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I haven't done a report on new Kindle details in a while. Today's news is quite interesting.
Today, Amazon released an INTERNATIONAL version of their Kindle ebook reader. I had a feeling this would be coming down the pike eventually, since a number of other ereaders were coming out on the market, and the major advantage that Kindle has is the link to the Amazon store. If that link only worked outside the US, it would be fantastic. I'll admit though, I didn't think they were ready for it this year. I mean, I figured the technology wasn't likely a problem, but that somehow their contract with Sprint might preclude the idea. But then I think that shows just how US minded I am, and how I've been trained to believe in the locked into a phone vendor philosophy they brainwash us with here.
And now, if you have the International version of the reader, it will work anywhere. Note, from what I can tell, the International version will work in the US, but if you are a US customer and go abroad and use the wireless download, you'll incur an extra fee. And as it says that extra fee is for US customers only, I suspect they don't want it abused.
However, this presents and interesting phenomenon in that there will be two identical Kindles, one that is just US only (Now lowered to $259!) and a International version ($279) The bigscreen DX stays at the moment US only and still runs at $489. I so want one, but can't possibly justify it at the moment.
I think Amazon is poised on the brink. If they can shave off a bit more of the cost on these, I think you'll see the market for the ereaders and hence the ebooks themselves explode. If you could have all the features of the Kindle at the $200 or under mark, I think a good number of casual readers will find these fantastic.
I still think there's a culture shift that needs to happen as so many, many people will say, again and again to me: but I just love the way a book feels, and I don't think I could enjoy a book on a screen. I kind of get tired of hearing that argument, but I can understand where they come from. Here's my opinion on the matter: if you haven't tried reading on the Kindle (or Sony or equivalent quality eInk reader) I think you're rushing to a judgement without taking it for a test drive. Don't flip on the screen look at it for a second say: neat, then ignore it. Read a story. Read a whole story. See what happens once you get absorbed into reading. I think you'll be surprised to find how easy it becomes to forget about the reader itself, and get lost in the story.
What do you think? What's your price point before you'd buy an ereader?
Today, Amazon released an INTERNATIONAL version of their Kindle ebook reader. I had a feeling this would be coming down the pike eventually, since a number of other ereaders were coming out on the market, and the major advantage that Kindle has is the link to the Amazon store. If that link only worked outside the US, it would be fantastic. I'll admit though, I didn't think they were ready for it this year. I mean, I figured the technology wasn't likely a problem, but that somehow their contract with Sprint might preclude the idea. But then I think that shows just how US minded I am, and how I've been trained to believe in the locked into a phone vendor philosophy they brainwash us with here.
And now, if you have the International version of the reader, it will work anywhere. Note, from what I can tell, the International version will work in the US, but if you are a US customer and go abroad and use the wireless download, you'll incur an extra fee. And as it says that extra fee is for US customers only, I suspect they don't want it abused.
However, this presents and interesting phenomenon in that there will be two identical Kindles, one that is just US only (Now lowered to $259!) and a International version ($279) The bigscreen DX stays at the moment US only and still runs at $489. I so want one, but can't possibly justify it at the moment.
I think Amazon is poised on the brink. If they can shave off a bit more of the cost on these, I think you'll see the market for the ereaders and hence the ebooks themselves explode. If you could have all the features of the Kindle at the $200 or under mark, I think a good number of casual readers will find these fantastic.
I still think there's a culture shift that needs to happen as so many, many people will say, again and again to me: but I just love the way a book feels, and I don't think I could enjoy a book on a screen. I kind of get tired of hearing that argument, but I can understand where they come from. Here's my opinion on the matter: if you haven't tried reading on the Kindle (or Sony or equivalent quality eInk reader) I think you're rushing to a judgement without taking it for a test drive. Don't flip on the screen look at it for a second say: neat, then ignore it. Read a story. Read a whole story. See what happens once you get absorbed into reading. I think you'll be surprised to find how easy it becomes to forget about the reader itself, and get lost in the story.
What do you think? What's your price point before you'd buy an ereader?
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Price point
With all of the free books out there, I get everything I ask. But there aren't enough free books out there that interest me such that I'd spend money on them to justify the price point yet. That'll change. The price for the unit and the price for the books are getting there, you just have to convince my I can *do* everything with a ebook I buy from amazon that I currently do with a physical book I buy from amazon, or that the price savings are worth giving up some rights (like sharing books).
