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I Want a Kindle Killer
lpress (707742) writes "Amazon's Kindle is a good e-reader and they've sold around 40 million units, but it is far from perfect. It could be significantly improved with speech recognition for commands and text entry, a well-designed database for marginal notes and annotations, and integration with laptop and desktop computers. Google, Apple and Microsoft all have device design and manufacturing experience as well as stores that sell books and other written material. A Kindle-killing e-reader would be low-hanging fruit for Apple, Google or Microsoft — think of the competition if they each built one!"
Handwriting as an input method would be nice too; a friend in college had one of the experimental Windows XP tablet PCs, and it was great for note taking and document annotation.
great battery life, runs Android and is easy to root so you can do other stuff with it... I'd have added a keyboard on the back, for typing with fingers while holding it. Why not just make more of that?
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
"had one of the experimental Windows XP tablet PCs" Not experimental. They were all pen input devices and worked very well. Just ask Fujitsu and a bunch of others.
Yep. The Nook already killed the Kindle, but, unfortunately, B&N is in the shitter so it couldn't keep pace after the Nook Color and base Nook models blew Kindles out of the water
They're called "hammers."
it's a **copyright problem**
that's it...we have plenty of digitalia of all shapes, sizes, and makes to display the text
most use programs called "apps"
all are subject to backwards-minded legal copyright holders who misuse artificial scarcity
Thank you Dave Raggett
How many features do you want to add to this before you kill it completely?
what he wants is everything and cheap, will not happen if it is not supported as kindle is by amazon that can sell it cheap because it lacks all those above
I believe that the Kindle is an excellent device primarily because it does one thing - its an eReader. I don't normally write all over my paper books and have no desire to do so on the Kindle either. Far from a luddite, I've got a ton of technology devices, but sometimes simple task-focussed pieces are better. My paperwhite is easy on the eyes, the battery lasts for a long time, its very lightweight, and I never have to troubleshoot it or wonder why its various components aren't playing well with each other.
Not every device needs to expand its footprint until all are equal. Want to read on a Fire or an iPad? Feel free. Don't try to turn the regular Kindle into a poor version of one of those.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Kindle is less about the device. You buy a book store. Amazon is a bookstore, Apple, Google and Microsoft are not. I don't know but I think the ebook market is pretty hard to enter, especially if you can't leverage your paper book market domination to force publishers to also publish an ebook.
The vendors should be forced by regulators to separate the bookstores from the devices and then the free market could find the best ebook reader.
Why would I want speech recognition from a book? Or handwriting as input method?
The only thing I would want them to improve on the kindle is the speech output.
Please login to access my lawn
...it does the job it is supposed to do almost perfectly. It is a device for reading books. If people want all the other stuff, they buy a tablet. Extra features are unlikely to kill a Kindle. The only thing that is likely to do so is when a tablet offers the same features (i.e. long battery life, display you can read in bright sunlight).
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
All I want is a paper replacement.
There are large e-ink displays, but they all lack high resolution input - as high as a 0.5mm pencil can get you.
15 years after I graduated, I still carry engineering paper, and I get it from the same bookstore. All that's changed is I take pictures of my notes instead of scan them now.
Come on Apple - want to innovate? Figure that one out. I triple dog dare you.
..don't panic
Because Kindles are cheap and Surface is not.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
While your suggestions speak to my inner geek, I think if Amazon does add those features they will kill the kindle.
That product sold 40 million because it does NOT have those features. It is already far more convenient than using a paperback, looks bright enough to read even in low light conditions, and can hold tons of books. For those 40 million people who bought a Kindle, that's more than enough. Add more features and you'll make the product cumbersome, suddenly it needs more processing power, suddenly battery life sucks...
No, I say the Kindle should remain as it is, and this simplicity is its strength.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... time... to... die...
I have a kindle. I don't want it to be anything other than a book replacement. I don't want to input text, annotations (in fact I think ebooks are horrible for anything you would annotate, like a textbook- you need to be able to flip through those), or anything else. I care only about ease of reading the text and battery life (where it excels). If I wanted a tablet, I'd get a tablet.
About the only thing I'd want changed is faster page loading times and better tools for organizing books (list of authors and series, for example) that I've bought.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I fail to see how the "features" discussed would make for a Kindle Killer. They sound like features that would cater to a niche of the population but little more than that. A Kindle Killer would need to find some sort of feature that when added to a book, makes it amazingly better. Not to mention, you've got to be able to do it for a price that makes it worthwhile.
... talking to your book to get it to do anything isn't likely to improve that.
If note taking in books was such a massively popular thing, we'd see more books with large margins for doing just that. Reading is a largely relaxing activity
What is being described here is more of a "goto E-reader" for research and/or students. Those aren't features I need when reading the latest novel. The notes or highlights I do take are minimal enough that I don't need anything too special, and certainly nothing that makes this the central aspect of my E-reader. Amazon did a pretty good job of understanding that people (the majority of readers at least) didn't want or need a ton of bells and whistles out of an e-reader. They needed something as similar to a book as possible. The book has been around for centuries and done a pretty good job, after all.
That's odd. Since in the last year I've read several novels, not to mention technical papers, essays and a few non-fiction books... all on my Nexus 7. Don't install much in the way of apps, and see no more ads on it than I do on my notebook or desktop.
Oh, I get it. You had this incredible attack against tablets, and you're not actually interested how they may be used on the ground. Do carry on with your biased and self-serving arguments.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What the OP suggests would probably be doable with existing hardware. This is more of an iOS/Android update than designing a new device from scratch.
IMHO, everyone wants something different in an e-Reader. For example, some want a tablet with a Nook app. Others want an e-Ink device that is easy on the eyes that can be held in one hand like a paperback and has a simple, efficient, no-frills UI.
I'd like a rev of e-Ink devices myself. We have plenty of media-playing items, and if one wants to run apps and games, might as buy a full fledged tablet.
