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Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

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Re: Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

#181

Post by jlarocco »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #72
jlarocco wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is basically just some guy's rant against Amazon. He found some very minor nitpicks, has blown them way out of proportion, and is using them as evidence that Amazon hates readers. Or something. Factor in all the insults, and it's not really worth trying to start a discussion, IMO.

As a semi-new owner of a Kindle Voyage I find all of his points right on the money. Criticisms of the user experience shouldn't be written off as nit-picky but instead should start a conversation regarding improving the user experience.

I've owned Kindles for years, and never noticed any of these things. Nobody I know has noticed them either. My anecdote is just as valid as yours.

I'm not saying user experience critiques aren't valid, I'm saying the article is so filled with hypberbole and anti-Amazon insults that there's no point debating his complaints.

Like others have said, this guy is going to hate on everything Amazon is doing, because he's making it perfectly clear hates Amazon. It's a no win argument.

Re: Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

#182

Post by BinaryIdiot »

jlarocco wrote: post #181
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a semi-new owner of a Kindle Voyage I find all of his points right on the money. Criticisms of the user experience shouldn't be written off as nit-picky but instead should start a conversation regarding improving the user experience.

I've owned Kindles for years, and never noticed any of these things. Nobody I know has noticed them either. My anecdote is just as valid as yours. I'm not saying user experience critiques aren't valid, I'm saying the article is so filled with hypberbole and anti-Amazon insults that there's no point debating his complaints. Like others have said, this guy is going to hate on everything Amazon is doing, because he's ma…

That seems unfair; just because he presented the criticisms in a manner which you disagree with doesn't negate the criticisms themselves.

Also keep in mind that just because you don't notice something doesn't make it any more or less valid. The typography issues were pointed out and as a former print designer they are very valid albeit a bit subtle (in my opinion anyway).

Re: Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

#183

Post by ForHackernews »

encoderer wrote: post #167
ForHackernews wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What negatives have you found with B&N hardware? I have a Nook Simple Touch, and I've been very happy with it.

That it's unclear what future investment will be made in the ecosystem.

Unlike the Kindle with its proprietary format, the Nook reads standard ePub files. Even if B&N went out of business tomorrow, the Nook would remain a perfectly usable device.

Re: Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

#184

Post by gurkendoktor »

cthalupa wrote: post #79
gurkendoktor wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you extend your hatred for typesetting and buttons on the Kindle to a product that has neither? I'm not sure if that's why the author added it, but I really wish Amazon would first fix a bit more low-hanging fruit for its most beloved hardware product, instead of sinking time and money into unrelated crap. It always feels good when you pay for something and you can feel that the money goes into making it eve…

>but I really wish Amazon would first fix a bit more low-hanging fruit for its most beloved hardware product, instead of sinking time and money into unrelated crap It'd be very surprising to me if the resources put into the Echo had any impact whatsoever on the amount of resources put into the Kindle team. I hear this argument a lot - "Why does company X work on feature Y when feature Z isn't complete", when features…

People can be moved from team to team, and the Echo and the Fire gadgets need hardware and software engineers just like the Kindle does. Given how little the Kindle software evolves, it's hard to say whether it even has a proper team.

Amazon is famous for taking all profits from one product, and investing them into other (new) products. This is precisely what annoys me here :|

Re: Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

#186

Post by exodust »

karmajunkie wrote: post #39
bduerst wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it reads like no matter what would be done, this person would find something wrong with the product experience. I use a paperwhite and read to fall asleep. The white-tinted light isn't as much of an issue as people or f.lux make it out to be. If the paperwite were tinted, this person would probably be complaining that it makes them fall asleep rather than stay alert while reading.

Its not just the wavelength of light that affects the sleep question. Backlit devices like the iPad are far more likely to affect your sleep than a device like the kindle, which has both lower levels of light and the light is reflected rather than shone directly into your eyes.

Exactly. I can't see why the author is complaining about white light. I have a Kindle Paperwhite and in no way can the background be called "white"! When you adjust the backlight down, it's a nice warm off-white. Maybe I have a different model, but I can't see any "white light problem".

Re: Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

#187

Post by sina »

I agree about the em dashes are written incorrectly in Kindle. I really hope that Amazon fixes this.

Just a suggestion about the blog's formatting; please remove the ` `s from the html. These non-breaking white-spaces are messing the left justification of the text in the blog.

E.g., the word "Search": https://imgur.com/HF6lhSH

Re: Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

#188

Post by prof_hobart »

VLM wrote: post #128
prof_hobart wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What impact is that?

A bit of google will find https://kaiweber.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/ragged-right-or-ju... containing numerous links to academic papers showing lower test scores with right justification. I don't know if the author cherry picked only the articles favoring the authors opinion. (edited to add, also try googling for the topic and "Dyslexia" where the conclusions seem fairly non-controversial and realize dyslexia is a spe…

Interesting. There certainly seems to be a bit of cherry-picking in the author's quotes. From the abstract of the first article

"Thirty-two poor readers were then tested with the same material arranged in longer lines averaging 12 words, and no disadvantage of justification was found."

So the only time that there was any evidence of poor comprehension in that study was with very short lines - 7 words per line - and with poor readers.

The third one was published in 1991, and again seems to be based on narrow lines - 4 column newspaper. And if the examples on page 29 are anything to go by, it's potentially also based on fixed space type - and I'm not going to argue with anyone about justified text with a fixed space type looking poor.

> This is aside from the fairly obvious aesthetic argument that looking at ugly things (like right justified text) inherently lowers your quality of life

But if you don't notice it, then you presumably don't think it's ugly.

Re: Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

#189

Post by cbsmith »

mark-r wrote: post #164
VLM wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of google will find https://kaiweber.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/ragged-right-or-ju... containing numerous links to academic papers showing lower test scores with right justification. I don't know if the author cherry picked only the articles favoring the authors opinion. (edited to add, also try googling for the topic and "Dyslexia" where the conclusions seem fairly non-controversial and realize dyslexia is a spe…

+1 for that study summary, that's very interesting. As for aesthetics, the reason for right justification in the first place is that when done correctly it looks nicer. Unfortunately it's hard to do correctly. I sincerely doubt that there's a patent on left justified text, since that's the most obvious way to display text. I hope you were just kidding.

> As for aesthetics, the reason for right justification in the first place is that when done correctly it looks nicer.

The overall structure of the text looks nicer, but not the individual sentences.

Re: Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

#190

Post by cbsmith »

andrewla wrote: post #141
cbsmith wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The justification notion, I would argue that the typical user may not notice it as much as the hardcore reader. The fact of the matter is it impacts all readers, whether they recognize it or not, and there is a reason the printing industry generally doesn't do it.

I'm confused by this -- looking through my physical books now, I'm hard-pressed to find any that aren't fully justified.

Sorry, I guess I shouldn't make generalizations about the entire printing industry. There's a segment of the market where they don't do it. For other markets, not so much.
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