So much good and so much bad, Amazon’s Kindle is a modern-day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
By Danielle on December 5th, 2007I am well aware that Amazon unveiled its new e-book reader, the Kindle, over two weeks ago, and I have a legitimate reason as to why I’ve waited so long to write a post about it: I was waiting for other people to do the work for me.
Anyways, it turns out that I probably didn’t need to wait a whole two weeks before I wrote about the device, because people started talking and blogging about the Kindle before it even debuted on Nov. 19, and they haven’t stopped since. So I have plenty of opinions to link to, and from what I can tell, people either like the Kindle or they hate it. Notice that I didn’t say love in the previous sentence, because I have yet to come across a positive review of Amazon’s Kindle that doesn’t include at least a few minor criticisms. But I suppose that’s to be expected, seeing as this is Amazon’s first crack at creating a functional e-book reader.
So what exactly is the Kindle? Well, that’s a tough question to answer, but I’ll try my best to explain it to you (or at least link to others who can explain it better than I can). The basic purpose of the product is to allow users to download, store, and read e-books from anywhere at any time. Even though electronic books have been around for almost a decade and haven’t really caught on with the reading elite, the Kindle has the potential to revolutionize the book industry. (If only there weren’t so many things wrong with it.)
Although the Kindle is not the first device of its kind to debut on the Web 2.0 scene, it’s advertised as the best. The Kindle’s impressive technology is limited mostly to its screen, which is as crisp and as readable as paper print, thanks to E Ink. It also boasts a wireless content delivery system. Users can download material to their Kindle (like books and magazines) and browse through online newspapers and blogs as long as they are in an area with Sprint network coverage. And they don’t have to be a Sprint customer to do this. The Kindle’s battery life is extremely resilient as well (a two hour charge provides 30 hours of power), and busy readers have the option of bulking up their memory with an SD card.
If you want to read more about all of the great features that the Kindle has to offer, I recommend Steven Levy’s lengthy Newsweek article, which I am quick to note sounds a tad bit biased, or at least forgiving of the mistakes that were made in the creation of this product. (Levy did get an advanced look at Amazon’s Kindle so that he could write the cover story in time for the device’s mid-November release.)
The Kindle’s lackluster design and price tag (it retails at $399 and books at Amazon.com cost $9.99 a piece) seem to be the two areas where consumers have the most complaints. I’ll admit, the Kindle does look like something straight off the set of Weird Science–a joke which you may not get if you weren’t a product of the 80s. Where is the touch screen? The color? The flair? Is this asking too much, or are we just a generation that’s been spoiled by the product design genius of Apple? Blogger Charlie Stross describes it like so: “The Kindle looks like something you’d shove under a door with a dodgy hinge to keep it from opening by mistake.”
Aside from these obvious deterrents, people who’ve actually tested out the device have more to say, or rather, more to complain about. Robert Scoble posted a 14 minute video on his blog last week with a laundry list of all the things he found wrong with the Kindle. Most of his points were well founded, and I am still wondering why the guys at Amazon didn’t push to allow Kindle users to buy books for other people who own the device. The Kindle did, after all, launch just in time for Christmas.
There is also a lot of groaning about how the Kindle threatens the future of reading. See here. With Amazon’s strict Terms of Service in place, Kindle users cannot lend their e-books out to anyone or share their literary finds with friends. It’s like the art of reading and the beauty of books is dead…or at least tainted…if the Kindle really does end up taking off. On the flip side of this argument are people who believe that a convenience tool for reading is necessary, especially in a digital age where children seem to have shorter attention spans and everyone expects instant gratification.
I honestly could write a lot more about this topic, but I’ll refrain for brevity’s sake. Ok, fine, this post obviously isn’t short, or concise, but I did start off thinking that it would be. So I should get partial credit for attempting to write a brief post with an extra helping of links. I just couldn’t help myself, there is so much circulating about the Kindle right now. Here are a few other links that I liked:
This is an overview of the 10 Lessons in Innovation that the Kindle has taught us–I really enjoyed this write up, mainly because it didn’t gloss over the mistakes that Amazon made, but instead dug a little deeper to try and figure out what the company was thinking when it released a product that clearly needs a few revisions.
This post discusses Amazon’s Kindle as “the iPod of reading,” and how this reference point “has become an all-purpose metaphor” that “saves saves publicists, journalists, bloggers and everybody else the necessity of having to think too hard about what something actually is.”
And finally, a few afterthoughts for people who already own the coveted and/or despised device. Michael Arrington writes about how stealing books for a Kindle is as easy as accessing pirated music, and David Berlind assesses the recovery of a Kindle after it crashes.
Wow, I’m beat. I demand a week long reprieve before I have to say or type the word Kindle again. Overall, I see the device as a rough draft of sorts for Amazon. The amount of consumer and product feedback that they are receiving right now is priceless, even if it is mostly bad. It would have taken Amazon years, hundreds of focus groups, and a whole lot of money to field all of the suggestions that they are receiving for free right now on the comment boards of various websites. Why not release a mediocre product and have the consumers do the work for you? It sounds sort of brilliant to me, and based on the fact that Amazon is a behemoth of a company with a lot of great ideas, maybe this was their plan all along. Or maybe the Kindle is just a huge, clunky, 1970s-esque mistake, I guess we’ll have to wait and see…