Why I hate the Kindle

http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/?p=1075

by ColinWright • 15 years ago

21 61 15 years ago

mp3geek• 15 years ago

I have yet to buy any ebooks from amazon, just downloaded most of mine through "3rd parties", and the kindle is a wonderful device for that, thus I can share my books with whoever I like.

Tichy7• 15 years ago

Wish it would also sync the non-Amazon books, though. Maybe I am not proficient enough yet, but so far I had to copy ebooks into obscure directories by hand (especially interesting on the Android Kindle reader).

DasIch2• 15 years ago

You can sync non-Amazon books by sending them to you@kindle.com. If you are using something like Calibre it's very simple.

cmontgomeryb• 15 years ago

Have you discovered the (relative) joys of Calibre?

http://calibre-ebook.com

It's not perfect, but it's very good and much nicer than doing it manually. Especially for managing collections. Regularly updated too.

safeaim2• 15 years ago

Just add your email to "Approved Personal Document E-mail List" under your kindle settings https://www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/manage/ref=ya_14#pdo... Then you can sync all your books through mail. Set up a Tasker-profile to automate the copy-process of all epub/mobi/whateverfileextension to the folder of your choice on your Android.

Or setup a spideroak sync folder for the ebook-folder on your android, and just sync your non-amazon books through spideroak.

sivers• 15 years ago

I am at the Borobudur temple right now : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur

I brought nothing on my long walk but water and Kindle.

Stopped for a couple hours. Reading an amazing book, with the temple in the background. Highlighting the most important bits as I come across them. The stuff I don't want to forget. The Kindle saves all of these to a file called "My Clippings.txt", which I'll later transfer over to my laptop, for memorizing and sharing on my site. This feature alone saves me hours of re-typing.

The next 55 books I want to read are all queued up on the Kindle. I could change my plan and stay here for months, and I'd have everything I need. I can sit in queues for hours, thrilled that my next 55 books are already in my pocket.

Filled with appreciation for life and my Kindle. It's topped my cellphone as my most important "don't go without it" device.

I was just actively appreciating all this an hour ago on my walk. Then came back to see this article. So there's my counterpoint, for what it's worth.

bhickey• 15 years ago

I just got a Nook SimpleTouch that I'm looking forward to carrying to Everest Base Camp next month. There's simply no way I could carry a physical copy of Infinite Jest (2.8lbs) with me.

mattmanser• 15 years ago

I've just bought one myself and have experienced the same kind of joy that you have with it, very much similar to getting my first iPhone.

I think your choice on iPad/Kindle will always fall down to e-ink. I get mentally exhausted at looking at backlit screens for too long, picking up the Kindle I get none of that nagging feeling of strain.

It's a wonderful device and I wish I'd got it sooner.

larsberg• 15 years ago

There's also a size/flashiness issue. If I'm going on public transit or waiting somewhere that the whole "look, I'm holding a shiny device that's easy to pawn!" thing may be a bad idea, I bring my kindle. Or if it's likely to rain or I just don't feel like dragging around the ipad and a cleaning cloth (what's with those smart cover streaks, anyways?).

Otherwise, I take my ipad. The addition of news reading (the economist and reuters apps are fantastic) is why I usually bring it instead if I can.

SingAlong• 15 years ago

Wow! echo the same feeling here. I just got my Kindle a couple days back.

I'm reminded to take my Kindle with me more than my phone already. I love reading on it and it doesn't hurt my eyes since there's no brightness of the backlight. I didn't know how to use the clippings feature. Thought it was supposed to be shared online instead of a file like what you just said. But that's sweet too. Thanks to you sivers! :)

I got my first computer 8yrs back and only after I got my Kindle I realize how less I've been reading. I wish they start allowing sharing statuses for books bought outside the Kindle store on the new http://kindle.amazon.com site.

I've applied for beta access to the Kindle SDK (not to develop distracting apps!) to see what I can develop that can be useful on the Kindle. Waiting for access. If anyone here is from Amazon and can help me out with it, I would love to thank you in anyway I can.

robryan• 15 years ago

"You can’t cut and paste quotes from an e-book." Pretty sure you can highlight things and then they would appear on Amazons new kindle social network to copy and paste? Although doing so one the kindle itself is fairly clunky.

Blarat• 15 years ago

but on the other hand it's even "clunkier" to copy and paste from a paper book.

samdk• 15 years ago

These are all very valid points. Several of them (the ones related to DRM, mostly) kept me from buying a Kindle for a very long time.

However, I love my Kindle.

