I try not to step on anyone’s toes in the gadget blogosphere, but I cannot sit idle after reading Scoble’s “Dear Jeff Bezos” post and the big boss man’s video review. I agree with some of Scoble’s points, but there are a few that just don’t make any sense or have any place in e-books. Maybe I’m wrong. There’s a possibility that everything he’s touched on is accurate, but allow me to play devil’s advocate. I’ll touch on Arrington’s beef with the Kindle later on.
Mr. Scoble focuses on the following six areas wherein I’ll add my thoughts for you to agree or flame.
1. No ability to buy paper goods from Amazon through Kindle.
Seriously? That sort of defeats the purpose of an e-book doesn’t it and who wants paper goods if you’re shelling out $400 for an e-book? If you want to purchase paper goods then use the Web browser or go to a book store.
2. Usability sucks. They didn’t think about how people would hold this device.
Hmm. It depends on whether or not you’re using the case. I find the case to be just fine if you’re not going to be typing too much and just reading your e-books. The Kindle sans case is fine the way it is, though, I wish the buttons weren’t so damn big, but I’m twitchy and push buttons at random.
This differs from user to user so we’ll forget about this one.
3. UI sucks. Menus? Did they hire some out-of-work Microsoft employees?
The UI does not suck, Robert. It’s actually quite easy to use and navigate. It takes about 30 seconds to figure out what does what and how to get where you want to go. If you want to get home then hit the home button. Want the Web browser or Kindle store? Hit the menu. That’s so hard, I know.
4. No ability to send electronic goods to anyone else. I know Mike Arrington has one. I wanted to send him a gift through this of Alan Greenspan’s new book. I couldn’t. That’s lame.
What if I don’t want to gift a book? Why would any friends in my made up Kindle social network even want me to send them a book or vice versa? Do I care what they’re reading? No. What if they don’t have enough room on their Kindle or on any SD cards? What then, huh? Well?
5. No social network. Why don’t I have a list of all my friends who also have Kindles and let them see what I’m reading?
Not everything needs to have a social network. It’s an e-book. Leave it at that. Seriously.
6. No touch screen. The iPhone has taught everyone that I’ve shown this to that screens are meant to be touched. Yet we’re stuck with a silly navigation system because the screen isn’t touchable.
Have you thought about the technology in the Kindle? It’s made of electrophoretic displays, which means there are tiny spheres that are black on one side and white on the other. Depending on the charge put to the spheres they show up black or white. You can’t have touch capabilities on e-ink. That’s what I want, too, but it ain’t gonna happen with this tech.
Would I buy it? Yes, but I’m a geek. I can’t really recommend this to other people yet. Sorry.
It’s obvious that they never had this device in their hands when they were designing it.
Whoever designed this should be fired and the team should start over.
Why wouldn’t you recommend it? It’s the best e-book on the market. Where else can you get FREE EVDO? What other readers have a dictionary, Wikipedia and the Interwebs at your finger tips whilst never leaving the page you’re on? Didn’t think so.
The embed code doesn’t seem to want to work so check out the video here.
E-ink is not meant to be visible in low light. Would you read a paper book in low light? At least you’ve seen the new Sony Reader, which I’m reviewing at the moment. The refresh rate for page turns is WAY faster on the Kindle, by the way. It does not take 45 seconds for the browser to come up. It took me about 15 seconds. What were you guys drinking? Because I could use that right now.
Dear Jeff Bezos (one-week Kindle review) [Scobleizer]
So uh, how much money are you guys getting over Scoble?
Scoble don’t need to know what Scoble is talking about.
He’s Mother-Effing Scoble.
(sorry, can you tell I really don’t like him?)
Tho I will agree with him on #4. I mean, I can buy a book for a friend. Why can’t I buy a softcopy for a friend where it just gives me a code I can give them and they can get the book?
@Sabas
Huh?
I agree with every point you made. People seem to have this strange idea that new devices need to be everything for everyone. No one is putting a gun to anybody’s head to buy this thing.
Totally agree with the social networking thing. I know soc-net is hot right now, but seriously, in about 2 years (or 2 months, depending on how long you’ve been networking), people are going to realize it’s not always necessary for everyone you know to know everything you do.
“You can’t have touch capabilities on e-ink.” - check out the iLiad from iRex http://www.irextechnologies.com/ - it uses a stylus, but is a touchscreen nonetheless
@RMeyer
We’re talking about *gasp* iPhone-like touch capabilities.
“You can’t have touch capabilities on e-ink.” — what does the display have to do with touchscreen? CRTs, LCDs have for years the ability to overlay a touchscreen on top of of the display. Is the reviewer retarded or just infatuated?
What’s funny is that Mike Arrington panned the UI of the Kindle first and I tried to actually say exactly what you did above — later after actually using the device for a while I changed my mind. Here’s what he said: http://www.kyte.tv/channels/view.html?uri=channels/6118/75154
You do work for Mike, right? Heh!
Mr. Scoble should return his Kindle for lack of the all the features he mentioned.
It doesn’t have bluetooth, GPS, HDMI connections, solar arrays nor run Silverlight.
Touch screen? Seriously unless you want to pay for the fine iRex iLiad at $699 with the Wacom overlay atop v1 e-ink, visiplex v2 e-ink is the best out there.
Kill Menus? Apple’s Leopard has menus, therefore it has bad UI.
Sounds like Mr. Scoble would be better off with a cybook Bokeen, Sony Reader or iRex iLiad they in dire need of more of his whining rants for public relations.
tony: I’m keeping my Kindle. Even with all of its faults it still is better than a Sony Reader or an iRex iLiad.
But notice that neither of those have burned up the sales charts in the gadget world either, so I don’t think such a comparison is really all that useful to Amazon.
Peter, I think you are on except for your disagreement with Scoble’s request for gifting. Gifting is a great idea, and by the way, Amazon holds the books on their servers, so you could have it so that you didn;’t have to download gifts.
@David
Yes, I know everything is backed up on a Kindle server, but I just don’t see the point. I don’t feel the need for any social networking on an e-book. That’s pretty much it. It’s an e-book and you’re meant to read books on it.
I think something has happened to Robert’s cornflakes lately.
Maybe it’s just me that sees this and I’m a crackpot, but people who read books are used to cheap entertainment. For $400 I could easily pick up 100 used books without DRM that I can share/trade/resell and probably get at least another 50 books that I never have to think twice about bringing somewhere. Which is, in fact, exactly how I consume books.
John Said
Scoble don’t need to know what Scoble is talking about.
He’s Mother-Effing Scoble.
(sorry, can you tell I really don’t like him?)
John, you don’t like Scoble? Like, have you ever met him? I haven’t. Maybe you just disagree with him? I mean, it’s pretty hard to dislike someone you’ve never met. Sure, you can disagree with him but…. let’s get over ourselves people. Disagreement and dislike shouldn’t be the same thing.
Ok, sorry. Rant over.
Scoble’s comments about kindle make clear that it is possible to be too close to the gadget universe in which he exists. In the same way that those in the DC beltway often don’t understand that the rest of us don’t care about the insider games that play out in the national political scene, he doesn’t seem to understand that insider tech trends should not/cannot be universally applied to every device that comes to market.
Social networking is everything right now, but expecting SN on the kindle adds undue complexity and unwanted *noise* to a device that ought to enhance one’s ability to quietly become immersed in reading. Do I want to be notified of *anything* about *anyone else* while I’m reading? No.
The legitimate complaints you made were (1) the page turning buttons, and (2) flexibility in ordering goods from the device. Regarding the buttons, many actual users have noted on amazon.com that the page buttons could be better, but don’t seem vociferous in their comments about them. Regarding the ability to do things like order paper copies and the ability to gift kindle books,
Scoble’s comments about kindle make clear that it is possible to be too close to the gadget universe in which he circulates. In the same way that those in the DC beltway often don’t understand that the rest of us don’t care about the insider games that play out in the national political scene, he doesn’t seem to understand that insider-techie notions, and desires, should not be universally applied to their understanding of every device that comes to market.
Social networking is everything right now (sigh-are we all 15 years old?), but expecting SN on the kindle adds undue complexity and unwanted noise to a device that ought to enhance one’s ability to quietly become immersed in reading. Do I want to be notified of *anything* about *anyone else* while I’m reading? Nope. Scoble, this is a book reader. Why demand it do so much more?
Touch screen? Because iphone does it? WTF kind of logic is that? Doing away with menus because that’s the techie trend right now? Now seriously, in a device that uses current eInk, without a touchscreen, how would that be implemented? Is it really fair, in the context of a review, to hoist your insider expectations about convergence on this device?
The legitimate complaints you made were (1) the page turning buttons, and (2) flexibility in ordering goods from the device. Regarding the buttons, many actual users have noted on amazon.com that the page buttons could be better, but don’t seem vociferous in their comments about them. Future iterations of the device will have to address this area. Regarding the ability to do things like order paper copies and the ability to gift kindle books, why can’t you use the free browser to log into your amazon account to order physical items? I would guess that if there is enough demand for these mods, more flexible gifting and ordering options will be added via software upgrades.
In general, Scoble’s rant about the kindle, and his overly cozy insider “interview” with Arrington add almost nothing to potential users’ understanding of the kindle. You guys can do better.
> You can’t have touch capabilities on e-ink
The latest Sony Reader proved you wrong.