11–20 of 66 posts
I have yet to buy any ebooks from amazon, just downloaded most of mine through "3rd parties", and the kindle is a wonderful device for that, thus I can share my books with whoever I like.
You can't copy-paste from the kindle? Let me just get my paper book out and copy-paste some text from that here. Oh, wait...
If you look at Amazon's "Domino Project" (http://www.thedominoproject.com/books) you get a sense for what they imagine the future to be. Authors creating books to an audience built via social media rather than expensive retail promotion and being sold for $5ish dollars
As for the other points, I agree with most of the commenters that these sound more like personal issues rather than technical problems.
Most of the criticism applies to the Kindle specifically, not to ebooks in general. The inability to see what others are reading is a problem, though.
If anything, other's inability to see what I'm reading is a bonus...
... Okay, so you aren't a techie, and that's why you hate it. You should lead with this next time so that the rest of us can ignore the whole thing.
I am at the Borobudur temple right now : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur I brought nothing on my long walk but water and Kindle. Stopped for a couple hours. Reading an amazing book, with the temple in the background. Highlighting the most important bits as I come across them. The stuff I don't want to forget. The Kindle saves all of these to a file called "My Clippings.txt", which I'll later transfer over to m…
I've just bought one myself and have experienced the same kind of joy that you have with it, very much similar to getting my first iPhone. I think your choice on iPad/Kindle will always fall down to e-ink. I get mentally exhausted at looking at backlit screens for too long, picking up the Kindle I get none of that nagging feeling of strain. It's a wonderful device and I wish I'd got it sooner.
Otherwise, I take my ipad. The addition of news reading (the economist and reuters apps are fantastic) is why I usually bring it instead if I can.
I too have started to hate my kindle, but not for any of the reasons the author lists. Mine are: - Availability. Within the US (and only within the US/Canada) book availability is great, but it isn't perfect..outside the US/Canada it sucks. Amazon once had books 1,2 and 5 of a series I wanted, but not 3 and 4 (I know, i know, this isn't amazon's fault) - Price. Kindle books are often more expensive than their physica…
You can publish a free book as an idependent author.
I have been annoyed by the occasional higher price of a kindle versus deadtree book. But often? That is a stretch.