last100 » Kindle

Why Sony is embracing the ‘open’ ePub eBook standard (Hint: Amazon)

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:08:19 +0000

I’ve argued before that with regards to eBooks and the Kindle, Amazon doesn’t view itself as a hardware company. Unlike the iTunes ecosystem designed to shift more iPods and iPhones, for Amazon it’s actually about selling digital content — the eBooks themselves — as demonstrated by the release of the iPhone ‘Kindle’ eBook reader and the company’s work-around to keep Apple away from any iPhone-generated eBook revenue.

The Kindle hardware exists to kick start and accelerate the uptake of eBooks, and as well as creating Kindle reader software for other mobile platforms, similar to what the company has already done on the iPhone, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Amazon one day license its Kindle platform to competing hardware eBook readers. As I said, it’s clearly about shifting content, and to achieve this, owning the eBook ’standard’ and therefore default store.

To do this Amazon knows it has to create the best eBook reading experience and offer the largest catalog. And it’s arguably leading on both these counts already, in the US at least. Publishers know it. Consumers know it. And Sony – and other competing eBook hardware makers – know it. Hence Sony’s decision to ditch its own proprietary eBook format going forward and support the more open and industry-backed ePub standard.

If Sony can’t stop Amazon owning the eBook standard on its own, then embracing an open format along with other players in the market seems like the best way to prevent the online retailer becoming the dominant force in the e-publishing industry, as Apple has done in the digital music industry, able to dictate prices and control distribution. Something that not only Sony and other hardware makers but publishers across the board are right to be scared of.

And then there’s Apple and that rumored iTablet, eBook reading capability and all.

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Amazon to Apple: keep your hands off our iPhone Kindle eBook revenue

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:01:10 +0000

iPhone Kindle app

At first glance it seems innocuous enough: Amazon has launched a version of its Kindle eBook store optimized for the iPhone’s web browser to make it easier for users of Apple’s device to purchase new eBooks for the iPhone’s Kindle application. “The most common feedback we heard from customers was that they wanted a better experience for purchasing new Kindle books from their iPhones”, says Ian Freed, vice president of Amazon Kindle operations.

In the updated iPhone Kindle app, a “Get Books” button opens the phone’s Safari web browser and takes users straight to the new iPhone-friendly site. Any new purchases made then show up in and are downloadable from the iPhone Kindle app itself.

The result of which is that Amazon has made it relatively simple for users to purchase Kindle content in a way that replicates the iPhone’s upcoming ‘in-app purchases’ feature, all without giving Apple its 30% cut or, presumably, breaking any terms of service.

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Google helps add 500,000 public domain eBooks to Sony Reader store

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:38:59 +0000

Not sure if this is such a big deal but owners of Sony’s Reader – which includes my dad – can now access over half a million public domain books via the company’s eBook store, courtesy of a new partnership with Google Book Search.

Titles include an “extensive list of traditional favorites”, according to the joint press release, such as “The Awakening,” “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” and “Black Beauty”, along with Jane Austin’s “Sense and Sensibility” and “Emma.”

In their statements both Google and Sony were keen to tout the partnership as testament to their ‘openness’, a direct dig at Amazon’s Kindle, which uses a proprietary eBook format compared to the Reader’s support for the standards-based ePub.

However, as paidContent notes, the real picture isn’t quite as clear cut. Prior to today’s announcement, eBooks downloaded from Google Book Search either as text files or PDFs could already be transferred to and read on both the Reader and Kindle, albeit with the process on Sony’s device being a lot less cumbersome. What’s changed today is that by supporting the ePub format and adding its catalog to Sony’s own eBook store, Google just made it even more user-friendly and, for the time being at least, makes access to free public domain content – if you’re into that kind of thing – a key selling point for Reader over Kindle.

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Usability guru: Amazon’s Kindle is great for reading novels, poor for everything else

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:31:59 +0000

Usability guru Jackob Nielson has given Amazon’s Kindle eBook reader the once over. His conclusion: perhaps unsurprisingly, the device is great for linear reading – think books, and in particular novels – but falls down badly when consuming non-linear content, such as electronic versions of magazines or newspapers.

Additionally, Nielson says that although he has previously questioned the viability of eBook reading devices in general, the Kindle’s e-ink screen technology and his own reading speed using Amazon’s device (less than 0.5% difference compared to the exact same paperback) has changed his mind.