Totally agree with parent. The kindle is a book replacement and it does what a book does, deliver a good story. It is not for interactive "work", it's just for pure enjoyment and relaxation. You want to annotate, modify, talk with your device take on iPad etc and use Siri etc to do it. Yay for non-story story XD
Extra storage via microSDxc
HDMI out
some other way of charging besides microUSB (although it could still use microUSB for connecting to other devices. )
miniUSB is way more reliable for charging, the microUSB cables just fall out if you breathe.
And something all android tabs need - a Hard Reset Button for when it locks up, and you have to wait for the battery to go flat before you can use it again.
Disclaimer: I have a Fire HDX 8.9" and I am generally happy with it apart from mentioned above.
They're called tablets. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It isn't that far off. An eink reader designed for travel, with lonely planet or wikisherpa included. It is also one of the few proper applications of a colour eink screen, as maps do not need to be vibrant but colours are vital to a map.
I could go on, but I know this is a fantasy. I hope one day a colour eink android or linux tablet arrives so I can install applications similar to this use case, but I am not holding my breath.
Kindle Killer = Local Library. Go check out a book. With the exception of a library keeping track of the date time and book you checked out, a book wont datamine or track your preferences or habits. Thats a kindle killer.
This is my signature.
The only reason the kindle can be sucky is because Amazon's got a grip on the content now. Doesn't matter that the competition can be faster, better, flashier, etc., it's all about the content, and Amazon's locking it up faster with authors and dumping it to lock in more customers.
Nonsense! There's plenty of free content to be had. And there's plenty of "grey" content to be had if you lean that way.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Ebook readers (the real ones based on e-ink) are good as they are. The less features the better, bookmarks and integration with vocabularies are enough for reading through a book.
If you need fancy stuff - get a tablet, it has features that you mentioned and much more.
Buck and Gerber make great knives. Far better than anything gillette has ever put out. So why don't they make a really great disposable razor so that they can corner the market?
Everyone rampaged around looking for an iPod killer and we never got one, until apple made the iphone, and popularized the convergence that everyone else had been trying to popularize in smartphones for years.
Samsung tried to make an iPhone killer, but could never really be successful without the true killer: Google Play/Android Marketplace
The iPod wasn't "the thing," iTunes was.
The Gillette Razor handle isn't "the thing" the cartridges are
The kindle isn't "the thing" the bookstore is.
Trying to beat the kindle with better hardware is completely missing the point. Even more so with the fact that Kindle has an app for most devices that lets you read stuff you buy from Amazon anyway (and vice versa).
The kindle is king because nobody (yes I am counting barnes and noble as "nobody") has any reason whatsoever to compete with it.
of course there is room for improvement with the kindle - but not with any of the things suggested in TFS. the reason why apple and other don't make a competitor is because the margins are low. the profit is in the books.
Because there is not much of a market for $400 e-reader.
How about compared to a book?
Or compared to an e-Reader after you pay the extra $20 for them to quit bothering you with ads?
What a load of bollocks, seriously.
My problem with the Kindle Touch that changing pages frequently invokes some unwanted function. It is infuriating to change page and get the Change Font, or Annotate, or Save Clipping dialogs. I understand that some users like these functions. I don't, I hate them. I wish I could switch them off.
Seriously. The current Kindle does one job - reading long texts for leisure - really, really well, and is pretty much crap at anything else.
The e-ink display is very restful to read for long periods, even in bright sunlight and gives incredible battery life, but at the expense of a glacial refresh rate and the need for pixels to be regularly cycled to black. Its no good whatsoever for the sort of fluid touch interface that you'll see in a 'proper' tablet or smartphone.
The Kindle is my go-to device for 'sitting down with a good book' (or even 'sitting on a plane reading low-mental-load crappy SF shorts') but for any other use - even reading reference books where you need to rapidly scroll/skim, use indices/TOCs or follow links, a tablet, smartphone or laptop runs rings around it.
As soon as someone cracks a full-colour, high refresh-rate, low power 'eInk' technology to replace backlit LCD in tablets and phones, the e-reader will be dead overnight.
Also, I know Amazon is teh evilz (but no more so than Apple, Google or Microsoft), and the Kindle is their cash register, but they also run a bloody good service. As they say, the Devil has all the best tunes (and books).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
This is slashdot, damnit.
I see no use for text to speech or audio books for the sighted. If you want to read a book, read a book. If you're advocating "reading" while doing something else, then forget it. Reading is an immersive process, and should not be done in tandem with anything else.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
Yep. I don't think the wife ever logs into the PC anymore, unless a site is so badly engineered she can't use it on the Nexus 7.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
What tablet shows you ads when reading an ebook? I've used the Kindle and Nook apps on multiple tablets and yet have never seen these mythical ads you mention.
Amazon has never told anyone how many kindles they've sold. Where did that 40 million number come from?
And then there are the converters, which turn EPUBs into MOBIs.
They're called "tablets" and "tablet PCs".
What, you think handwriting recognition and voice recognition are cheap? That they're no-consequence modules that can be simply bolted on to another device that somehow, magically, doesn't impact cost, performance, battery life, or complexity of use? And that adding handwriting recognition to the e-reader app itself is easy? LOL. "Low-hanging fruit?" Hardly.
Do you REALLY think OEMs want to make yet ANOTHER class of device that fits between tablet computers and dedicated e-readers? How large do you think the market is for a device that does more than an e-reader and less than a tablet? It's already a pretty compact market space with razor-thin margins. The low-end for tablets (7"+) that aren't complete junk is about $99 and the high-end is $299. (8" iPad mini) Low-end tablet PC laptops start around there. (As will the Surface, on clearance, soon. :D ) Super-cheap tablets and dedicated e-readers go down to about $59. Don't look for another product category -- especially not one with such limited appeal -- to be squeezed into this narrow range any time soon.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
....so buy a hammer.
If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?
I am trying to improve tablets for reading books. I recently wrote Android drivers for a novel pressure sensor mounted under the LCD on a tablet so that you can switch pages by pressing firmly on the screen allowing you to change pages without changing your grip. People are working on this.
It's a book reader, only two things matter: screen quality and the ease of getting books on it.
I would've included battery life, but that's been a solved issue with the Kindle from the beginning.
