Kindle a Fire in My Soul

Today, Amazon announced the Kindle 2, which is a significant enough update that plenty of folks seem intrigued by it (I suspect because it’s now “not too ugly” compared to “ugly even by ’80s design standards”). I had a Kindle for a few months on loan from work, and spent a fair amount of time testing it out. I never wrote down my thoughts in a single spot, and where better but here?

The Kindle Experience

According to a fair amount of library literature, product reviews, and schlubs on the Internet, the challenge of eBooks is creating an experience that effectively mimics reading a physical book. Some of this logic is apparent in the Kindle 1′s design, given its tapered profile and “book-like” dimensions, as well as the use of e-Ink instead of an LCD screen. Here’s the problem, though–I don’t think that’s a realistic parallel. Reading a physical book is a far more sensory experience than simply scanning words on a screen; physical books spark all kinds of cognitive responses. Think about it–how does your favorite paperback novel feel in your hands? How does an old book smell compared to a new one? What do the marks of your affection do to the physical copy? No eBook reader could match those expectations, and so a new paradigm for electronic reading needs to be adopted.

So independent of the Kindle’s ability to imitate a book-reading experience, how does it hold up? e-Ink is promising technology, and I never noticed eyestrain while using the Kindle (the same isn’t true for my computer screens). Scalable text sizes are also a godsend for people like me, with low vision acuity and corrective lenses. I could read a couple hundred pages of book in a single sitting, which is roughly what I ordinarily read in a particularly good paperback. My first test book was A Clash of Kings, which I’ve read before with moderate detail, and which is also about a bazillion pages long. I also chose ACoK to test other functionality–because of my short-lived podcast, I kept extensive notes on each book in the ASOIAF series (yes, really), and needed to test bookmarking and notetaking. As a result, I identified my single biggest gripe with the Kindle v.1:

The keys really, really suck.

Compare with me for a moment: I’ve used an iPhone for about a year and a half now, which is a substantially smaller keyboard, and yet is both speedier and more comfortable to use than the Kindle’s flat, angular, and seriously unpleasant keypad. It’s a shame that note-taking is so difficult–I’ve long harbored the fantasy of using a Kindle to store all my textbooks, but if I can’t annotate, then there’s no real point.

Almost as much a deal breaker is the unpredictable behavior of PDFs. Since the Kindle doesn’t have native support for PDF documents (and v.2 doesn’t remedy this), PDF documents have to go through an awkward email “conversion” to show up on the Kindle. This isn’t free, although the cost is negligible at $0.25, but it doesn’t always work–in my tests, PDFs with columns, large images, or even substantial pages (like a 300 page PDF download of a textbook) all came out close to unusable.

That said, the Kindle v.2 looks as though the keyboard has been upgraded, and it seems to now be chasing the iPhone/iPod Touch in style, if not functionality–it’s slimmer, and rounded at the edges. It demonstrates a slight shift in design metaphors, at least, though I’m not certain going head to head with Apple on form factor is necessarily a good idea, especially if the long-cherished fantasy of the iTablet becomes a reality (in my vision, essentially a 4×7 iPod Touch).

On the other hand, Amazon has recently hinted at putting the Kindle interface onto mobile devices, which indicates to me that the hardware isn’t their first priority. The pure genius of the Kindle is apparent after spending about 20 minutes toodling around the Kindle storefront–I probably bought more straight pleasure reading books in two months than I had the entire year prior. The Kindle’s preview functionality is almost deviously generous, by often giving away 50+ pages of content for free. That amount is certainly enough quality time with a book to have some investment in how it ends, and well, that “buy now” button is so tantalizingly convenient at the end of a free section. Putting this on mobile devices, coupled with a moderately enjoyable reading experience, is a winning combination.

Much has been made of the Kindle as a library device, and on the one hand, it could be done. If Amazon partnered with libraries or major ILS vendors to offer a “check-out” period depending on the digital holdings of the library, then it’s possible that libraries could use the Kindle system to provide e-book checkouts. However, so many obstacles block this development right now that it’s unlikely we’ll see such a system in the near future. I don’t think it’s viable for a library to buy and loan out a fleet of Kindles, which has been proposed some places; similarly, I don’t see the Kindle device hitting critical mass among library patrons for quite some time. Licensing, DRM, and other legal restrictions and obligations need to be worked out; borrowing history would be potentially exposed to Amazon; most importantly, the financial cost of such a partnership would–at least right now–be disadvantageous to both parties. eBooks aren’t cheap for libraries, and I’m not certain Amazon is prepared to or interested in developing a subscription model that meets the needs of libraries.

That said, the Kindle is a promising device and service in a lot of arenas. Unfortunately, at this point I still think the Kindle is a toy for geeks and hobbyists, not a mainstream device. However, as it matures and develops, and gains an increasing market share of eBook services and devices, it might become a viable tool for plenty of people looking to carry all their books in a slim little device.