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Oyster was something that Google Play or Amazon Kindle Unlimited will almost certainly never be. The beautiful design and focus on details was just the surface.

Oyster was something that Google Play or Amazon Kindle Unlimited will almost certainly never be. The beautiful design and focus on details was just the surface. It felt like a company run by people that are passionate about reading and surfacing great books in engaging ways. There were no competing interests--it was about the books and while they weren't perfect, that passion was evident in everything they did. I, for one, will really miss them.

untog 11y ago
Given that Google acqui-hired them to work on Play Books, it's something Google Play certainly could be.
cwyers 11y ago
Kindle Unlimited has a killer feature Oyster never had -- Kindles. Reading books on phones is awful. Reading them on Kindles is the closest screens can come to reading on books.
- rahimnathwani 11y ago
  "Kindle Unlimited has a killer feature Oyster never had -- Kindles." That, and an enormous selection. "Reading books on phones is awful." It depends on the phone. Many people are perfectly happy reading for hours on a phone screen, particularly if they can choose the foreground/background colours (e.g. white on black for someone with an AMOLED screen). "Reading them on Kindles is the closest screens can come to reading on books." Well, in terms of display, it's the closest screens have_come, but it's unlikely to be the closest screens can come. But, the thing which makes reading on a Kindle Paperwhite a pain for me, is that I can't flip through the book. Page turns are slower than on a paper book. I can't use my fingers to mark two different parts of the book, and move rapidly back and forth. Oh, and why can't I view images inline with the text?
  - cwyers 11y ago
    > It depends on the phone. I think it depends on the person more than the phone. I've used many different smartphones and tablets, not one of them is comfortable for reading a book-length text on. I know there are people who disagree. But everyone who doesn't disagree isn't a customer for Oyster.
  - zzzmarcus 11y ago
    I pay for Kindle Unlimited and can say first-hand that it has a terrible selection of mostly self-published and second rate books. Kindle itself of course has the best selection, but that's on a pay-per-book model. The brilliant thing about Oyster was that they have so much first rate material in their "unlimited" model. There are plenty of arguments to be made about how many books you can read a month etc., but those arguments miss the point. Oyster opened a whole new browsing mindset where you could see a book cover, open it immediately and essentially flip through the book reading bits here and there and re-visit it later if it piqued your interest enough. It's unlike the library where, even in digital libraries, there are queues and "holds" and checkout limits. It's unlike Kindle where you have to commit by actually buying every book which becomes prohibitively expensive if you're just browsing, or Kindle Unlimited where the selection is, as I previously mentioned, dismal. It's hard to imagine until you've used it, but having been an Oyster subscriber for a couple years, I can say it's a shift in the way I think about books.
    - rahimnathwani 11y ago
      The way you feel about Oyster is the way I feel about Safari Books Online. It's just so awesome for books about software and IT. I wish there were an equivalent for other areas in which I have deep interest. BTW I also really like Blinkist (a book summary site). They don't have as wide a selection as GetAbstract, but the Blinkist folks are thoughtful about the books they add, their summaries don't feel jarring, and the iPad app is smooth as butter.
    - zero-rated 11y ago
      Initially, I thought the Kindle Unlimited selection was lacking, but most searches turn up at least one or two useful books I'd have impulsively purchased anyway. Definitely worth it for me.
- hollerith 11y ago
  I have a (first generation) Kindle Paperwhite and don't understand why people rave about screen. I prefer the screen on my 13-year-old computer monitor and would continue to prefer it even if it were the same size as the Paperwhite's screen provided that it were on a device as portable as the Paperwhite.
  - verinus 11y ago
    funny. i own one too and it blows every computer screen- especially when i want to read on the couch or in bed or on may veranda or in my garend- in short in sunlight...
    - hollerith 11y ago
      In sunlight, yes, it is far superior to LCD technology, of course. It's rare for me to want to read in sunlight, however. To those who don't own one: just like any LCD, that is, any display in a modern laptop, tablet or smartphone excepting only smartphones with electroluminescent displays (which are probably restricted to some high-end models by Samsung, which have AMOLED displays) the display on the Paperwhite has a "diffuser", a white semi-transparent sheet of plastic inside which light bounces around a lot and an LED light source attached to one or more edges of the diffuser. It is not possible to turn off light source completely off without turning off the Paperwhite's display (which means you cannot continue turning pages) though in daylight the light source is as good as off because of the much greater intensity of the light coming from the sky. Point is that the "electronic ink" display technology in its latest iterations (i.e., since the introduction of the Paperwhite) is not that different from LCD technology; and I personally prefer the details of the implementation of LCD tech -- for reasons I cannot explain, but which probably derive from the fact that much more engineering effort has been expended on refining the tech.

