Amazon's ebook machine, the Kindle, has just gone international making it legitimately available in my home country, the UK, for the first time. I'm excited -- I've been studying ebook readers for most of this year and this is the one that has the most buzz.
I've already been testing one borrowed from an American friend so I know what it's like. It feels great in the hand, just the right weight and with nicely curved edges and corners. The pages turn much more quickly than with the first generation Sony Reader I was using. I like the 'read aloud' feature and the large font sizes when my eyes got tired. And when I tried it out in the States, the shopping features were head and shoulders above any other ebook reader we've seen.
I put in my order as soon as I could this morning, despite the fact that the deal for overseas customers is not quite as good as the Americans get. We have to order it from the US, so the shipping and customs fees are horrendous. We have to go to the American site to buy the Kindle and the books. The selection of books is smaller and appears to be more US-oriented, although Amazon is indicating that will get better. We have to provide our own plug adapters. There might or might not be a $2 charge per item we download over the WhisperNet -- waived if we download it to our PC first and transfer it over by cable. We can't get blogs. There's no indication that we in the UK will have access the iPhone app that allows you to download the Kindle books onto iPhones and iPod Touches.
I'm thinking about cancelling my order, but not for any of those reasons. The real reason is I'm not sure any more what role these dedicated readers have for me. They are delicious gadgets, but they don't fit my reading habits as well as the iPhone does. I often read while out and about, or at night after my partner has turned out the lights. My iPod Touch fits in my pocket so I always have my book to hand, and it's backlit so I can keep reading as late as I like.
In fact, the iPhone and iPod Touch was preferred over dedicated ereaders by everyone we spoke with, although this was a small sample.
But that's only the beginning of the problems for the Kindle, the Sony Reader, and the other dedicated ereaders. Except for three small groups, they aren't an enticing prospect. More in my next post.
Excellent post Andrew.
The single biggest improvement the iPhone gave me was the convergence of my independent devices into one single product backed up by a coherent system design that allows me to download and buy music, audio books on my PC, or over the wire.
I no longer have the burden of remembering where my iPod is, or spending hours converting audio files I've downloaded from iTunes to work on a Nokia N95. Plus I can surf the web as if I'm using a PC, wherever I am.
The news I'm waiting for is the UK release of the Kindle iPhone application. I would pay good money for that. Even though the visceral and reflective aspect of my personality really really wants the device.
Posted by: Matt Goddard | 08 October 2009 at 12:34 PM