I’ve wanted a killer ebook reader for years: a decade or more. When I first read about E Ink I was psyched and thought for sure someone would produce the device I wanted, which is basically exactly what’s pictured here in Amazon’s ad.
Kindle is a small device that’s easy to hold, it has web access, it can wirelessly download books, it can read blogs and play podcasts. It has a beautiful E Ink screen that you can really read for hours without fatigue. It has enough memory to hold dozens of volumes. It has a method for inputting notes about the book and a dictionary for looking up unfamiliar terms.
So what’s the problem? The problem is: I want to buy the freaking book! I want to have it in my library, on the shelf, collecting dust. I don’t care about the trees. I want my book. There is no option on the Amazon store for me to say, "I’ll pay the full price of this book. Please send it to me. But also, let me download it to my Kindle to read on the go." WTF!! This is such a logical thing to do. But right now, the only options I have are buy the book, or download the book. I want to download the book and have them ship me the real thing as well. I want to have my book and read it too.
Sigh. Amazon is one of the few companies in a real position to do this kind of thing and they let the opportunity slip.
Note to Amazon: the day I can buy a bundle of physical book and electronic book for the same price as the physical book (or maybe $0.50 more) is the day that I will buy a Kindle. Please!
Scoble is moronish sometimes, but here\’s very emotional review from him:
http://scobleizer.com/2007/11/25/dear-jeff-bezos-one-week-kindle-review/
I agree at an abstract level (I blogged about this a couple of years ago: The eBook Dream) but I\’m disappointed in the Kindle but for different reasons. I usually don\’t want to buy the book, but I do want the Kindle to enable me to access the entire catalog of my local library. I also want every magazine to which I subscribe to be available on my Kindle. And if I happen to get a printed copy of a book, e.g. as a gift, I want to be able to download the book to Kindle for a nominal fee, since I already have a "content license." I\’d give up the download over cellular networks feature to get all of these.
I agree 100%. It doesn\’t make sense, you can\’t really justify needing the physical manifestation of the book- but never the less… you still want the darn thing.
sigh.
🙂
Hope all is well in WA.
Hey John, I tossed your suggestion to a friend of mine who works for Amazon – here was his reply:
Is he a member of the facebook kindle group? There\’s some influential amazonians in that group that would also be a good audience to his desires.
So get onto that group and unleash hell!
Sandy