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• mike - Nov 27 2007 | 2007, social, books, ereader, kindle

  Scoble rags on the Kindle. I don't have mine yet - but I think his written complaints are a little off base. Compare the Kindle to "a book" - not to "a computer with web browser".

  Just watched the video - I've never seen Scoble so ANGRY! He repeatedly insists that the designer of the Kindle be FIRED. His main beef - the big side page forward and back buttons are too easy to press accidentally.

  Some of the UI difficulties are due to the screen technology. The electronic ink displays do not refresh quickly and need to flash to repaint (but they have great reflected light contrast at low power).

  Everyone agrees that the book purchasing capability via the device is amazing. But Scoble laments that there is no way to have social features to recommend/gift books to friends, or comment on blogs, etc.

  I believe people are very adaptable to even some seemingly awkward design constraints. So only time will tell in the Kindle design problems are product killers - or just a learning curve that's worth climbing for the other benefits.

  One point that I think Scoble is totally wrong about - is that the Kindle should have been targeted as a "book recommendation device" - and NOT a book reader. That's just a crazy idea that I'm going to but this device and spend time on it sending recommendations to friends. Maybe Scoble's mind has been fried by too many Twitters.

  I'd love to see a rebuttal of Scoble's criticism by the Kindle designer - does he have the balls?

  • eric - Nov 27 2007
    

    Yeah. I'm not in agreement with of a number of his criticisms on the device but I've played with a Kindle and I totally agree with 2 of them:

    1) It is dog ugly. The plastic feels and looks cheap (even if it's not). I know that the claim is that the reader becomes "invisible" when you start reading and that that was a design consideration but I don't think cheesy looking materials make that aspect better in any way. I watch video on my little nano ipod all the time and it "gets invisible" for me just fine, without the need to look I'm carrying a Tandy computer.

    2) the side button design should go away. I've experienced that just picking the thing up inadvertently flips pages all the time. I would much rather just have a simple forward and back button.

    All that said, I still want one and I think v2 will probably be quite a ways off. After going to Europe for the last couple of weeks and lugging around a 900 page book and a couple of magazines, I would have much rather carried this device. I saw Jeff Bezos on Charlie Rose and he said that color versions are in the lab and intimated that they are probably years away. This device is probably good enough to get me to when that one comes out and I absolutely love the idea of all my notes and annotations being stored in the cloud and searchable.

  • mike - Nov 28 2007
    

    Get the Kindle designer to post a response!

  • royleban - Nov 29 2007
    

    I haven't yet seen a Kindle in person (looking forward to it). My biggest criticism from seeing the pictures is that about 1/4 of the front of the device is taken up by the keyboard. The keyboard is used for buying and notetaking. To me, that optimizes the device for lesser used activities and I think Amazon's store biased them in this regard. They could have put in a slide-out keyboard, for example, that would have been almost as good. It's not like they're making a laptop substitute.

    FWIW, the Sony reader does not feel cheap, but I've only played/browsed with it -- I haven't sat down and read a book with it.

  • eric - Nov 29 2007
    

    I've held both devices and I think the Sony feels like a nicer and more thought-through form factor. With that said, input is really not possible on it. I love that Amazon's service is going to store all my data in the cloud so that I can get to it anywhere, even if I happen to buy a new reader from them in the future. If this Kindle breaks for some reason, my next one can pick up right where I left off. That's kind of cool.

  • mike - Nov 29 2007
    

    Deb just got her kindle last night. I think it's going to be a great device. It's quite comfortable to read with - and the frictionless access to reading material is AWESOME!

  • eric - Nov 29 2007
    

    Cool. I ordered mine just yesterday and it's not due until sometime after Christmas. Blech!

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