy, that made me relish having the hardback with me. (Even if I do find his work a bit trite at times.)
In the end, I've opted not to buy this gadget, because ultimately, it's just not as satisfying or lasting as having a book. I have books given to me by my grandparents that they had as teenagers, what do you think the odds are that a Kindle or the formats it supports will last even two decades? I'm going to stick to my dead trees, thank you.
Looks like fans of the original device paid a steep bleeding-edge tax for seven times less storage and 25% less battery life for the same price.
"Information Received. The Device Software will provide Amazon with data about your Device and its interaction with the Service (such as available memory, up-time, log files and signal strength) and information related to the content on your Device and your use of it (such as automatic bookmarking of the last page read and content deletions from the Device). Annotations, bookmarks, notes, highlights, or similar markings you make in your Device are backed up through the Service. Information we receive is subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice."
Having an e-ink screen and text-to-speech on the same device is an odd match. If you want to read, read. If you want to listen, get an audio book for your mp3 player. Spare yourself the synthetic voice. Unless you enjoy imagining Stephen Hawking is in your car reading to you.
Amazon's Kindle 2 is the same as a Sony PRS-700 (out for a while now) without a reading light, without a touch screen, and with Amazon DRM lock-in. The only good thing going for the Kindle 2 is Amazon's marketing and their exclusive Kindle store.
Will I pay $359 for a dedicated e-book reader? Not likely.
Would I pay $20 for an app on the iPhone or G-phone that would allow me access to the Amazon e-book store. Sure I would.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Verbogeny is one of the pleasurettes of a creatific thinkerizer. (Peter da Silva)
Most consumers will not pay a barely discounted or not at all discounted price on a heavily DRMed good that's limited to a single device (be it iPod or Kindle) that could have the plug pulled at any time. Many DVDs now come with "Digital copies" with iPod and Windows compatibility, and they're selling like hotcakes. It's easier and it makes sense.
Want to spur consumers to use eBooks?
-Consider DRM-free books with the name embedded. The geeks will get it out, but for the majority of people, they'll buy their own books and not share.
-If you are going to use DRM, make it worth the hassle by making the book much cheaper. In essence, when I buy a DRMed eBook, I'm buying a license that can be revoked at any time to read the text. Why should I pay $18 for an eBook when it's from a $20 hardcover? Especially without distribution or even physical costs.
-If Amazon sold Kindle "codes" in the books to apply the book to your Kindle, you get the pride of owning a book (that can't ever be turned off) and the convenience of a Kindle copy too. And newspapers, if they don't want to go the way of the dodo, should include Kindle access for print subscribers. I get the WSJ and they want me to pay TWICE to get it on a Kindle. Even if I got a Kindle I wouldn't pay twice.
At $360, with a nonremovable battery (thinness is good, but I'd prefer being able to pop in a spare) and expensive (for the format) content, I can't bite. I've wanted to get an eBook reader for years, but this isn't ready yet.
DRM!
You can't share anything folks. NOTHING. The books are not yours!
For a long while I was set on getting an ereader. I just had to have one. I tried reading books on my crackberry but the screen was just too damn small and scrolling was a pain. The only thing that kept be from buying a Sony ereader or a Kindle was the price. For the money you can instead buy an Xbox 360 (I have two and the last was only $160 thanks to a coupon at CircuitCity), or an Iphone ($199 for an 8 gig) or hell, get both. So that's what I ended up doing. I bought both.
Is my ereader experience as great as that on a Kindle? I dunno. What I do know is that it's "good enough" for my uses. I just want to read some fiction. I want to kick back and read some Robin Cook or Dean Koontz in the can or at a theater while waiting for the show or whatever. I use Stanza on my iPhone and I downloaded a few collections via torrents and I'm all set for quite a while. Plus I have a phone and an mp3 player and God knows what else I've added to my phone. And like I said earlier, I also have a second Xbox 360 which obviously lets me play games but I wanted a second for streaming movies and tv shows into my bedroom.
Maybe if I had a train ride to work everyday a Kindle would make sense, but even then it's too big to be dropped in my pocket and I'd still have to have my phone with me. Who wants yet another gadget to lug around?