First and most importantly, it means that books can now compete with the internet in convenience, and that's meant that I've read more in the last few months than I have in the several years before that. Thinking "I want to read <X>" and being able to start reading minutes rather than days later is awesome.

Second, I find the Kindle to be much nicer to read than cheap trade paperbacks. The text is higher-contrast and crisper, and only having to push a button rather than turn a page means I can read more comfortably. That there's less text on each screen was an issue at first for me (because, like the author, I read very quickly), but I've since gotten used to it and don't even notice anymore.

It has its downsides, and I really do hope they're resolved at some point in the future, but my Kindle has become something I really wouldn't want to live without, at this point.

latch3• 15 years ago

I too have started to hate my kindle, but not for any of the reasons the author lists. Mine are:

- Availability. Within the US (and only within the US/Canada) book availability is great, but it isn't perfect..outside the US/Canada it sucks. Amazon once had books 1,2 and 5 of a series I wanted, but not 3 and 4 (I know, i know, this isn't amazon's fault)

- Price. Kindle books are often more expensive than their physical counterparts

- Quality. Not only are you paying more, but you'll get OCR errors in every book.

- DRM.

The above 4 combined make it so I rather donate to Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/) and find other ways to get ebooks onto my device.

Additionally:

- KDK. The KDK isn't public yet, and it seems imposible to get into the beta. On top of that, the KDK is lacking some basic APIs (like collection management)

- Indie support. It's my understanding that you can't publish a free book as an independent author to the kindle store.

My plan is that when it's time to upgrade (hoping for a new batch of options for xmas), I'll buy whatever has the best screen/battery/dimensions/weight/price. Because, really, once you don't care about the Kindle store, there's no reason to not simply get the best device. Amazon doesn't do any value-added with the Kindle....there's no reason to be loyal or stick with it.

dfc8• 15 years ago

What is a "KDK?" SDK typo?

You can publish a free book as an idependent author.

I have been annoyed by the occasional higher price of a kindle versus deadtree book. But often? That is a stretch.

Andrex• 15 years ago

Kindle Development Kit.

latch3• 15 years ago

are you 100% sure publishers can set the price to $0? I've done some research on this, and I was under the impression that only Amazon can set the price to $0.

A quick google search seems to confirm that $0.99 is the cheapest price people can set.

stewbrew• 15 years ago

"Availability."

Funny. I personally think one main advantages of the kindle is easy access (at comparably cheap prices) to the US book market from outside of the USA or Canada.

latch3• 15 years ago

I'm in Hong Kong a lot of books are "not available in my region"..I need to go through a US proxy, with a fake US amazon account to buy most books on the store. I buy a gift card with my normal account, and redeem it with the US account so I have money.

Remember those infographs that show watching a movie from a bought DVD (20 steps) vs pirating it (1 step)? The Kindle isn't as bad, but it ain't great either.

amargulies• 15 years ago

re: availability, try emailing the author of that book series as it is likely a mistake on the publisher's side. I was reading a trilogy on the Kindle, only to find the last book unavailable in my region; I emailed the author asking why that is, and got a reply the next day saying it was a mistake, and the final book became available two days later.

As for DRM, I just use Calibre to strip the DRM off my Kindle purchases. Annoying that I would have to do that, but its better than not having the option at all.

As for value-added from Amazon, I love the free international 3G access for the browser. It is amazing if you travel a lot and the money saved from data roaming fees has already paid for the Kindle itself.

dfc8• 15 years ago

I did not realize calibre stripped the drm off of kindle content. Where is that feature?

DasIch2• 15 years ago

Availability has never been an issue for me (living in Germany), what annoys me though is that I have to switch stores (US to Germany) and search the book due to the lack of a direct link.

OCR errors are quite rare, if you buy a "real" book you get typos etc. as well sometimes I don't see why this would be very annoying.

I don't like DRM from an ideological standpoint however I daily life it is really only an issue if you want to lend something and Amazon allows it, the publishers don't but that is a different issue.

rubberband• 15 years ago

1. I can spill most things on my Kindle, or leave it in sunlight; I have a cover.

2. Amazon allows Kindle book lending, but the majority of publishers do not enable it on their books. But this isn't a problem with the Kindle specifically.

3. There's less of a second hand market for e-books, this is true. This is like complaining about how you can't resell games purchased via Steam.

4. You can save quotes via the highlighting feature. If I were allowed to copy/paste directly from the kindle app, I'd have a script which allowed me to dump the entire text of a book in a few hours.

5. Amazon added real page numbers in the latest Kindle update.

6 & 7. Now he's just venting.

icebraining3• 15 years ago

>This is like complaining about how you can't resell games purchased via Steam.