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Re: Price point
The George Orwell debacle was, just that. A debacle. But note two very important facts about that. Someone independantly uploaded a "public domain" edition of the Orwell books, and then was selling them. IE, they were doing something illegal. What that tells me more about is the fact that Amazon hasn't got their act together as much as they thought when it comes to verifying that the person who adds a book to their catalog actually has the right to do so. Hence they removed the books. It sounds bad, but in effect the books were stolen goods. If you have a stolen stereo in your house, the police have the right to confiscate it. And the police don't have to give you your money back. In this instance, I think the blunder is that Amazon acted as if they were the in the place of the police, and removed the books. But they gave back the purchase price to the individuals who'd bought the books, hoping it would be a no harm, no foul situation. I can't stand fully on the side that Amazon handled everything in this case right. I think they overshot the mark, because they were probably afraid of a major lawsuit for violation of copyright (and in this instance that's pretty much what it was) and some bean counter/lwayre combo decided that this approach would be less overall flak.
I think they misjudged that, and would have been better off being forced to do the removal by court order, it would have at least made it clear they were doing it to specifically comply with the law and law enforcement. Remember, the copies that were out there on people's Kindles of those particular books were STOLEN GOODS. You don't have a legal right to keep stolen goods. If they were stolen copies of books bought from B&N and they were tracked down, the owners wouldn't have the defense of saying: I don't have to give them back because I didn't know they were stolen. It's still stolen and they would have to have been returned. In my opinion the major gaff is that Amazon was pre-emptively trying to play law enforcement.
Also, everyone who brings up DRM seems to forget this. You don't have to buy your books from Amazon. They just make it so damn easy you will be most likely to buy from them. But you don't have to. You can buy from competitors, as long as they put out books in certain formats. (Mobipocket edition would be the most likley, with HTML probably being the next easily available. And if you go with the DX, then you can handle PDF. I'm unsure that PDF would work with a purchased elsewhere copy that you'd have to send to Amazon to convert formats...that could get sticky.)
Now, as to book loaning...that's a tough one. As someone who has personally benefited from your generous library and loan policy, I admit that has value. Value to you, to be able to share good experiences with friends. Value to the publishers and authors as well because while they may not get me to buy the book you loaned me, if I like the author I might begin to buy other books by the author. (Though that's no guarantee, and I might just consume your copies the way I used to do with Mike's comics.)
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So, it's not really a matter of price point. I don't think Kindles are too expensive for what you get. It's a matter of having enough time to really got through the transition from physical books to an e-reader and see how that changes my reading experience, for worse and for better.
But my biggest concern is exemplified by what happened with the latest mandatory PS3 software update: Not only did it brick a lot of PS3s, it actually damaged the hardware on some of them, and Sony is now being sued to get them to drop the $150 charge to repair the the hardware damage that their mandatory software update caused. I'd hate to have this neat collection of books that I could no longer read because something beyond my control bricked my Kindle.
To be fair, I honestly don't know enough about the DRM/EULA issues to have an opinion on that.
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Sonys are even cheaper. I think they've got Sonys down under the "magic" $200 mark. At least, I've seen them advertised on various discout webtailers that way.
I looked at both the K and the Sony, and found the Sony slightly lacking, but I think it might be more akin to some people like Fords, others Hondas, etc. I don't expect it will be a problem long run, and simply put the more of these out in the market, the better for everyone. Hopefully some standards will be driven and everyone will benefit.
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It only pulls down the updates when two conditions are met. You have wireless on, and the device goes into screen saver mode. (IE you left it idle for more than X minutes, where X is a number I'm too tired to track down at the moment.) So you can, by being dilligent keep the wireless off, turn it on only for the time you need it, then turn it back off. Which is how I missed the last update. Then I had to go and intentionally let the device sit there with the wireless on, and ignore it for like a half hour.
Still, the potential for a big glitch is a problem. On the other hand, if the price point is low enough, it shouldn't be much more of a problem than when you lose/trash an iPod. Since you can back up your own files, and transfer the download rights to the new device, it's not impossible to replace one. Probably just annoying. And if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can download the free Kindle app, and sync up your stuff there. That would allow you an alternate route to your files. (Of course some would say an alternate route that is superior, but I somewhat disagree, as I find the current size of iPhone/touch to be comfortable for long term reading.)
As to a field test, it might be possible to arrange something like that with a particular friend who is currently reading a dead tree book. If you're seriosuly interested, let me know.
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It's still early in the game but ebooks will work out its bugs.
I don't see it hurting publishing. I see it as an enhancement and another right for the author to make money from. The Kindle will not be the death of paper. I'm sure of that.
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Amazon reinstated their account, and my guess is that in the future they will be separating these.
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What I suspect everyone out there is waiting for, is the damn file format war to be over. Once everyone can finally agree on a single format, life will be just that much easier for the publishers, which WILL bring down the costs for consumers.
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It's an age thing too. My generation had essentially unlimited books at our disposal too. We kept them in a little gizmo we liked to call 'libraries' :P
See you tomorrow :)