6 ms·

Amazon: New Kindles Selling at Record Rates

45 points by charlief 16y ago

petercooper 16y ago
Amongst my group, I'm known for my near hatred of Amazon's Kindle (not the ecosystem or apps, just the devices) due to their shoddy typography, but even I've caved and ordered one of the new ones. They're cheap enough now that, I think, anyone involved in writing/publishing needs to keep a good eye on what Amazon's up to. For writers, the Kindle (ecosystem) is rapidly looking like it could become their equivalent of the App Store.
- hyperbovine 16y ago
  I was pretty anti on the Kindle as well--I don't like the idea of my book running out of batteries--but the cheaper price (plus, for whatever reason, graphite) had me within one-click of buying one the other day. Right then I read a very convincing case that it will drop below $100 in time for xmas (http://www.slate.com/id/2263787/pagenum/all/ http://www.slate.com/id/2263787/pagenum/all/). FYI.
  - gaius 16y ago
    The battery life on e-Ink devices is phenomenal. They only draw power when redrawing the page. You can literally go weeks between charges.
    - mdh 16y ago
      (genuine question) don't the wifi/3G draw power? or is your 'weeks' assessment including normal wireless use? Oddly, i feel must less strongly about Amazon's hold over the the platform the Kindle represents than i do about Apple and its hold over the music platform iTunes represents. Irrational? Probably. Uneconomnical? maybe (i buy far fewer books than i do albums/audiobooks). I can't fathom why but i just somehow feel like, when i've read a book, the ideas it containws stay with me and become mine whereas an album is something that perpetually stays somehow external (apologies for the airy-fairieness of that: i'm not sure how to express it but i feels like a difference thats significant for me and i'm curious whether anyone else feels the same).
      - gaius 16y ago
        Only when you're getting new books over Whispernet. And if you'd loaded up on reading material and were off on holiday, you would just leave it off. I don't see the iPad and Kindle being direct competitors esp. since Kindle is really just software; an iPad is a "Kindle" with a couple of clicks on the App Store (there are Kindle clients for BlackBerry, etc too) and Amazon makes the same money regardless of what physical device they deliver the file to. It is vaguely annoying having both iBooks and Kindle apps tho' I've not yet forgotten which one had a particular book in!
        mdh 16y ago
        Oh. Yes, that would seem blindingly obvious wouldn't it? OK, I'm an idiot (in my defense, i've been awake since before 4am this morning. Be gentle with me). Isn't technology wonderful that our biggest issue is which app we have to launch to read the best that the literary world has to offer (and Dan Brown novels :-).
      - MichaelSalib 16y ago
        With a Kindle 2, I found that I only get the 3 weeks of battery life if I leave the radio disabled. So I only enable the radio for a few minutes when I need something. With the radio enabled continuously, battery life reduces to a few days. But the newer Kindle might be better in that regard.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - glhaynes 16y ago
        ... but Kindle books are DRMed and iTunes music isn't.
        unfletch 16y ago
        but Kindle books are DRMed and iTunes music isn't. ...anymore. iTunes books have DRM. iTunes music had DRM for years. DRM is the way you get big media to shift business models. Without DRM they'll happily forgo the new revenue stream and die slowly. So you first concede on the DRM point and restrict content just to begin the transition to the new model. 10 years after Napster major labels finally allow (most of) their music to be sold DRM-free. Print publishers will get there too.
- brk 16y ago
  I love my Kindle. Not because it's the best, prettist, most elegant way to consume books, but because it's the best, prettiest, most elegant way for ME to consume books, based on the currently available options. I find myself reading more since I've gotten my Kindle, and for the price point, if I decide in a year that I DON'T like it, it's not a major loss (plus has some decent residual value).
  - tghw 16y ago
    I completely agree with this. I'm also reading more, which in and of itself makes it worth having. I recently went on a trip to Europe, and the free 3G was invaluable, since we didn't always have a good source of internet. It's getting to the point that, were I to have to choose between losing my iPhone and losing the Kindle, I'd rather lose the iPhone, even though it costs 3 times as much to replace. It makes me that irrationally happy.
- tghw 16y ago
  You can use your own fonts if you want to: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Font_Hacks http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Font_Hacks I use their screensaver hack (with covers and images from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and it has been completely stable and reversible.
tvon 16y ago
Some records are easier to break than others. Of course, if I read more I'd probably have one by now, at $190 for the free 3G model it's very tempting. Relatedly, has anything come of the SDK?
- davidw 16y ago
  > Relatedly, has anything come of the SDK? No, still waiting on that - I applied something like 6 months ago and haven't heard a peep. Maybe Oracle is making a mess of things (it's based on Java ME). I'm really curious to hear about these new kindles... I'm very tempted. No more paying to import books to Italy!