None of the "killer" features listed would do a damn to improve the reading experience, and some of them would be very annoying. Didn't the whole Siri debacle finally demonstrate that no one wants to yell at their devices?
sic transit gloria mundi
The "paperwhite" backlighting on the latest Kindles is killer. I checked out the latest Nooks and they just aren't up to par as far as an even backlight is concerned.
The only multi-tasking ability I wish they would add (back) to the Kindle is the MP3 player/audio. I hate having to use a second device to listen to music while I'm reading and I miss the option of having an audio-book play while I'm cooking or such.
- tensions in our lives that are attacking our minds, unite themselves together to make our consciousness blind - op'ivy
I stopped reading on a full fledged tablet. It's not well readable in the sun, it requires charging all the time, and if the tablet breaks, it's expensive to replace.
I think you're projecting your own behaviour out onto the rest of us. Everyone I know who bought tablets uses them all the time. They're very useful devices. I don't need to carry one because I have a 1080p Galaxy Note 3, but I have three tablets in daily use at home.
I refer to it as an iPad
I've been dying for a bigger ereader for magazines, technical documents, etc since I saw the initial announcement of the Plastic Logic reader (vaporware) many years ago. There are plenty of us who could use it, is it a technical challenge to do this, or what?
Calibre will fix that for you. You can convert most any type of ebook (though drm is a limiting factor) and send it to the device of your choice.
I agree, the Kindle fire is an artificially crippled Android tablet anyway, so why not go with a better tablet? If you want just an e-ink based reader to do nothing else but read then some of the old Kindles might be OK. But if your looking for a Kindle Fire replacement then you don't have to look far to find better. I might have suggested the Nexus, but the customer unfriendly lack of a 5 cent memory card slot was a deal breaker for me. I would currently suggest the Hisense Sero 7 Pro 7" Tablet, available currently from Wak-Mart for $115. It has the resolution to be a great reader, a long life battery, And many tablet features that the Amazon offering lacks, including GPS, camera, NFC, and microphone. The only downside that I see is that it is only on Android 2.4, not the latest and greatest. But I think that still beats the Kindle.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
lpress wants a Kindle, but with "speech recognition for commands and text entry, a well-designed database for marginal notes and annotations, and integration with laptop and desktop computers."
That's not a Kindle, which is a single-purpose machine for reading; that is a general purpose machine. Apple already makes the machine desired: it's the iPad.
Handwriting as an input method would be nice too
Ah, now you're re-inventing the late lamented "Newton", not to mention the Palms of yesteryear (where the "handwriting" had to be in their unique graffiti alphabet)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
First, I concur, I don't understand how something like this actually makes the news page.
Second, it sounds like they want an iPad, not a Kindle.
The poster misses the entire point of Kindle, and why it's done so well - it's for people that mainly want to read books. They added Fire to the lineup for folks that want to consume other media, as well. But there is no reason for it to have something like voice control - since it's mainly a book reading device, do you really need voice control to tell it to what, turn the page for you? Same with annotating - so few people would actually use a voice feature like that and the investment in development of one good enough, and system use overhead in implementation of, which all would end up being like putting a jet engine on a motorcycle.
It honestly does just sound like you want an iPad, or if you are anti-Apple then a Surface, etc. They already do the things you are looking for. They also have Kindle apps so you can have your cake and eat it, too. Kindle has great mark-up features, which you can export and manage in your app of choice.
Basically, the entire point of a Kindle is to bring e-book reading mainstream by giving a basic device at a low price point, which is just what it has done - and most mainstream users would never use these features. No need to make the round-peg Kindle fit into the square-peg, when there are plenty of other devices that will slide right into said peg.
The EARL is pretty close an android with an eink display that lights up. So you can read a book on a good display and have the OS and processor to do pretty much everything but gaming and watching videos.
No sir I dont like it.
I would like to *easily* print pages from a kindle ebook.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
For reading books, I'm not going to get a full blown Windows device that costs several hundred dollars. Heck, for just reading, I think my Nexus 7 is way overpriced, but because I use it for other things like remote administration, it serves multiple purposes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No kidding. I use both the Kobo and Kindle apps, and while they bring up recommendations if you are in their "home" screens, I never see them while actually reading the book.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Is the kindle really sucky though? it's a simple device that was designed and engineered to do one thing very well, deliver content purchased from amazon quickly and easily. (Ok it does two things, it lets you read books also.)
In all seriousness though, my Luddite father is an avid reader, and even he loves his Paperwhite. If someone like him (who asks 'do i right click or left click?' when opening a file) enjoys using a kindle, it clearly is doing its job.
As parent said though, Amazon does have a vice-like grip on the content, and regardless of the Kindle sucking or not, they'll win as a result.
The other key advantage they have is the delivery of the content. Having used other e-readers before, nothing comes close to the ease of loading stuff on the Kindle. (1 click, send-to-kindle, whispernet etc) Which is especially important to retain people like my pops as customers.
If all I'm doing is reading, my battery life is pretty damned long. As with any tablet, it's about all the other crap you might have running. I do agree that e-ink has its advantages depending on lighting conditions, but the first thing I learned was to switch to black background with white text, which solved some of the problems.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Which touch tablet doesn't have the capability of turning the page when touched?
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
And what ads are these? I use the Kobo and Kindle apps, and the only ads I see are in their home/library screens, where they have book recommendations (most of the time having nothing to do with anything I actually read). Once I select an ebook I don't see ads at all.
You must be using some weird hardware.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I disagree with the premise of the question. It seems the poster is asking for a tablet, in which case Microsoft, Apple, and Google all have entrants in the field. It sounds like the poster wants a device that is Kindle priced (the Kindle Paperwhite is $90) but with the power of a tablet. I think the reason no one has already made such a device is because they can't make money doing it. It isn't an opportunity.
For what the OP wants to do, he wants a Surface. Or just an app for the Note series of tablets. Both have digitizers (which means a real pen interface for note taking), and both require only an app which allows annotation. Get someone to write a note-taking app similar to what ForScore for the iPad does with musical scores. You can even match an audio file to the score. The problem isn't hardware, it's software, unless you have an absolute need for an e-ink screen with this device. A dedicated device with all of these requirements and the limitations of e-ink starts making for a very narrow market - which means high cost.
