September 9th, 2007Hey Amazon, Let Me Save You A Few Million Bucks
Rob recently offered ten reasons why eBooks suck and, though I am an avid e-book reader, I’m forced to agree with most of his points. Since 1998, I’ve purchased the majority of all fiction books in a digital format from eReader and been quite happy with the format thus far. The reader application is a light-weight program that runs on Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Mac and PC platforms (though I couldn’t imagine reading a book on a huge computer screen or something as small as a cell phone), and gives me all the functionality I need from a book reader. It shows me text, and I can easily carry hundreds of books around at any given time if I so choose to … which I don’t.
In my humble opinion, eReader’s solution is perfect. The books are readable across multiple platforms, a very simple DRM is in place and generally accepted, and we don’t need to buy a seperate device to read these files, as one would assume we already own a PDA or Symbian-based cell phone if we’re buying the books. Which makes me wonder why Amazon is pulling a Palm.
There has been quite a bit of talk online about Amazon’s upcoming Kindle. It’s going to be ugly as sin, and less usable than the eReader software. I wish that hardware designers would take a hint from Apple and start designing things that at least *look* appealing. I can live with crappy performance and an infuriatingly unintuitive interface if the machine at least has some sex appeal. But this thing has nothing. It reminds me of the Tandy computers from the early-80’s and contains about as much power.
Just to make matters worse, this thing is going to be bulky as heck. Sure, it’ll have a 6″ screen with a resolution of 800×600, but this is going to be a 4-level grey scale screen. It will also be about 18 mm thick (0.7 inches), carry 256 MB of memory, an SD expansion slot, a standard 3.5 mm audio jack and, most surprising, an EVDO/CDMA wireless modem. The expected sticker price for this wanna-be 80’s apparatus is $400 USD.
On top of this, Amazon plans on introducing yet another form of DRM for these books, and other file formats will not be compatible. This means that if anyone has a nice collection from eReader or other sources, they will not be able to read their legit books on Amazon’s Kindle reader.
Way to kill the eBook, Amazon.
I’m curious to know who designed this thing. Was this a design that the people at Palm threw away years ago and Amazon picked up for a bargain? Is this just a test device used to ensure the OS is stable and us consumers will get a sleeker and more fashionable unit? Is this Amazon’s attempt to finally kill the eBook market, ensuring we continue to read paper books at premium prices for several more decades? I’d really like to know.
Less than a year ago I was in the midst of designing a PDA that would fit all of my needs. I’ve wanted something with a nice 6″ colour screen, smooth lines and the standard connectivity options for years but never found one. Often times the devices that are released seem incomplete … as though something was intentionally left out to give consumers hope for the next model. XDA’s PDAs come incredibly close, but I don’t want to wait for something as simple as a mini-tablet PC without a keyboard. Palm was the leader in portable computers for years, then Sony, and now it’s pretty much up for grabs. It doesn’t take a genius to design a good looking device with smooth lines and a nice compliment of hardware and, aside from the manufacturing constraints, my design was practically ready for prototyping after 4 weeks of research and design. It might be time to dust off those designs and start assembling components.
Rant finished, I hope that Amazon pulls the plug on their Kindle. Nobody in their right mind is going to pay $400 for an ancient looking brick that only reads books (which makes me wonder why it has an audio port). Perhaps when my prototype is built, I’ll suggest it to Amazon. Not only will it be able to read books, but it’ll be a nicely featured PDA running a friendly OS, too.
I wouldn’t mind buying an ebook reader given that its affordable (sub $100). And I totally agree, that thing is ugly as sin! You would think that if they can cram all that technology into an iPhone, a n “e-Ink” device should be much much smaller!
This is a classic example of why I couldn’t work for hardware manufacturers. I would not be able to keep my opinions to myself about something like this, and would likely be fired before the brick was even out of “development” stages.
That pictures looks more like the lid of a photocopier than an ebook reader!