So? That is a valid complaint - in fact, it's one of the reasons why I only buy cheap stuff on Steam.

Tichy7• 15 years ago

Most of the criticism applies to the Kindle specifically, not to ebooks in general. The inability to see what others are reading is a problem, though.

tatsuke95• 15 years ago

Maybe I'm missing something, but how is that a problem? Why do I need to see what other people are reading?

If anything, other's inability to see what I'm reading is a bonus...

dfc8• 15 years ago

I hate to say it but I think its weird that peopleo want others to know what they are reading. Is it a self esteem issue?

tincholio• 15 years ago

Actually, most of his criticism does not apply to the Kindle, as someone pointed up a couple of threads above.

StavrosK• 15 years ago

This article sounds like it was written by a luddite. The only half-good argument is book sharing, and even that isn't that great.

You can't copy-paste from the kindle? Let me just get my paper book out and copy-paste some text from that here. Oh, wait...

bahman2000• 15 years ago

AFAIK you can select passages on the Kindle and send them to your Twitter or Facebook.

replicatorblog• 15 years ago

re: the issues of sharing and reselling, both of these are going to become far less of an issue. With "mediocre" authors like Amanda Hocking (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/01/self-published-auth...) able to make millions by self publishing at a $3 price, we will see more established authors follow this route and eventually weaken he publishers to the point where they must relent on these issues. These are temporary pains cause by an industry being torn up by a technical innovation.

If you look at Amazon's "Domino Project" (http://www.thedominoproject.com/books) you get a sense for what they imagine the future to be. Authors creating books to an audience built via social media rather than expensive retail promotion and being sold for $5ish dollars

As for the other points, I agree with most of the commenters that these sound more like personal issues rather than technical problems.

zxw• 15 years ago

You can get the Kindle DX if you want a larger screen. I have one and am very happy with it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002GYWHSQ/

gnosis2• 15 years ago

$379 for the DX vs $139 for the regular Kindle.

That's nearly 3x the price.

wccrawford• 15 years ago

"I can’t even get e-books I bought on one device onto another device I own, although no doubt one of my domestic IT support staff (sons) could do it for me."

... Okay, so you aren't a techie, and that's why you hate it. You should lead with this next time so that the rest of us can ignore the whole thing.

tobylane• 15 years ago

Some of the reasons he hates it is that it makes it harder for some businesses, that they are obsolete. Nearly every obsoletion that affects people is thought of as bad by someone. There are many more out there that are held back just because the owners are afraid of having to fire a lot of people.

dfc8• 15 years ago

I was really disappointed with this article. For some reason between the title and the domain name I was expecting insight. The author offers nothing new to the debate and even provides some questionable complaints. How do you cut and paste from a deadtree book to your blog?

I think it is weird that people miss being able to show off to the world how smart and wonderful they are with what they are reading. This is not the first time I have seen a deadtree advocate complain that they can not display what they are reading.

tluyben23• 15 years ago

I have known this only from US people though; in movies, books and real life, I usually see 'intellectual' Americans sitting with thick, big classics in their hands, more looking to see if people are seeing what they are reading than what is actually in the book. A Doors cover band in the Netherland used to have 'Jim' walking up on stage with a thick copy of Das Kapital open in his hand, but upside down to indicate the fakeness of that showing off behavior.

I've had guys quoting from Nietzsche (in horrible horrible German once) and according to every American movie and series ever made with high school kids in it, all people in the US can quote Shakespeare by heart and actually like it and find it romantic. Other countries (UK included) just don't have that kind of show off thing. Going to Paris is not intellectual per se, and holding a big book and learning some quotes from it is neither, so why does the US keep promoting that stereotype in everything it puts out? See a colored person on deathrow; watch carefully if he reads/quotes some crap poetry from some long death famous author and you, as the viewer of this B movie, know she/he isn't guilty! Ugh.

Sorry got a bit offtopic, just curious why this is :)

I understand the OP point about nothing being able to see and show what people are reading, but personally I would like to keep it that way so I can just read what I want without having to look like 'an intellectual'.

gnosis2• 15 years ago

The number of Americans who even know what Das Kapital is or who Nietzsche was is exceedingly small.

The number of times Shakespeare is mentioned in American films (especially featuring teens) is also minuscule.