And competition will do squat for prices. Kindles are "subsidized" devices, built to minimum cost and to fairly thin margins (at least initially) so that you buy them on a lark and then spend money in the Amazon ebook store. Amazon doesn't have to make money on them - it can lose money, for that matter - as long as you're a regular consumer of books. Google doesn't have an ebookstore I know if, nor does Microsoft. Apple has one, but is more focused on the shiny of music and video.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
most smartphones & tablets have voice input
so...what was your point again?
if someone wanted voice input & note taking *AND* an 'e-reader'....you can easily envision an app that does exactly that
your 'e-reader' app wouldn't have any books in it though, would it?
the listed features are **already available** on most digitalia I refered to
maybe you should think more about what an 'e-reader' really does
Thank you Dave Raggett
Converting from epub->mobi is not "lossy". It isn't like words or sections of text go missing during the conversion process.
No, this is where you keep your finger in exactly the same place but just apply a little extra force.
The Kindle 1 had this. It was called a "button".
No... you're not the target audience. The kindle is perfect for what it was designed to do which is sell you books. It's incredibly easy to search for, find and read books on the device. All the additional features you're talking about would get in the way of those core functions. I have 3 kindles, and I spend the majority of my time in each of them actually reading. (who'd have thunk?) The touch capable ones are super annoying because... well... touching the screen does stuff... and while reading a 2000+ page book I'm bound to occasionally brush the screen. The same goes for the kindle with the keyboard. I dont want those extra buttons! The best kindle I have (I dont know the model) has buttons to turn pages forward and back... a home button and some directional arrows. It's basically impossible to hit the wrong button, it's easy to read, easy to find books and I only have to charge it once every few months.
A wise engineer once said: The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.
My employers bought a couple of the Microsoft "Surface" boxes.
They got passed around, starting with the CEO, proceeding through around ten professional IT staff, and then through business middle management, then through the secretarial staff. Each of these users decided that the surface was not meeting their needs and gave it back, and we gave it to the next starry-eyed patsy.
Now they sit in a drawer in the IT support room, and every time some new hire comes in we ask them if they'd prefer a conventional laptop or the surface. Unless they've already used one, they always ask for the surface and use it for anywhere from one week to three months, then give it back and ask for a cheaper, more powerful laptop. These people come from all kinds of backgrounds but the response is always the same.
I only know of one real live person (as opposed to Internet commentators) who is productive with the Surface and loves it. She is a 20 year old art school student who also has a desktop PC and a windows phone. She proves that there is a niche for the device... but it appears that it's a very small one, and may be restricted to graphic artists.
When I used one for two months I found it to be an awkward compromise between a pad computer and a laptop, providing no real benefit over either one. Personally, I particularly hated the keyboard (although I liked the magnetic attachment schtick).
It's called "tolino shine". Same high-end display as the Kindle, somewhat nicer industrial design. Sold by all major booksellers (Thalia, Hugendubel, Weltbild, Bertelsmann), developed by Deutsche Telekom. Reached 40 percent market share within one year, and is expected to become the market leader this year. The "tolino" became a Kindle killer not because of feature creep, but because it supports a user-friendly business model. Users are not locked into a single vendor. Ebooks (epub and pdf formats) can be purchased at any vendor except Amazon, and are stored in a free 25GB cloud space. You can even upload your own epub content. WLAN access to Telekom WiFi hotspot is included for free.
So ... you want a tablet? There are tons in stores ... pick one.
I have one of the older e-Ink, Wi-Fi only Kindles. Still has a physical keyboard, which I rarely use. My wife has the ad-supported one with no keyboard, and she doesn't seem to miss it.
The old e-ink kindle is great. I love it. They nailed the user scenario for me -- it is actually _better_ than a physical book. I can use it anywhere I'd use a physical book, I rarely worry about battery life. It's easier to read than a real book when laying on my side in bed.
I am completely uninterested in a color e-reader until it has the battery life and contrast of the e-ink display. And I don't want music, or apps, or multi-tasking, or anything else, because history tells me that adding them will detract from the basic experience of just reading a fucking book.
Here are the improvements I want out of a new kindle.
1) some kind of magical mystery charging. Maybe there is an inductive mat. Maybe its solar. Who knows. I said I _almost_ never worry about charging it. The next step would be I _NEVER_ worry about charging it -- and, I leave the Wi-Fi enabled and continue to not worry about it.
2) bendable/flexible - within limits. If they could make the thing so that it would reliably survive on the outside of soft-sided luggage; if I could put it in a pocket and not worry about it..that would be amazing. What's interesting about this is that the basic e-ink display technology can be flexible...
3) ability to easily -- and I mean easily -- send a book I've finished to my wife's device. Like, if me and her are in the same room, with both of our devices, I ought to be able to send a book on my device to her device. For free. Without any nonsense/bullshit.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/...
Actually, Google does have an eBookstore: Google Play Books. They also sell Movies, TV shows, and music on their Google Play store.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I bought myself a Kindle Keyboard and have gotten great use out of it over the years. It's handy having a physical keyboard for when I do want to do text entry, whether that's using the Silk browser or looking to buy a book directly through the device interface. Amazon has gone all-touch with the Kindle line these days which I think is a shame. I'd definitely buy a Paperwhite with a keyboard.
I've owned several e-readers, and I love them for what they are -- a book replacement. For me it's all about having a high contrast, readable screen with excellent battery life, and e-ink instead of any kind of light-emitting display. I've used one each of a Sony, Kindle, and Kobo.
In every case, I've loved the hardware, but the software drives me insane.
Mostly I want all my reader software to talk to Calibre (or some other central database) to sync the last page read, keep notes on which books I've read and when, and to record my star ratings. But it would be nice if the reader's "library" screen made good use of the screen to allow me to navigate through my books.
