It's been a while...

[temporus]

It's been quite some time since I've talked Kindle and ebook stuff, so let me correct that.

I'll start off with my impressions of both the iPad (which I've been testing for a project at the Day Job) and the Kindle Fire.

Meh.

Ok, that's not terribly fair. Let me expand.

Back in the fall, I got my wife a Kindle Fire, thinking it would solve her need to have an external light.  She's the type that likes to read herself to sleep at night.  But then aren't we all?  What do you mean no?  Humpf!  I also hoped it would be a decent on hand web browser, email client etc.  As her phone is not a "Smart" phone type, though it at least now can text and browse WAP sytle internet, it seemed an inexpensive and convenient compromise.  I have an android phone, and bought almost all my apps through Amazon instead of through Google, so...should be easy to add those games, etc, to the Fire.  Well, we could.  And it was not bad.  Especially considering the price.   But my wife didn't find the reading relaxing on it the way she does with the regular Kindle. (strike one)  And the screen seemed a bit small to her. (strike two) And transferring TiVO videos was a lot more complicated and tricky than we'd thought.  (strike three.)  So it went back.   I still think for it's price point it's a good machine.  It just didn't wow us the way I'd kind of hoped it would.

As I mentioned, I'm testing out an iPad for work, so I'm finally getting to see what all the "hoopla" is about with it.  I can see why people like them.  Smooth and easy to use.  I'm testing out the wifi only device, and I downloaded the Kindle app to check out some of my books.  Both the technical ones for work, but also just some random others to see how they look.  It's fine.  The app isn't as good as I'd like.  Feels just about the same as the Cloud reader.  And I suspect it pretty much is the same.  Or at least based very much off the same code.  And that's one of the weaker versions of the app.  I much prefer the PC app or the real app to the cloud reader.   There's just more options in the others.  I could tangent into talking about the cloud app, but I won't.  Suffice it to say, the kindle app on iPad is sufficient if not superlative.  I wish they would implement a better way to organize.  (Though that's still one of my peeves.)  My over all impression in regards to the iPad?  Get a wifi only one, and put your monthly money into a good 4G wifi hotspot instead.  Why?  Well, the technology for the hot spots/cellular connectivity will change.  It will change at a rate probably faster than wifi itself.  So, why lock yourself into a technology that will become obsolete or severerly changed when you don't need to?   Wifi will likely remain the way it is, with backward compatibility support for years to come.  IE, your iPad won't be a dinosaur in the near future.  Well, okay, not because the cellular system gets overhauled, again.  Plus, you can support many PCs/devices from one hotspot.  If you're cellular is built into your iPad, it's more of a pain to share it out to friends, at conventions, on vacation with the kids, etc, etc.

One last thing, the iOS version of the Kindle app was supposed to have better support for Kids books.  So I went ahead and bought one in a series that I thought my sons would enjoy.  Bleh.  Not impressed.  If by better they mean because the screen is bigger you can read the text at all, instead of the almost impossibility of it elsewhere...I say, there's still a lot of room for improvement.   I get it, kids books particular the ones with lots of text/graphics interactions, can't be trivially handled by the system.  But if this is the best they can do....

Overall, Kindle continues to need to work on better ways to store and organize books.  I've got hundreds on my account.  Between the ones I picked up for me, the ones I picked up for the Mrs. and the ones I snagged because they were free (like all those classics from bygone eras) it takes a long time to sort through the list.  Even allowing that some of the versions of the app (and only SOME) support Collections, just getting the books sorted into collectiosn is a long and time consuming process.  Better than when you are reduced to just sorting everything by author, title or Recent.  But lacking just the same.  And I don't get it.  At the least, can't they do like Amazon Music and include genre?  Or allow tagging?  There should be more ways for generic sorting even before we decide to personally set them up into collections.

Now a new feature they rolled out, and I just learned about is the ability for you to "reset" a book to start.  This is a godsend.  My wife and I have more than enough overlapping reading habits that the cool feature of Sync is almost essential.  But heretofore, it was a first come first served feature.  If my wife read a book before me, she got the use of it.  If I read something before her, I got the use of it.  For a single book, it's no big deal.  But I've been fortunate enough to snag an omnibus edition here or there.  (Like the first four books of Song of Ice and Fire)  Imagine being somewhere in the middle of book three and having your device battery die.  Then I hand you my freshly charged Kindle but you have to guesstimate and find your way through to the "location".  Being able to reset a book means you get the ability to read anywhere and pck up where you left off, no matter which device you use.