On the Kindle’s linear reading strengths, Nielson gives praise to the device’s dedicated page turn controls:

… turning the page is extremely easy and convenient. This one command has two buttons (on either side of the device). Paging backwards is a less common action, but it’s also nicely supported with a separate, smaller button.

The device thus offers good support for the task of linear reading — appropriately so, as Kindle’s design is centered on this one use case. While reading, your only interaction is to repeatedly press the next-page button.

However, “anything else is awkward”, writes Nielson.

In particular he criticizes the Kindles smartphone-esque 5-way controller. “Repeatedly flicking the 5-way to move the cursor around the screen is extremely tedious. It doesn’t feel like direct manipulation at all. The 5-way owns the cursor, not you, and getting the cursor where you want it requires a lot of work.”

Overall, the User Interface, outside of consuming linear content, is poorly thought through. The reason, says Nielson, is that the Kindle’s design is dominated by the book metaphor.

So, the design decisions that make Kindle good for reading novels (and linear non-fiction) make it a bad device for reading non-linear content. Sure, Amazon designers could fix simple UI stupidities, such as the interaction design for a newspaper ToC. But doing so would simply apply a band-aid. To truly optimize the non-linear user experience, they’d have to completely reconceptualize the Kindle design.

Ouch.

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What Kindle on iPhone says about Amazon’s eBook strategy

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:00:09 +0000

The news today that Amazon has released a Kindle client for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch says a lot about the company’s eBook strategy. Amazon’s Kindle device has often been described as wanting to become the iPod of books, but unlike Apple it’s clear that the e-tailer sees itself in the business of selling content and not just to drive sales of hardware.

In terms of music and video sales, Apple’s iTunes Store exists purely to add value to and increase uptake of the company’s iPod and AppleTV devices, with the major record labels and Hollywood studios receiving the majority of revenue from any content sold. Until fairly recently, content from iTunes could only play back on Apple’s hardware – for movies and TV shows this is still the case – helping to lock customers into the iTunes/iPod ecosystem. In contrast, eBooks bought from the Kindle store are now able to be read on at least one non-Kindle device, Apple’s iPhone, with more to come. This suggests to me that Amazon is taking a large enough cut from each eBook sold to justify potentially diluting sales of the Kindle device itself.

Having said that, Amazon is publicly pitching its iPhone app as being complementary to the Kindle rather than competing directly against it. And in some ways this is true. There’s a high degree of synergy between the Kindle experience on either device. Using technology Amazon is calling Whispersync users can pick up reading where they left off from the Kindle to iPhone and vice versa. Additionally, since eBooks purchased through the Kindle store are kept on Amazon’s own servers, you can access any content from your existing Kindle library ‘over the air’ on the iPhone or iPod touch.

However, aside from the Kindle’s superior e-ink screen technology, which is optimized for readability, there are a number of features that are missing from Amazon’s iPhone app. Most notable is the inability to browse and make purchases from the Kindle store directly within the app itself, instead you’ll need to fire up the iPhone’s web browser or make purchases first via a Kindle or desktop PC. Another omission, reports mocoNews, is access to newspapers, magazine and blog “subscriptions”, which due to copy-protection are currently tied to a single Kindle device.

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Kindle 2.0 is looking more like Kindle 1.5

Daniel Langendorf — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:17:45 +0000

Peter Burrows of BusinessWeek today wrote an even-handed post about the coming of Kindle 2.0, the much anticipated update to Amazon’s much ballyhooed eBook reader. And while he feels the Kindle revolution is “awfully evolutionary,” he also questions just how evolutionary it really is.

Burrows says he can confirm that McAdams Wright Ragen analyst Tim Bueneman [via Seattle Post-Intelligencer] has been saying recently: Amazon will unveil a larger-screen Kindle aimed at college students in the coming months. Burrows also says there will be an upgrade to the Kindle base model, which will be thinner, with a better screen, more stylish, and will include fixes to some of the user interface quirks from Kindle 1.0.

Burrows quotes a source who has seen Kindle 2.0 as saying it is a big leap from its predecessor as the iPod mini was from the first iPod. “They’ve jumped from Generation One to Generation Four or Five,” the source said. “It just looks better, and feels better.”

Wow. Kindle 2.0 must be one heck of a device.

But I, like Burrows, wonder.