I have a "Kindle with ads." In theory, the only ads I see are when the Kindle is off (in which case, it is in a protective cover so I don't see it) or when I'm browsing my list of books (in which case, the ad is tucked away at the bottom of the screen and easily ignored). In practice, something has gone wrong with my Kindle and it isn't loading up new ads to show me. Not that I'm complaining at all. (It still syncs up books.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It really is just for reading though and I agree giving it the ability to be able to play audio while reading would be fantastic. I'd pay an extra $20 for that which should more than cover the additional hardware and MP3 license. The e-ink display, coupled with tweaking the font size and therefore the line width allows me to read much faster than a paper book.
I'm all for making a cool new ereader but I ask to ensure its available as an app as well. I like to use my iPad mini and some books I have on kindle (use kindle app) some I have on the iBookstore (use apple app). I do prefer to combine them all to amazon but if forced to go with a new market leader at least I can use whatever device I want (as well as their hardware).
-Xen
I bought a Kobo Aura, quite similar to the Nook Glow or the Kindle Paperwhite in functionality. E-ink touch screen, excellent backlight for nightime reading, has an SD slot, WiFi connectivity, etc.
It does (or did when I bought it) command a bit of a price premium, but it Just Works (TM).
Disclaimer: I'm one of those folks who will never buy a DRM'd book, which is one reason I run screaming from Kindles. The other is that I have a pipedream that one day epub format will take over the soft-document world.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
As a paperwhite owner, my device is almost always in airplane mode. Load books on it via Calibre over a USB cable and charge it every couple weeks. A modest investment of time and effort will thorougly break the "vice-like grip on the content" you referenced, but probably not for your father.
Sounds like your company purchased too early. The original Surface tablets were utter shit, any half baked IT person would've seen the signs when it was first released. Dated processor, terrible battery life, and practically no storage unless you spent about $200 more for the "upgrade" to 128GB. I completely understand if the CEO thought he was awesome and purchased 10. Bleh...terrible IT decision makers.
I just purchased a Surface Pro 2, and I replaced my troubleshooting/carry-around laptop. While I am not a huge fan of the Metro interface, it does make sense from a tablet perspective. I have a USB adapter with 3 USB ports when I need a Ethernet or multiple USB ports when I need connectivity, but it doesn't come out of my bag all too often. I average about 5-7 hours of battery life, but its hard to tell because the device quickly goes to sleep when not in use.
I do wish that the keyboard cover contained an external battery and was weighted enough to hold the Surface without using the kickstand. Besides that I have yet to find any major flaws with the device.
The person clearly wants a tablet. I want a better kindle with features like color e-ink, and a much larger e-ink display for magazines and PDFs.
Evil Corporation wants boycott.
Buy the hammer at your local store.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
My big beef with kindles and nooks are:
1 The graphs and tables are presented very poorly. They don't scale well, don't have the clarity of the printed book even when you zoom.
2. Not vendor neutral. Have to go through Amazon, and I cringe in aiding and abetting the monopolist. Free wireless delivery via mobile networks is so smooth and convenient
3. Difficult to switch back and forth between a graphic, table or figure and the reading location. Don't want to create a bookmark every time.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I personally think the Kindle is AWESOME.
No complaints here and I think the submitter is just daft. Or anti-amazon
Compared to a book there are less ads on my Nexus 7. The last few pages of current paperbacks are always ads. Often, you think you have about 10 minutes of reading left and it is a "sample" from some other upcoming book - perhaps a chapter or so. Following this are ads for other books from the publisher. On my Nexus 7? If I compare to a book, I don't see ads. Now, if you say "but if you visit a web page you see ads!". Sure, but books can't go to a web page. When I am just reading a book on the N7 I don't see any ads.
Back circa 1970s, one of the first things I did when purchasing a new paperback was rip the cigarette ad out from the middle. They printed them on heavy color stock and it interfered with page turning.
No, this is where you keep your finger in exactly the same place but just apply a little extra force.
The Kindle 1 had this. It was called a "button".
I can get the same effect on my reader by pressing anywhere along the side of the page. A much bigger "button", and it doesn't have contacts that get dirty or wear down.
There's a ton of people out there who have trouble with things like finding files after they're downloaded, let alone connecting the kindle via USB, and dragging and dropping said download onto the kindle (or using caliber, if they've even heard about it)
Which is another kettle of fish entirely -- but you're right, loading books via usb (using caliber or not) eliminates amazon's control.. but in the end, ease of use and convenience will win every time. And give it time, Amazon will do everything in their power to eliminate non-amazon sources of ebooks. (hell, i'm surprised they still allow mobi).
I have an iPad 4, a 7" android and various other devices, but most were bought by my company and I don't really use the much apart from development. I am an avid reader though and nothing beats my Kindle for that. It does only one thing, but it is the best at it. The screen is as relaxing as a book while the weight is even less, so it is more comfortable to hold than a book, and much much more convenient at night. I've used the iPad to read a couple of comic books but it is very heavy so it does not leave many ways I can use it comfortably, plus the screen is not less tiring than a computer monitor. I miss the actual dead-tree book when I try a tablet, but I always prefer Kindle versions. Oh, and the Kindle battery lasts forever. Overall, it has made it possible for me to read more books than before having it, as it makes it more comfortable when lying on the bed, and more convenient to carry with me some books at all times. Why would I want to trade any part of the excellent experience the Kindle offers as a reader? Why should the one device I have that does one thing perfectly, try to do a lot more that other devices already do anyway? You want to take handwritten notes, annotations, voice recognition? Get something like a Galaxy Tab. It has all that already.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Having an hour plus commute each way is an excellent time for an audio book for the "sighted". Enjoying a book is meant to be done in a way that the person with the book can enjoy it. I've listened to quite a few audio books as part of my commute and I've enjoyed them immensely. I definitely have certain books that I would only read, especially horror genre. But for me, and for AC you responded to, as well as many others, the text to speech option would be of use. Certainly not as good as a professional read audio book, but better than having to listen to Froggy 91 FM ALL CRAZY ALL THE TIME every day.
All tablets that I know of have an LCD, which is like staring into a light bulb and which lasts hours instead of days on one battery. Which tablet do you recommend that has an e-ink display? Yes, I'm aware that screen transitions would need to be redesigned.