If a significant number of Americans were even pretending to appear intellectual, I would view it as a vast improvement over the anti-intellectual attitude that's all too common here.

flocial2• 15 years ago

I've given up on reading books with the Kindle before even buying it. I actually bought it to read The Economist and The New York Times (via Calibre). The ability to carry a catalog of back issues, read without squinting at microscopic text and carry collections of literary classics for weeks on one full charge without other digital distractions is priceless. Having a rugged weather-resistant model would be awesome but it's definitely changed my life for the better. You just can't beat plain paper for some things, that's true. The Kindle is a whole different game though.

dfc8• 15 years ago

I don't understand if you like the kindle or not. You gave up on reading books with the kindle before even buuying it?

flocial2• 15 years ago

I love my Kindle but not for current titles, just news and classics and some PDFs.

_b8r0• 15 years ago

A lot of the author's hatred for the Kindle seems to have an irrational and subjective basis. The author is clearly non-technical (referring to his sons as his IT support). Perhaps that's a factor in his experience.

> 1. You can’t safely spill sunscreen or wine on an electronic device, or get sand in it, or leave it out in bright sunshine.

I have a Sony PRS-300 that I take on holiday. I also have an iPad but don't like reading books on it due to the backlit screen and weight. I've taken the Sony to the beach (and had sand on it, and left it in bright sunshine) and it was fine.

> 2. You can’t share books on a device. I can’t even get e-books I bought on one device onto another device I own

For DRM'd books this is the case but you can't share physical books in the way he's referring to, you'd still have to pass the physical object to another person. In this respect Kindles and their ilk aren't really that different from 'paperware'. On the other hand it is possible to share books between devices if they're not DRM'd, and there are many sources of non-DRM books.

> 3. They could do the same to the second hand book market

Then the second hand book market will need to adapt to survive. If there is sufficient demand for second hand books then that market will thrive. If not, then it won't.

> 4. You can’t cut and paste quotes from an e-book.

Not true. On the kindle the My Clippings.txt file can contain your book clippings. Most readers support some form of annotation or clipping, or at the least copy and paste.

> 5. How are you supposed to refer others to specific pages of the text – in a footnote for example, or in a review?

However did people do this when different editions of books came out? Pages often change between editions.

> 6. I particularly hate the Kindle. This is a personal thing

This is particularly clear, and I think the author's basis is highly irrational, and hate is probably the correct term. I doubt that addressing his concerns would alleviate his hatred of the Kindle, in fact I would believe that he'd only try to come up with new things to hate.

I don't personally see the Kindle (or readers in general) bringing about the end of print publishing, but I do think there's a space for the market, much as there is with MP3s and other forms of media. Since buying my Sony I've read much more than I normally do, although to be fair mainly on holiday rather than on the train for example.

icebraining3• 15 years ago

>For DRM'd books this is the case but you can't share physical books in the way he's referring to, you'd still have to pass the physical object to another person. In this respect Kindles and their ilk aren't really that different from 'paperware'.

They are, because with paper books you have individual physical objects for each novel, not a single object with all of them.

reinhardt• 15 years ago

I've toyed with the idea of getting a Kindle or other ebook. It's kinda convenient I guess for avid readers but I doubt it addresses my main beef at all, which is reading itself. "Think of a book and start reading it in 60 seconds" is not really a compelling proposition if it takes (me) 60 hours to make it to the end (if I finish it at all). It seems more like misguided optimization to me. Wake me up when there is a gadget that uploads the information directly to my neurons in 60 seconds.

devicenull• 15 years ago

Regarding his #1 point, the Kindle fits perfectly inside a gallon sized ziplock bag. It doesn't cause any loss in functionality, and doesn't look that awful.

It's the first thing I do when I bring my Kindle to the beach.

ja273• 15 years ago

I've carried different smartphones in a quart freezer Ziploc for years. They've survived camping trips, rainstorms, water parks, beach trips, etc. Capacitive touchscreens work ok through the plastic. A great cheap cover.

ja273• 15 years ago

On a week at the beach, I never saw another Kindle besides ours. I saw multiple people with iPads out on the beach. I was quite surprised. I've seen a few Kindles "in the wild" but mostly in the hands of homeschooling / soccer moms that spend a lot of time waiting for kids at various activities.

I struggle with purchasing ebooks. I'm ok with reading them on the Kindle, but the idea of spending $10 on an ebook that I can't resell, give away, or loan to anyone except other Kindle users doesn't excite me. I love the idea of not adding to my overflowing bookshelves though. So I mostly only read DRM-free books from free sources.

I've found that I get more reading done on the Kindle than I do on other devices. As long as it's the only device I have in my hands, there isn't much else to do except read. If I have any tablet or phone or anything like it, it's too easy to read a couple pages then flip over to email, Twitter, etc. and never get back to the book.

Why I hate the Kindle

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