A larger-screen Kindle aimed at college students is nice, but if it’s too large it will cross the line with small laptops, which a majority of college students already carry. A larger Kindle may save students from hauling bulky, heavy books, but whatever savings they might realize from the eBook reader it will be eaten up by the cost of the device — expected to be $300-$400 — for at least a semester or two.

Also, from what I see and hear, students are asking for documents as Word docs or PDF files — so they can read them in their iPhones (or BlackBerry, Nokia, or Windows Mobile smartphones), which they already carry. While the Kindle offers the same mobile advantage as the iPhone (with a larger screen to boot), it’s also one more single-use device.

An improved screen and user interface is always welcomed, and stylish colors may make the Kindle less bland and a bit more hip, but are these enough improvements to attract college kids other than lit majors?

“The Kindle revolution feels awfully evolutionary . . . if it exists at all,” Burrows writes. “I don’t see Kindles around in the real world [neither do I], and I’ve never heard anyone express the desire to own one [I have, but not at the current $349 price]. Even if Kindle matches the first year sales of the iPod . . . I can’t imagine the Kindle approaching the unit sales or cultural impact of Apple’s music player went on to have.”

If Amazon was to build on the pervasive wireless connection already in the Kindle, and if it offered improvements like a color touch screen, no digital rights management, and integrated support for Amazon-owned Audible.com (recorded books), then Kindle 2.0 might be worthy of the iPod Gen 1 to iPod mini comparisons.

As it appears, Kindle 2.0 is more 1.5.

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Despite projections, eBook readers are not going to be next iPod without changes

Daniel Langendorf — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:52:49 +0000

As a voracious reader I am happy to see the success of the Kindle, Amazon’s electronic book reader. But no matter how many devices Amazon or others sell, the whole eBook reader thing is fundamentally flawed.

Let’s be honest. Electronic reading devices mostly suck. The platforms or ecosystems eBook readers are built on — from content purchase and management to DRM — are awful.

So when I read that Mark Mahaney of CitiGroup says that Amazon is expected to sell about 380,000 Kindles in 2008, I applaud. I desperately want eBooks and eBook readers to be as successful as the iPod — and that’s millions of units sold, not just a few hundred thousand.

But eBook readers will never be as successful as the iPod. Not the way that the publishing industry works today. Not the way eBooks are designed and manufactured.

What’s to like about eBook readers

Even in their crude forms, eBook readers are fabulous. They’re small, lightweight, and readers can carry hundreds of books and periodicals with none of the weight and cumbersomeness of physical books.

Readers can change type size, going from small (normal-sized book text) to medium and large fonts, a popular feature for anybody over 40. The electronic ink screens used in most readers are greatly improved and easy on the eyes. Most people don’t even care that there is a slight flicker on the screen when a page is turned.

And with the Kindle, readers have a persistent computing device, meaning they have always-on access to the Internet via Amazon’s “whispernet.” They don’t need to be connected to broadband in the airport or doctor’s office to buy a book or periodical.

What’s not to like about eBook readers

The user interfaces are horrible, not only for navigating large libraries but through a book that might be 250 pages in physical form but 800 pages as an eBook. It’s nearly impossible to “thumb through” an eBook.

The selection of eBooks range from not bad (Amazon’s 150,000 titles) to horrible (Sony’s 40,000) and everywhere in between. Funny, but readers can find all sorts of classics and new releases, but when they’re looking for a certain book it never seems to be available in electronic form.

The eBooks readers purchase, and even some free content, cannot be moved easily between devices because of incompatible formats or digital rights management. Why can’t my Sony Reader have access to Amazon? Amazon wants me to buy a Kindle, but isn’t Amazon in the business of book-selling too?

What I think is the most flawed aspect of eBook readers is that I cannot read a book the way I want to. I don’t mean eBook readers should operate exactly like a physical book. But I should be able to do the things I want to do while reading a book — highlighting text, circling phrases and passages, annotating.

Not everybody reads a book cover to cover and leaves it in pristine shape. Books are meant to be read and used but not abused.

What I find most ironic is the tools of the digital age — like cutting and pasting text, the use of folksonomies like tagging, and search — are not well implemented in eBook readers. Text cannot be easily manipulated in physical books but should be usable (in a non plagiarism manner) in electronic books. Why can’t I select a passage and copy it to a file I’m assembling for a lecture or blog post?

Until eBook readers become dynamic devices that improve our reading experience, they will remain an expensive niche item selling 380,000 units a year.

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