You know about Calibre. Have you ever used Calibre? Seriously- it's takes minutes to convert dozens of books and load them on a Kindle. Show stopper? Naw. I say this as a happy user of Calibre and as a Kindle owner. As close to a painless conversion experience as you can get.
Hi,
I recently had to move from the kindle for reasons most folks do not share. I settled on the Kobo Aura HD (better font support, more detailed screen, built in support for dyslexie font). then I found I could load a android 2.3 os onto the card. Its not perfect. Its GoodEnough(tm)
Want kindle content? Kindle android loads right up! Its got a Infrared based touch input that is surprisingly good for pen use, but its cpu is rather slow.
Its got its faults of course but I cant afford a real android based tablet like the Tornio or Onyx. You want to look into those options but be ready for sticker shock - Amazon heavily subsidizes the kindle liek kobo subsidizes the Aura line.
I suppose you threw out your CD collection rather than ripping it?
- Listening while driving
- Easier reading when your eyes are already tired from a day of reading text on a screen.
Do you have a problem with people reading more?
Which is every bit as immerse as story told verbally and no less.
yes...because they paid for the right to sell the 'ebook'
you admit you have 'e-reader apps'...so we agree they exist
you acknowledge copyright exists
you're proving me right
any "app" that sells books must be allowed
the maker of your current "e-reader app" could make a feature to do what TFA says *now*...which is a software fix
we have the apps, we have the technology to do it on the devices...
it's a software fix that any licensed seller of "e-reader" books could make to their software....done
Thank you Dave Raggett
If you want it to be a Kindle too, install the fucking Kindle app.
If you want it to have an e-ink display, it's not going to work well with Android or iOS or any of their apps because it's terribly slow at updating and monochrome.
The only report I was able to find with real numbers estimated kindle sales at 20.5 million:
http://allthingsd.com/20131212...
My problem with the Kindle Touch that changing pages frequently invokes some unwanted function. It is infuriating to change page and get the Change Font, or Annotate, or Save Clipping dialogs. I understand that some users like these functions. I don't, I hate them. I wish I could switch them off.
Have you tried the Kindle3 without touch controls? The side tabs work quite well - of course, I don't use my Kindle at all anymore, and my mom who reads voraciously prefers her iPad Mini - even though I gave her my Kindle due to it's lack of use on my part, she gave it back and said no thanks.
On the sales front, this is the first time I'm even hearing about sales numbers - do they include Kindle Fires? IIRC, Amazon never gave out numbers for their eReader Kindles alone. Even assuming it's 40M eReaders alone, Apple, last year alone, sold over 40M iPads (which have iBooks and Kindle.app).
Should we even consider 40M considered a success given the competition?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
It's a book reader, only two things matter: screen quality and the ease of getting books on it.
I like the Kindle3 when I use it - the hardware buttons are problem free and easily accessible for a very important function -turning pages. I hear the Kindle touch can sometimes glitch and give you the wrong response... for something as frequent as turned pages, that sounds like a big factor.
I wonder how the other eReaders fare on that front - it'd be a big deal for me.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
And then there's folks like me, for whom the tablet is the "computer you can drag between the living room and bedroom". I use mine to read, play solitaire, play other games, do web searches, remote control the cable box, read email... pretty much all my day to day computer usage except listening to music (phone, in car), make phone calls (phone), and Quicken (laptop in office).
I think what the author is really looking for here is a Color E-Ink Tablet. I would be very interested in such a device as well but alas such a device doesn't exist on the market sadly for a reasonable price. Folks seem pleased with back-lit displays but I find them not as comfortable to look at as an E-Paper device.
So many of my books only work on certain platforms :|
I can't read a bunch of my books on my glorious 4k screen because Amazon's treating Windows 8 like a second class citizen. Peter Thiel's new book? Nope. Half my machine learning books (eg Blondie24?) Nope. Most of my typesetting books? Nope.
Even stuff that works on Windows 7, or on Windows 8 Phone, ffs.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
If you mean the fire series, they are not e-book readers. They are tablets, pretending to be book readers.
If you mean e-ink, there can be improvements ( color, more reasonably priced larger option )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...since an e-book reader is software, not hardware. I read my (many) Kindle books on my old-gen Kindle, on my wife's ipad, on my own galaxy tab 2, on my wife's rooted Nook, on my android cell phone (but not usually, too small print), on my computer(s). In other words, it is pretty easy to get a free Kindle book reader for many (maybe even most) platforms and hook it into your library. I'm not sure what "advantages" a Kindle per se is over any of these platforms, either for reading books or for playing Android games or for doing work of various sorts. My Galaxy is pretty awesome for the purposes I put it to -- reading books (mostly Kindle books, sometimes Google books, not infrequently free epub/mobi books), playing Sudoku, playing any of the other dozen or so well-done games I've invested in so far (some for free, some cheap, some "expensive" at $7 or $9 each), rarely browsing the web, doing email, etc. Rarely because I prefer to attach a bluetooth keyboard if I'm going to do keyboard-based work, but I have other computers that are better suited for most of that.
So I don't get the "Kindle Killer" comment. You mean something better than the Kindle as an Android platform? Lots of choices -- Samsung Galaxy is arguably better in nearly any dimension, for example, and many people have pointed out that the rooted Nook is a nice cheap choice (and would be a "good" choice if Barnes and Noble got their head out of their rear and didn't force one to root it to be able to install arbitrary Android apps from the Android store). And then there is the iPad -- which is a lovely little piece of hardware whatever you think of drinking the Apple-ade. There is the Surface -- personally I won't get one both because I still have a bit of Evil Empire problem with Microsoft and because it is expensive as all hell compared to anything but a full-feature iPad. I've looked at a bunch of the other Android Tabs in the stores, and none of them really suck, although some are arguably better than others. Many are cheaper than the Kindle and don't have Kindle's anti-Google thing going (although the Kindle is reportedly better than the Nook in that regard, but perhaps not by much).
