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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.
They're called "hammers."
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!
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.
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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
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.
They're called tablets. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
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
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)
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