[FoRK] Re: Kindle first impressions

Mon May 5 10:04:58 PDT 2008

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 7:27 AM, Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> wrote:

>
> Here's a question tho, Tom...  what difference does it make if you have
> e.g. access to Linux on the device if they're the only (or best priced, or
> most convenient, or whatever) purveyor of the stuff you want to read?

IN the case of the Kindle the crux of the biscuit seems to be the lock down
and tie in to a service for much of what makes it it. The OS is not so much
the issue as is the fact that the things you are reading are crippled in
ways the previous method (dead tree) is not.

My newly bought copy of Little Brother does not become unreadable if my
license key goes tits up or is revoked. Come to think of it the author of
said book has thought of such things and makes most of his works available
as bits under a CC license.

My newly bough copy of Little Brother, or any dead tree book in that case,
can be passed down to another person to read (thus built in good
neighborism) or I can resell it at such bookstores as Powell's, trade it for
others on places like BookMooch or leave it in the wild for a random act of
finding ala Bookcrossing.

It seems the KindleKindleStore has learned a lot from the iPod/iTunes
economy. Sadly it seems many consumers have not learned from it. I think
this was best summed up by the great Canadian poet when he warbled "*But
glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity"
*

There's a price for convenience

Yes, and often I have paid a price of some sort. When that price includes
some of the things listed above though that price has exceeded the point of
convenience, as lock in and tie downs often turn out to be far less so than
the PR paints.

The numbers here are telling. The Kindle costs about 400$us...for this price
you are able to read books and otherwise printed material BUT only via
amazons terms. 400$us. While the screen is not comparable the 400$ price tag
is what I paid for my Plam Lifedrive a while back. On it I can read books,
play music, watch some video, play go etc etc (you have by now heard me run
off the list a dozen times). Today there are devices for that price which
make my Lifedrive seem as dated as my ZenNomadXtra is to the top of the line
Zens now. The odd thing is my old ZenNomadXtra still gets used.

Any comparison  is moot though because its the quality of the screen and
connivance that makes the Kindle...right? So why not a device that has the
screen quality without paying extra for the gift of being locked in and tied
down by DRM?

What about a device that supposedly is connected to the great wide world
intertubes that does not charge you to read blogs. Whats it...99cents us to
read a blog on the Kindle. What is the reasoning? Reformatting and gateway
services to get that blog to your device? Seems I remember this going on
maybe a decade ago on the palm...before it had connectivity other than a
desktop sync. AvantGo came and then Pluckr came and then the damn things got
wifi and a browser thus doing away with most of the need for the chop sockey
method of getting web pages/blogs to my device.

Is it the case you can only get certain Amazon picked blogs? If so...yikes.

Yes I have heard about the web browser, but is that still in the
experimental stages, ie is it less than convenient?

What about a device that does not charge you to move data onto it? Sure you
can use cables and such but does that not put a speed bump on the
convenience you spent 400$ to get? So each time you are moving a document
you not only have to wave goodbye to fair use yo also get charged 10 cents
us for the act? Two words...oi and vey.

Oh, and if you are not in the US, does the wireless part even work? I have
read not, that for those outside the USA the 400$ price better not be for
the convenience factors its PR spin goes on about.

Let me get back to a point I touched on above and that is the point about
file formats. MobiPocket???? Come on guys. I have lots of familiarity with
mobi files as I am, as you have no doubt come to understand from my constant
droning of the subject, a long time user of Palm devices. Mobi was at one
time THE standard for reading docs. Then came Pluckr, which after all was
HTML compressed. Sweet.  The lessons I learned from the Palm Pro to the
Lifedrive have all pointed me to this...

Your Rendering Engine needs to take on any formats and render them on
whatever screen your using. The breakdown of having to convert things to a
One Ring Rules Them All format derails the user experience, and the Kindle
is after all charing you 400$ us for that joy. So why not a renderer that
can read html on the fly as well as rtf, txt, etc etc?

One reason, because you might think you need DRM and all those formats above
are open to a nasty thing called fair use. As was stated above you could
move non mobi files on, I think the Kindle supports plain text and undrm'd
mobi files, but then you have a 10 cent charge or the inconvenient  methods
of moving bits across cables..and after all you just dropped 400$us for
convenience..right?

So 400$ gets me a nice screen that I can use to

*read blogs/webpages
     as long as they are the ones Amazon has picked for me to read
*read books
   that Amazon has picked for me to read and that  I can not share, give
away, resell, etc,
*read other files
   so long as I convert them to a mobipocket format and pay 10 cents us (or
use cables and such) to get them on my Kindle

I have not even hit on the UI issues I have been seeing mentioned on review
sites as I have not used the device other than a quick touch and look.

"

When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that
book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone
understands this.

Jeff Bezos, Open letter to Author's
Guild<http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/1291>,
2002

You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or
otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to
any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on
the Digital Content. In addition, you may not, and you will not encourage,
assist or authorize any other person to, bypass, modify, defeat or
circumvent security features that protect the Digital Content.

Amazon, Kindle Terms of
Service<http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200144530>,
2007"

http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/19/the-future-of-reading

-tom(DRM is more than just about selling liberty for freedoms, breakfast
calls though)higgins