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
Comparing pictures of the two, they are totally different - in form factor, and external buttons. You mention the Kindle does not have a touch screen while the PRS-700 does.
So while possibly they may share the same OS (though even there I suspect large differences) they are not the same at all. And it seems to me that by "better" you very likely mean "has more features on a checklist".
I don't own either reader so I have no stake in which one is in fact better. But I have talked to a number of unlikely people (as in, not really gadget people) that owned and really liked the original Kindle so I think that Amazon may have something to the device they have built beyond the feature list that does make it more pleasing for people to use.
I myself am still wary of these readers but I like the concept, I just want something with perfect PDF/graphics support so I can use one to read technical books with diagrams.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If not, still not interested. I don't want to pay amazon to convert something I've already paid for. Postscript is a standard, and they should make it compatible if they want to increase their market share. Period. I have my entire o'reilly and cisco library in PDF on my laptop. The only reason I'd get a kindle is to have them in a more convenient form for study and reference when I'm unable to access my laptop. Oh yeah, so far as I know kindle books can't be read outside of the kindle appliance.
I'd get one of these the second it became usable for textbooks/research papers. You need 3 things for that to happen:
1) Native PDF support (which I don't believe this has).
2) Color.
3) A pen for the ability to annotate.
That would be a killer device. This...is not.
that this thing looks ugly as sin? I have the first version of the kindle, and this one just looks uglier. The screen is the same size from what I gathered, but it looks smaller. That's because the rest of the thing is larger, except that it is thinner. But the larger width and height gives it the illusion of a smaller screen. That just doesn't sit well with me. I'm not crazy about the new keyboard either.
At least it has all the features of the previous one, including wireless internet. As far as cost of books, you don't have to buy them, you can "pirate" books if you want.
Disclaimer: I am in no shape or form advocating copyright infringement. Nor the use of the word "piracy" or any derivatives there of, as it pertains to copyright infringement.
I read a couple of books on a Palm. I don't need a screen this big, so the device is no longer portable.
I am instead considering an ipod touch with stanza. That screen is much better than my old palm and should be plenty good for reading on the go.
The touch is smaller and more versatile to me.
Is there much of a counter argument for people who don't have eyesight issues?
My wife has a Kindle 1.0, and loves it. She has loaded a large number of her favorite reference volumes (finance, mostly) on it, and cleared out several bookshelves in her office. For her, the dollars spent are well worth the space saved. The math is easy... compute the cost per square foot of owning a house in Silicon Valley, and consider if you really want to use those square feet as storage for books that have no emotional value. The Kindle is a bargain when analyzed like that. DRM and short life of the media is not an issue... all the books she put on it will be of little relevence in a few years. Oh... being able to make any book a "large print volume" is an outstanding benefit for those of us of bifocal age.
As for me, I wish I could put my entire O'Reilly bookshelf on it so that "lex & yacc" or "Practical C++ Programming" were always in my laptop bag where ever I went. But the Kindle technology sucks at displaying technical content. See Tim O'Reilly's blog post of a year or more ago on the topic. That's why you don't see nutshell books on Kindle. And that's why I don't own a Kindle. Wake me when Amazon gets a big, fat clue about formatting technical content. When it's good enough for Tim, it's good enough for me.
"And then I can't read until it's returned to me. Fantastic."
And that's different from dead-tree how?
Did you mentally insert an "it" in my quote?
I said that I couldn't /read/ until it was returned to me, not that I couldn't read "it". The clear difference between loaning a dead-tree book to someone and loaning my reader to someone is that if I loan the dead-tree book, I can still read something else. If I loan someone my Kindle...not so much. Well, I can get a dead-tree book to read, but then what's the point of the Kindle?
I understand the technology and where it's going. I'm saying that I don't like it, and I'm stating the reasons.
The situation is far worse than even the bad old days of DRM'ed music.
There is Palm eReader, MobiPocket, Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader formats with DRM. Then there is text, PDF and other DRM-free formats.
You can either choose to pay for your books and end up with dodgy DRM laden crap that will only work on one or two devices, or you can just go to The Pirate Bay and load up for free. Unlike music, it's not like you can just buy a physical copy and rip it, although I'm not sure how legally dubious downloading something you already own just to format-shift is.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC