[Macworld]

Post your comments for Amazon Kindle 2 details and pictures leaked here

[Peerb]

"Kindle 2 still uses EV-DO for downloads"
So this is still only for the US market?

[flybynight]

I think I had one of those in the 80's... it was called a "Speak and Spell!"

[Steve_S]

I question the viability of a market for such a device for several reasons.
1. I've only seen one of these "in the wild". I suppose that's one more than I've seen of Zunes, but that's not saying much. I remember all of the fuss that came with the initial Kindle launch. That was silenced rather quickly.
2. I'm not sure the form factor is right. It seems rather big and bulky. Further, the screen quality didn't impress me much.
3. A relatively low percentage of people actually read books. I believe Steve Jobs made a comment to this effect and he's right. This isn't like the music industry where everyone is a potential customer.
4. Recent eBook reader app downloads (like Stanza) for the iPhone have already surpassed the number of Kindle's sold (ever). That tells me that if people want eBook readers, they are more inclined to use an existing device rather than use a dedicated device.

[Ronald_Schoedel]

The publishers need to get on board and publish books in an iPhone format. I use Stanza, but most of what is out there is old (now public domain) stuff. I'd sure love to buy new titles, or magazines, newspapers, etc., that I could read on my iPhone.

[heimdall]

"Recent eBook reader app downloads (like Stanza) for the iPhone have already surpassed the number of Kindle's sold (ever)."
Well, of course. The readers being downloaded are free.. People who download such apps can and will do so even if they never use them, or try them once and delete them (I love my iPod Touch, but would not want to read a book on it). Those who buy Kindles, though, are far more likely to use them. I was interested enough in v.1 to consider it, but just enough to get me to wait for v.2.

[folklore]

I love technology, but I seriously doubt that any piece of tech will ever beat the price, portability, durability, ease of use, and tactile pleasure that actual books on paper bring. Not to mention my ability to loan a good book to a friend - something I assume cannot be done with Kindle (or any ebook).

[mswebb]

eReader is available for the iPhone and, while the app is free content is not. The bonus with eReader is that it's titles are interoperable between the various eReader apps. All of the ebooks I purchased for my Palm devices are usable on my iPhone. I do purchase more ebooks than hardcopy and wish I could buy more.
From a form factor perspective, the iPhone is too small for a truly dedicated reader but is just fine for most uses (novels, etc.). The Kindle is too big to compete with the iPhone and too inefficient to work for text books. Loose the keyboard and dedicate that space to a larger touch screen and it would be just about right.
The mock-ups of the next OLPC would be awesome as a book reader.

[seho]

"I seriously doubt that any piece of tech will ever beat the price, portability, durability, ease of use, and tactile pleasure that actual books on paper bring."

I like books, I have well over a thousand in my library at home, I read as much as possible in any spare time, and I have since I was in elementary school 50 years ago.

Which doesn't explain why I have carried either a PalmOS device, or now an iPod Touch, filled with books, just in case, in between meetings, during lunch, etc. for several years now.

I've usually got 30 - 50 books loaded at any given time, which would be inconvenient in daily life.

" ...ability to loan a good book to a friend - something I assume cannot be done with Kindle (or any ebook)"

Don't know about the Kindle, but I've been swapping ebooks (legally) for years with my wife and kids and friends. Certainly simple with any public-domain ebook, and if you find a publisher that deals with ebooks like paper books (Baen Publishing being one example), they encourage you to use them just as you would a paper book.

The problem here is that a lot of publishers assume their potential customers are unethical, and treat it with DRM and other measures. The minority remainder should be encouraged.

[seho]

"eReader is available for the iPhone and, while the app is free content is not."

Which is why I've got Stanza, in addition to eReader.

It's also nice to be able to convert various ebook formats, in my case from whatever to Mobipocket,

But eReader is good for ebooks not available in other formats.

[folklore]

seho said:

>

Quote

I've usually got 30 - 50 books loaded at any given time, which would be inconvenient in daily life.

