Kindle Once Again

After six months, I still love my Kindle and the 50 or so books I have read on it. But... The main drawback is the proprietary format. You cannot "give" a book to anyone else, even another Kindle owner. The second drawback is price. Book publishers are apparently charging hardback prices to provide electronic copies of their books. This makes no sense, since the cost of converting the electronic version of a typeset book to a Kindle (or any other) version is essentially zero.

The Kindle format and restrictions is increasingly coming under fire, principally by Sony, which will be selling its books in the open source ePub format, a format backed by some major publishers such as Random House and HarperCollins. Sony will also scrap its proprietary anti-copying software in favor of technology from Adobe which lets a user copy a book a restricted number of times. This will let you "loan" a book to someone but presumably not resell it on eBay.

I have to admit, though, that the provision of this format that lets people read books on a cell phone mystifies me. The Kindle screen is already small enough, I can't imagine going to a cell phone display. Conceivably you might do it as a temporary measure when you can't take the larger device with you – but then the 2 copies of the book I n question would have to synch somehow so that you pick up on your cell phone where you left off on your Kindle or Sony. As far as I know, that is not likely to happen any time soon.

As other publishers emerge, they are likely to join the Sony/open source bandwagon. The big question is what Apple will do. Apple is expected to release a tablet computer that can function as an ebook reader, but using what format?  I would think Apple would be foolish to try to go it alone with its own proprietary format, and if it teams up with the ePub format, Amazon could well be forced to revise some of its policies.

In the next year or so, I expect prices to drop (just as music prices dropped with the advent of iTunes), and that Amazon will, at least partially, give up the proprietary format so that books can be copied at least a few times.

Comments

[rose]

with a name like kindle its no wonder the reader is "increasingly coming under fire." its interesting to think about how the names of ereaders influence our perception of the products. there's a good article over here: http://onthebutton.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/books-are-so-yesterday/

[alex]

one more thing i don't like, the name "kindle." makes me cringe. we have a post about it on our blog, onthebutton. thought it might be of interest: http://onthebutton.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/books-are-so-yesterday/

[skery]

I never understood the point of the kindle, a brilliant idea, with a horrible a form factor, why would you want to read on this uncomfortable, unergonomic, slow reader? My wife and my mother-in-law both have one. I love the idea, but the kindle just seems unwieldly. then kindle came out for the iphone. that is the way to read an e-book. its in your pocket anyway, its faster to turn pages, no delay, easy to read (you can adjust the print to be black on white, black on sepia or white on black, which I prefer) you can read it in any light. Yes it is smaller, but really all it is tap the screen and you have the next page, much faster than the kindle. it just works... really try it, you won't go back to the kindle. (both my wife and mother-in-law have given up the kindle for the ipod touch....) oh and yes, it syncs between your actual kindle, your iphone, your ipod touch, no matter which one you just used.... brilliant.

though I heartily agree about the borrowing problem. my mother in law read a book she thought I'd like, she can't just hand it over, some form of transfer would be nice.