Last observation: kids and lock down.  Yet again, Amazon implemented a good feature, but it only applies to the latest devices.  Well, OK.  That's awfullly disappointing in itself, but at least I get it.  Even if I don't like it.  But, from what I can tell, it's kind of a pain, and not nearly as useful as I would hope.  My understanding is, you can lock down access to all books.  Or none.  Well....um...that's useful?  I guess it was designed with the Fire in mind.  But really, shouldn't there be some way you can set up a variation of your books for your kids?   What I'd love it to be able to put a selection of books on his device (computer, whatever) that are just fine for him to read, without having to go through the effort of setting up seperate accounts through amazon, etc.  For DRM free books, that would probably work.  But I don't want to give him free reign.  He's not quite old enough for that just yet.

So what about you?   What features do you think are missing from your favorite e-reader?

Comments

Don't have my flying car, but we're in the future

[blue-23.livejournal.com]

I was on a mini-vacation with the family at Great Wolf Lodge (hotel+indoor waterpark) earlier this year, and ripped my bathing suit. It was the first day and I needed a replacement. All of the fit young people at the desk weren't even aware that "Big and Tall" was a category of clothing (and I am most assuredly both, no luck at normal shops). But they were aware of their zip code.

So I ended up sitting on my bed, with a flat little thing with no wires or anything (my Fire), and with some taps on the screen I'm able to look up by category nearby stores that serve big and tall and get turn-by-turn directions to them. Then look up the store and find hours.

You go, "yeah, you hit a map place over the web". But you know what - thinking about that from the view of the long-ago kid with his Vic 20 it was pretty dang amazing.

Above the comparisons seem to be the iPad and Fire as replacement Kindles. Kindle is one of the best of breed of just ebook readers. There's compromises like no e-ink display to make the tablet do other things as well. But don't forget those other things. The sheer convenience of what a tablet can do is pretty heavy. I've got plenty of book, I've got games for me and the family, Netflix. When I run a RPG, the SRD is a much quicker reference (and much lighter) than a pile of hardcover books.

If your focus is a better e-reader, stay with the dedicated ones for now because the differences in display are paramount. If your looking for jack-of-all-trades, the tablets have a lot going for them. There's a lot of overlap between them and smartphones, find what works for you.

Re: Don't have my flying car, but we're in the future

[temporus.livejournal.com]

I actually wanted the Fire because I thought it would be that useful. But I think there was some initial resistance because it didn't seem as worth it over all. I do have to say, something that I meant to put into the post that got left out: the bigger screen of the iPad is *really* nice compared to the smaller device. On a lot of levels.

I'm not sure I'd say that I think the iPad is inherently superior to the Fire. (I'd be comparing an iPad 1 to the Fire 1) They kind of fill different niches to my mind. The question becomes ultimately, do you want the bigger screen bad enough that you fork over the cost of TWO Fires? Plus, frankly, I find the apps on the iPad often pretty lacking--IE not nearly as many options as I did on the Android platform. And they seem just as darned buggy.

But mostly, I wanted to stay away from the X is better than Y kind of comparison here because there's a lot of rumor hinting at both a new Fire out by month's end, and Apple's answer to the smaller sized tablet out soon. I'd rather do a comparison of both once that shows up.

Mostly, my criticism of the two is within the app. And I think it's a pretty fair criticism. They need to work on the organization. It's not a screen issue or a hardware technology issue. It's quite simply an issue that they haven't bothered trying to sort out. The tagging is in their DB already. The genre is in their DB already. Even if they can't go hog wild and include some magic bullet option that perfectly satisfies us all, allowing us to sort based upon genre alone would go a long way to helping. I'd love the tags option too. They do it for Amazon Music, so I know they can code it. And, you know, support Collections across the board. The apps should have no problem. It's nothing hardware dependent, and I'm not even talking about going back and supporting older generation hardware with this feature. Just all the current stuff, and the apps (PC, MAC, iOS, Andriod, BB, etc.) I won't say it's trivial, but I will say it's pretty straightforward and obvious. I kind of can't believe it hasn't been done, or at least isn't on the list of features to be included eventually.

Or maybe me with my 600+ title library really is that much of an outlier that it's a problem I face and few others do. I don't see how. Between the inexpensive Kindle Daily Deals, and the HUGE library of FREE stuff they offer, I can't believe I'm the only one snatching up books by the truckload.

So to clarify, my focus isn't on a better e-reader. It's on a better experience with whichever e-reader I've got in my grubby little hands at the moment.

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

Paper ;)