Apple and the Kindle

#1

Post by samrat » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:15 PM UTC

Re: Apple and the Kindle

#2

Post by danso » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:21 PM UTC

"And this is all before I’ve even got to the disastrous incompatibilities between the Kindle device, the Kindle for Mac app, the Kindle for iOS app, the Kindle Online Reader (read.amazon.com), and the kindle.amazon.com social network — all of which are full of gruesome interface annoyances of their own."

I just bought a Kindle, and besides my first attempt at buying one resulted in returning it to Best Buy because of a damaged screen, I love it. I had been reading Kindle books in my iPad and also loved the app experience. Mostly, the ability to highlight and annotate at will, and have an online repository of that to refer to, were the little details that sold me.

But what are the incompatibilities that he refers to?

However, on the $79 kindle, the details are definitely flubbed. The page turning/return/home screen keys make no logical sense. I apparently ordered one of those "Special Offers" by total accident...I must have pressed a confirm button when I meant to press whatever the hell stands for the "Cancel" button.

At $40 (for an interior design class), that's almost half the Kindle retail price. Not a bad monetization plan, I guess.

Re: Apple and the Kindle

#3

Post by breck » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:21 PM UTC

> Or (and this is incredibly aggravating) when you select a word in the Kindle, depending on how common a word it is, the option that comes up highlighted by default is either “full definition” or “start highlight”. Since e-ink’s refresh rate is so slow, you typically don’t see what’s actually come up until you’ve pressed the button for the second time. So I often “double click” on words to highlight them, but some percentage of the time this kicks me over into the dictionary and I have to hit back twice to get out.

I'm on my third Kindle. The latest one, sans keyboard, is the first to have this problem. It's so annoying. Literally sometimes I'll be in the middle of a great passage and try to highlight it and then I'm brought to the dictionary page for a word like "the".

Is there anyone on here who is on the Kindle team and knows when a fix for this will come out?

*Also, as a general commentary, I think the Kindle is a revolutionary device. Moreso than the iPad. I think Bezos knows full well what he is doing and would prefer to keep it under the radar how absolutely amazing and big this thing is going to be. It shocks me that Apple hasn't come out with an eInk reader yet. It's an order of magnitude better for reading than an iPad.

Re: Apple and the Kindle

#4

Post by jgrahamc » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:23 PM UTC

To me the Kindle has two killer features: the screen (because I can read it like paper for hours) and its weight (can hold it for hours like a paperback book). Those two things made it a 'wow' device. The 3G access made it effortless.

None of those things seem very clever and have been pretty easily duplicated in the Nook. The software itself (and this applies to Kindle and Nook) is rather ugly and it feels slow to react. Both need Apple to come in and make them work.

Re: Apple and the Kindle

#5

Post by ianferrel » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:41 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #2

"And this is all before I’ve even got to the disastrous incompatibilities between the Kindle device, the Kindle for Mac app, the Kindle for iOS app, the Kindle Online Reader (read.amazon.com), and the kindle.amazon.com social network — all of which are full of gruesome interface annoyances of their own." I just bought a Kindle, and besides my first attempt at buying one resulted in returning it to Best Buy because of…

I'm 100% sure you can cancel whatever you accidentally ordered on Amazon.com.

Just like One-click ordering, the point is to make a purchase easy and let only the people who don't want to go through with it cancel, not to bilk people out of money via misclicks.

Re: Apple and the Kindle

#6

Post by shrikant » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:41 PM UTC

jgrahamc wrote: post #4

To me the Kindle has two killer features: the screen (because I can read it like paper for hours) and its weight (can hold it for hours like a paperback book). Those two things made it a 'wow' device. The 3G access made it effortless. None of those things seem very clever and have been pretty easily duplicated in the Nook. The software itself (and this applies to Kindle and Nook) is rather ugly and it feels slow to r…

> The software itself (and this applies to Kindle and Nook) is rather ugly and it feels slow to react. Both need Apple to come in and make them work.

Yeah, and I'd lose the ability to side-load books, and would have to void the warranty on the device to be able to read books from non-approved sources.

As someone who's never bought an e-book from Amazon for my Kindle, no thank you.

Re: Apple and the Kindle

#7

Post by ffsdfsdfsda » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:44 PM UTC

Lets compare Apples to Amazons here. Apple is reliant on its own products and their continued success. Amazon has a longer-term strategy that involves it selling any products that others come up with. In that context, who wins the battle? For now, it is even, but I don't see it staying that way.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AAPL#chart2:symbol=aapl;r...

Re: Apple and the Kindle

#8

Post by MrScruff » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:44 PM UTC

shrikant wrote: post #6

jgrahamc wrote: post #4

To me the Kindle has two killer features: the screen (because I can read it like paper for hours) and its weight (can hold it for hours like a paperback book). Those two things made it a 'wow' device. The 3G access made it effortless. None of those things seem very clever and have been pretty easily duplicated in the Nook. The software itself (and this applies to Kindle and Nook) is rather ugly and it feels slow to r…

> The software itself (and this applies to Kindle and Nook) is rather ugly and it feels slow to react. Both need Apple to come in and make them work. Yeah, and I'd lose the ability to side-load books, and would have to void the warranty on the device to be able to read books from non-approved sources. As someone who's never bought an e-book from Amazon for my Kindle, no thank you.

Are you inferring it's not possible to read material from a non-approved source on the iPad or iPhone? Because that's not the case. Neither is it the case with videos or music for that matter.

Re: Apple and the Kindle

#9

Post by dfc » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:45 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #2

"And this is all before I’ve even got to the disastrous incompatibilities between the Kindle device, the Kindle for Mac app, the Kindle for iOS app, the Kindle Online Reader (read.amazon.com), and the kindle.amazon.com social network — all of which are full of gruesome interface annoyances of their own." I just bought a Kindle, and besides my first attempt at buying one resulted in returning it to Best Buy because of…

You have thirty days to return your "accidentally ordered" kindle. What's the issue?

Re: Apple and the Kindle

#10

Post by dfc » Thu, Nov 03, 2011, 5:48 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #2

"And this is all before I’ve even got to the disastrous incompatibilities between the Kindle device, the Kindle for Mac app, the Kindle for iOS app, the Kindle Online Reader (read.amazon.com), and the kindle.amazon.com social network — all of which are full of gruesome interface annoyances of their own." I just bought a Kindle, and besides my first attempt at buying one resulted in returning it to Best Buy because of…

"At $40 for an interior design class"? What is the connection between interior design and the kindle? And/or what is the connection between the monetization plan of a night class at a CC and the kindle?