If you mean kindle SOFTWARE killer -- then I truly don't understand your comment. A better version of the existing Kindle book reader? A third party reader (unlikely, given proprietary stuff)?
A hammer?
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
What I like so much about my kindle is it's pure simplicity. If I wanted something that I could take notes with, I'd grab my tablet, or my desktop. Yes, you can put bookmarks in and highlight text. The only thing I can do with my kindle is read. If it were to do more, I'd be tempted to do more with it. Miles of battery life, easy to read, simple controls.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I have a Kobo Aura HD and I find it a little better for actually reading ebooks than the Kindle. But it's not a Kindle killer. I'm comparing it with my Kindle Paperwhite 3G. I also have a tablet, but I still like e-ink with a backlight.
I say it's better for actually reading because you can select the font, paragraph justification and line spacing. That would be in addition to the being able to select the font size like the Kindle can. It has space for more books, 4gb on board + up to 32 gb on a micro SD card and it manages battery life better. I use airplane mode on the Kindle to get better battery life, but on the Kobo, I don't have to bother. The fact that both devices are e-ink readers with a backlight seriously limits my options.
But, I say it's not a Kindle killer because the Kindle store is much better. So is the ability to load books to the Amazon cloud via e-mail. The fact that both the Kindle and Kobo readers are partly subsidized by their online stores means I'm not holding my breath looking for the next Kindle killer. I'm in Canada, and I believe that still rules out the Nook (B&N) store.
Going back to the original article, the Kindle store is much better than the Google Play store and iBooks as well. Synching annotations with your laptop or tablet is automatic as long as WiFi is enabled. There's just no voice input option.
Enough said.
It could be significantly improved with speech recognition for commands and text entry, a well-designed database for marginal notes and annotations, and integration with laptop and desktop computers.
None of those things is remotely relevant to the only thing I use my Kindle for, which is... reading books. I don't need speech recognition to turn pages, I don't need to enter text (except to name groups), I don't need to make marginal notes or annotations, and the current integration with computers (plug into computer, drag files onto kindle) does everything that I need it to.
In fact, the only thing that I would say could use improvement on the Kindle would be a physical page-turn button (I own both a Kindle Keyboard and a Paperwhite, and I miss the page-turn button), and a better way to organize my books. Putting books into groups and maintaining those groups is super tedious right now. To add a book to a group, you have to page through a list of ALL books on the device (including those in other groups) and select which ones should be in your group. There's no way to click on a book and say what group it should go in.
What would I prefer you do on long drives? Well, as a fellow driver, I'd rather you pay attention to driving while the kids and wife actually read or play games. If you're enjoying an audio book, there is no way you are paying attention to the road and other drivers. You're just as distracted as you would be if you were reading. Your mind needs to be on the road and other drivers, not off in whatever la-la land the story has you in.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
Which is every bit as immerse as story told verbally and no less.
Which is exactly why you shouldn't be doing it while driving, or are you saying it's OK to read a book or newspaper while driving?
--- Keep the choice with the user..
You should be driving during your commute. If you're enjoying that audio book as much as you would reading, then you are driving on auto pilot. You are immersed in the story and absolutely zero percent of your attention is on the road and other drivers.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
because you or me (or any geek off the street) **cannot** just make an app that sells copyrighted books from major publishers
BECAUSE OF COPYRIGHT
the tech exists to have those features, but **no one can make better apps** because only the likes of Amazon, Google, and Apple can negotiate licensing agreements with copyright holders
so unless Amazon, Google, or Apple *choose* to add those features, this will not happen...
because of copyright....
nowhere is a technical device limitation relevant salient...we have the devices with the ability but not the license from copyright holders to sell their eBooks
I'm not explaining this any further, if you don't get it after this you're hopeless
Thank you Dave Raggett
I can get the same effect on my reader by pressing anywhere along the side of the page.
"Pressing" or "touching"? Can you be touching the same spot while holding the device and not initiate a page turn?
Parent's point was that you can't hold the Kindle and initiate a page turn without changing how you're holding the Kindle. I like the idea of not having to move my hand or fingers, just having to increase pressure. If I hold my Paperwhite in one hand at an awkward angle, moving my thumb into place to tap the screen is awkward, since it's also what's gripping the device.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It could be significantly improved with speech recognition for commands and text entry
Yeah, because that already work so well on devices with processors that are hundreds of times faster and have permanent internet connections... oh, no, wait, voice input still sucks most of the time.
Handwriting as an input method would be nice too
And what price were you hoping to pay for all of these new features? Bearing in mind it'd take a processor and probably battery upgrade which you'd presumably want squeezed into the same form factor...
Are you sure you don't actually want an e-ink tablet, rather than a souped-up Kindle?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I can get the same effect on my reader by pressing anywhere along the side of the page.
"Pressing" or "touching"? Can you be touching the same spot while holding the device and not initiate a page turn?
Parent's point was that you can't hold the Kindle and initiate a page turn without changing how you're holding the Kindle. I like the idea of not having to move my hand or fingers, just having to increase pressure. If I hold my Paperwhite in one hand at an awkward angle, moving my thumb into place to tap the screen is awkward, since it's also what's gripping the device.
Probably not, but I can operate page-turning one-handed and without shifting my grip.
I want a raise.
I want to go home.
I want sex.
I want a cookie.
.: Semper Absurda
because you or me (or any geek off the street) **cannot** just make an app that sells copyrighted books from major publishers
That has nothing to do with what you said. You claimed that the lack of voice input and note-taking, and interfacing to desktop systems was a "copyright problem". Who sells what book to whom has nothing to do with what other applications are on a device. Nothing at all. Since you've failed to show that it does, I'll just assume you can't back up that claim.
the tech exists to have those features, but **no one can make better apps** because only the likes of Amazon, Google, and Apple can negotiate licensing agreements with copyright holders
You are a complete moron. Book reading apps aren't limited to Amazon or Google. I've got at least three on most of my devices that have nothing to do with any of those companies, much less any companies that actually sell books. e-reader apps don't need to be tied to a specific vendor, and many of them are not.