I suppose it depends on one's reading style. When reading for pleasure, I typically only read one book at a time - and usually a paperback that I can easily stuff into a pocket. I've never run into a situation where having 30-50 books with me at a time would be advantageous. But hey, whatever works for you, I guess.

The real upside to ebooks, as I see it, is that the costs of production are lower. It should help even the playing field between the big publishing houses and small independents. 'Course, we haven't seen that happen with music, so perhaps it's not as likely as I'd like to believe in publishing either.

[arelny]

It would seem that Kindle exists primarily as a vehicle to facilitate Amazon's electronic download business. I find it hard to justify the upfront cost for such a device, particularly when I'm buying paperbacks for $6-8 apiece. I agree with others that its future is severely limited as a one function device.

[bigpics]

Steve_S said:

I question the viability of a market for such a device for several reasons.

1. I've only seen one of these "in the wild". I suppose that's one more than I've seen of Zunes, but that's not saying much. I remember all of the fuss that came with the initial Kindle launch. That was silenced rather quickly.

2. I'm not sure the form factor is right. It seems rather big and bulky. Further, the screen quality didn't impress me much.

3. A relatively low percentage of people actually read books. I believe Steve Jobs made a comment to this effect and he's right. This isn't like the music industry where everyone is a potential customer.

4. Recent eBook reader app downloads (like Stanza) for the iPhone have already surpassed the number of Kindle's sold (ever). That tells me that if people want eBook readers, they are more inclined to use an existing device rather than use a dedicated device.

The real market is there if Kindle (or anyone) can penetrate it: text books. What many call bulky pales in comparison to the back-breaking bag o' books college students (and proportionally to their size and strength, all school students) have to lug around. what student wouldn't welcome casting that burden aside for a single 10 oz. device. Colleges could use all-ebook campuses as a recruiting inducement even. think about it.

most people who have Kindles report liking the screen quality (in the right light and where color doesn't matter) -- still I would think Kindle 3 (like whatever model of early Mac finally did) has to offer color and backlight to become a universal text book complete with all the pix, tables, etc., etc. in a text.

and unlike most people, nearly all students still do read books. they have to to graduate.

Amazon still has an inside track, with their ties to the publishing industry -- but I dunno if that includes the academic press. whatever, if they could party up with a few universities and publishers to make the whole institution's assigned text books available on Kindle, that could be a most lucrative and not-so-niche market. the software would naturally include ways to underline/highlight/bookmark key sections, add notes from lectures, and, say, export cut and paste crib sheets to a word processor.

iPhone may already be the leading e-book reader, but I believe the iPhone's screen is still a bit small to read dense technical text and large detailed diagrams for several hours at a time. that would not apply of course if a new say, Kindle-size iDevice emerges from Cupertino with full OS X mobile. no comparison in that case, except possibly in distribution and battery life.

but a market? oh yeah, there's one out there. trees everywhere are counting on it.

[arelny]

I never thought of the text book angle, that certainly has merit, but it seems more and more that universities are abandoning allegiance to particular platforms. It used to be that a college was Mac friendly or PC friendly, but I've got a son in his 4th year of college now, and it seems that virtually everyone has evolved to accommodate MS, Apple, and Linux. Why go backwards and mandate a reader platform, when the obvious answer would be to market text books on DVD's or even online downloads directly to a student's computer? Everyone already has one, so why add a second electronic device? Furthermore, most college texts are not lugged around campus. In my college experience, students were expected to read texts on their own time as a supplement to class lectures, and only if you were in a lab situation might you have any books (usually a work book not a text) with you. I would venture to say that most college texts never leave the dorm room. Electronic texts, however could solve numerous problems, i.e. the huge amount of space necessary to store and merchandise them, the problem of running out of stock, even the problem of obsolescence. The downside, of course, would be the demise of the college book stores' incredibly profitable used book business.