untog 11y ago

Given that Google acqui-hired them to work on Play Books, it's something Google Play certainly could be.

cwyers 11y ago

Kindle Unlimited has a killer feature Oyster never had -- Kindles. Reading books on phones is awful. Reading them on Kindles is the closest screens can come to reading on books.

rahimnathwani 11y ago
"Kindle Unlimited has a killer feature Oyster never had -- Kindles." That, and an enormous selection. "Reading books on phones is awful." It depends on the phone. Many people are perfectly happy reading for hours on a phone screen, particularly if they can choose the foreground/background colours (e.g. white on black for someone with an AMOLED screen). "Reading them on Kindles is the closest screens can come to reading on books." Well, in terms of display, it's the closest screens have_come, but it's unlikely to be the closest screens can come. But, the thing which makes reading on a Kindle Paperwhite a pain for me, is that I can't flip through the book. Page turns are slower than on a paper book. I can't use my fingers to mark two different parts of the book, and move rapidly back and forth. Oh, and why can't I view images inline with the text?
- cwyers 11y ago
  > It depends on the phone. I think it depends on the person more than the phone. I've used many different smartphones and tablets, not one of them is comfortable for reading a book-length text on. I know there are people who disagree. But everyone who doesn't disagree isn't a customer for Oyster.
- zzzmarcus 11y ago
  I pay for Kindle Unlimited and can say first-hand that it has a terrible selection of mostly self-published and second rate books. Kindle itself of course has the best selection, but that's on a pay-per-book model. The brilliant thing about Oyster was that they have so much first rate material in their "unlimited" model. There are plenty of arguments to be made about how many books you can read a month etc., but those arguments miss the point. Oyster opened a whole new browsing mindset where you could see a book cover, open it immediately and essentially flip through the book reading bits here and there and re-visit it later if it piqued your interest enough. It's unlike the library where, even in digital libraries, there are queues and "holds" and checkout limits. It's unlike Kindle where you have to commit by actually buying every book which becomes prohibitively expensive if you're just browsing, or Kindle Unlimited where the selection is, as I previously mentioned, dismal. It's hard to imagine until you've used it, but having been an Oyster subscriber for a couple years, I can say it's a shift in the way I think about books.
  - rahimnathwani 11y ago
    The way you feel about Oyster is the way I feel about Safari Books Online. It's just so awesome for books about software and IT. I wish there were an equivalent for other areas in which I have deep interest. BTW I also really like Blinkist (a book summary site). They don't have as wide a selection as GetAbstract, but the Blinkist folks are thoughtful about the books they add, their summaries don't feel jarring, and the iPad app is smooth as butter.
  - zero-rated 11y ago
    Initially, I thought the Kindle Unlimited selection was lacking, but most searches turn up at least one or two useful books I'd have impulsively purchased anyway. Definitely worth it for me.
hollerith 11y ago
I have a (first generation) Kindle Paperwhite and don't understand why people rave about screen. I prefer the screen on my 13-year-old computer monitor and would continue to prefer it even if it were the same size as the Paperwhite's screen provided that it were on a device as portable as the Paperwhite.
- verinus 11y ago
  funny. i own one too and it blows every computer screen- especially when i want to read on the couch or in bed or on may veranda or in my garend- in short in sunlight...
  - hollerith 11y ago
    In sunlight, yes, it is far superior to LCD technology, of course. It's rare for me to want to read in sunlight, however. To those who don't own one: just like any LCD, that is, any display in a modern laptop, tablet or smartphone excepting only smartphones with electroluminescent displays (which are probably restricted to some high-end models by Samsung, which have AMOLED displays) the display on the Paperwhite has a "diffuser", a white semi-transparent sheet of plastic inside which light bounces around a lot and an LED light source attached to one or more edges of the diffuser. It is not possible to turn off light source completely off without turning off the Paperwhite's display (which means you cannot continue turning pages) though in daylight the light source is as good as off because of the much greater intensity of the light coming from the sky. Point is that the "electronic ink" display technology in its latest iterations (i.e., since the introduction of the Paperwhite) is not that different from LCD technology; and I personally prefer the details of the implementation of LCD tech -- for reasons I cannot explain, but which probably derive from the fact that much more engineering effort has been expended on refining the tech.