Even WERE they tied to the vendors, there is no reason that other apps to do what the OP wants can't be used. There simply is no "copyright problem" in getting what he wants, and no "artificial scarcity" as you pretend.
I'm not explaining this any further, if you don't get it after this you're hopeless
The fact that you think the that only source of e-reader apps is the major book vendors, and that the only way voice input or note-taking software could exist is if they provide it shows who the hopeless one here is, I'm afraid. Your inability to defend your claim is noted.
you have three (3) apps on your smartphone that sell 'e-books' from major publishers, and these three apps are independent completely of google play, apple or amazon's systems
give me a link to those app's websites...show me the apps
Thank you Dave Raggett
I'm familiar with that phenomenon but mostly from YA books, which I mostly grew out of (I made an exception for Steelheart and don't regret it).
Or occasionally it's an excerpted chapter from the next book in the exact same series, which is technically an ad I guess, but if I read to the end I'm probably going to want to read the series.
This might actually vary with geography as well -- maybe where you're from, even books for grown-ups tend to get a sample from a random other book. Or maybe you still like YA novels and there's actually nothing necessarily wrong with that, no judging, I like some cartoons.
I guess you're holding it "right." I find it awkward.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I don't care either way. I just think the whole "squeezing the screen" thing is a bit pointless when there are other mechanical ways to do it. Heck, you could put a button or two under the screen if that was all you wanted.
Me too, for the same reason! Tho I did learn to be very careful how I removed 'em, because they were usually stuck to the spine a lot more strongly than the surrounding pages. After the first spectacular fail, I went to carefully cutting them off, as close to the spine as I could get.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I broke the next page buttons on my nook in 6 months. I'm really looking forward to a force sensitive glass screen that will not break from continuous use.
I have had one each of the last few versions of the kindle, and I am a happy user. Now I have a paper-white unit and I am very content. I have several hundred books comprised of novels, and technical books about software engineering. Sure my iPhone has a kindle app, but the paper-white is so readable and does not suffer from needing to do too many things. As much as I like "rooting", I really don't feel any need to poke around inside the kindle firmware. I have a Mac Pro, a MacBook Pro, an iPad Air, and an iPhone5. Each has a role in my life. I don't want to program on my ereader. Relating only to it's capability, and not focusing on Amazon's business practices, I highly recommend the Kindle. The 3G wireless networking is free and you can purchase and download books while outside wifi zones. It is an extra bonus that the kindle app is available for most of my other devices. If I really have to, I can reference a technical book on my iPhone. Even if a kindle-killer did come along, I already own quite a vfew kindle books, and would want to stick with that for the time being.
so you agree that TFA is wrong, and that it's not a hardware solution, but a software solution
that was my point from the beginning...copyright was a parenthetical point
go back and read my post again
TFA is wrong...it's a software question...a **designer** question...
Thank you Dave Raggett
it is a copyright problem, because no one can make an app that has the features w/o being Google, Apple, or Amazon
TFA did indeed indicate that something 'new' had to happen, which is wrong...the devices **have the ability to do those features right now**
unless you are those Google, Apple, or Amazon, the answer is a copyright issue, all other things being equal (ability to code and launch the app)
if you want me to admit that i was wrong I won't...I may be stretching things a bit to link it all the way to copyright, but stretching an analogy is different than being "dead wrong"
the main point is that there is no **technical limitation**...it's corporate BS that keeps e-readers or e-reader apps from havign those features
Thank you Dave Raggett
I find it difficult to read tech books on a 7'' screen. I prefer a 10'' screen for reading tech books. In fact I find 10'' inch suitable for novels too. So I prefer a 10'' kindle. I wish it could open many more formats comfortably, like pdf's, djvu's, chm's etc. apart from epub and mobi. Plus note-taking and highlighting would make it perfect. It doesn't exist. So I didn't bother to own a kindle.
I just used a Surface Pro 3.
In my opinion it beats every tablet on the market. Once I replace my laptop with the Surface Pro 3, I am pretty sure that I will eventually stop using my Kindles e-readers.
However, I will still use the Kindle app. So are you wanting a different "e-reader" or are you wanting Amazon to have competition?
No reason to expect a force sensitive glass screen to fare any better when decently designed buttons are typically rated in the millions of presses.
In my Nook's case, the it was the plastic bezel over the buttons that broke. The tactile switch was fine but the plastic they used was not correctly specced for the amount and repetition of flex I was putting on it. I'm sure my Nook was not the only one.
http://thenewscraze.com/wp-con...
I don't know if the Kindle app will do that.
Kindle was first to implement that. Seamless sharing of reading position, notes, marks and bookmarks - between Kindle apps and tablets - was there from the days of the first Kindles.
That is also why some still complain that Kindles report to Amazon what you are reading.
I can read just fine without any ill effects [...]
It works for you. Congrats.
In my case, reading books off a glossy, reflective LCD makes my eyes ache in about 0.75-1 hour (in ideal conditions); non-glossy (matte) screen, as found on my aging laptop - about 1.5-2 hours. On e-ink, I need a first long-ish break after about 2 hours of reading; but then I can go back to reading as before. On matte LCD, after two hours, I need at least an hour break before going back to reading. If I forgot to make the break, that means I couldn't read anymore that day: they eyes become irritated again too fast.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
You add all those things you asked for to a Kindle and you get an iPad mini with Retina Display. How could you not know that?
There are a number of book reading apps for iPad that have the features you want. iPad even runs a Kindle app.
> think of the competition if [Apple] built [a Kindle competitor]
You are so right. Kindle hardware sells less than 1 million units per quarter, and iPads sell almost 20 million units per quarter. The Apple book reader totally blows the Kindle out of the water.
> handwriting
> great for note taking
No. No it's not. Handwriting is SLOOOOOOOOOOOOW. It's so slow that we don't have time for it anymore. You can type exponentially faster on an iPad virtual keyboard, and faster again on a tiny mechanical keyboard. Even better, use one of the iPad apps that records what is going on around you as audio and timestamps it against what you are typing as notes, so that your notes not only have your own thoughts, but an actual audio recording of what you were taking notes about.