- brk 16y ago
  Relatedly, has anything come of the SDK? Two apps that I'm aware of, a hangman app and a "find the words you can make out of this random block of characters". Nothing too ground breaking, but it's gotten me thinking about some reader-centric style apps, including things that pull references or quotes from a users' Kindle library.
  - ableal 16y ago
    Not available worldwide, by the way. URLs: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93450 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93450 http://www.kindlepost.com/2010/08/free-games-on-kindle.html http://www.kindlepost.com/2010/08/free-games-on-kindle.html http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P37FW0 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P37FW0 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P38AAG http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P38AAG
- charlief 16y ago
  Slow refresh rate of e-ink (1.35 Hz), limited contrast and shade resolution, no touch screen yet and a book-centric context make the immediate scope of apps a lot less varied than say the iPad. Better colour gradience, resolution and refresh rate means a greater variety of books, games and media. We'll see what happens as app development actually starts and matures as future Kindle iterations come out. Kindle's future success is tied to E-ink's viability in cost versus quality and right now, one could only guess beyond reading and reference-type apps. I think E-Ink is exciting in the sense of how little power it consumes in static display. The Kindle 3 supposedly lasts up to a month if the wireless radio is turned off. Lowering e-ink cost regardless of the quality combined with a few solar panels here+there, and the technology's use cases in advertising, retail, consumer, and corporate stuff etc go up drastically.
rbranson 16y ago
Ah, the psychology of price points. Let us all take note of this when we decide how to price our products and/or services. People are now perceiving that the value that this device delivers is significantly higher than it's price.
robryan 16y ago
Would be interesting to know whether Amazon is outselling Apple for eBooks on the iPad.
- jgerman 16y ago
  I'd probably bet that they are. I use the iPad exclusively for my eBooks and 80-90% of my non-free books are on through the Kindle app. Exact same situation with my wife as well as a few others we know.
listic 16y ago
I wonder why they still don't sell to Russia and over 100 other countries. Copyright issues?
- MarkSweep 16y ago
  Setting up Whispernet with local cell providers would also probably be a bottleneck.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
pmjordan 16y ago
I'm curious how well the Kindle renders tech/scientific books, with graphs, diagrams and formulae. I'd imagine the larger form factor of most printed technical books compared to fiction paperbacks to be an issue. I'd assume the 10" version does better than the smaller one.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  I was just speaking to a friend of mine who is a EE/physicist who had just returned a Kindle DX two days ago. He got it specifically to read IEEE journal papers and found that it was unacceptable. His specific beef wasn't with the e-ink or the e-ink page turn speed but rather with the huge delay spent processing PDFs when you turned pages. In other words, page turn delays were no problem when reading a text only document, but when reading a PDF, they were really long, presumably because of the slow processor and an unwillingness to pre-rasterize pages. I love my kindle, but for technical documents, I just print them out.
  - pmjordan 16y ago
    Interesting, thanks. As far as I can tell, it's possible to convert PDFs to the Kindle's native format, any idea if this improves the situation? I've noticed the PDF delay on the iPad as well, although it's not sufficient to bother me. I'm reluctant to use the illuminated screen for extended periods of reading though, especially in the evening.
    - MichaelSalib 16y ago
      Sorry, I have no idea.
    - kroger 16y ago
      "Interesting, thanks. As far as I can tell, it's possible to convert PDFs to the Kindle's native format, any idea if this improves the situation?" Yes. I use mobipocket creator [1] to convert pdf files to the mobi format. It's free and works pretty well for documents with one column. For papers with multiple columns (like those from journals) I use papercrop [2] to slice the pdf in smaller parts so I can read in my (non-dx) kindle 2. [1] http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscreator.asp http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscrea... [2] http://code.google.com/p/papercrop/ http://code.google.com/p/papercrop/ edit: small fixes
johndoe77 16y ago
Having ordered several weeks ago, I am anxiously awaiting it's arrival. The wifi only version was a nice move and the price point is really attractive.
jemfinch 16y ago
I just wish flight attendants would stop making me turn it off for takeoff and landing.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  Yeah, but remember, your Kindle is a much bigger threat to the navigation system than the 30 or 40 cell phones in people's pockets that they forgot to turn off. Plus, reading a Kindle might distract you in an emergency, which is why they don't let anyone read books or magazines during takeoff and landing either.
  - lallysingh 16y ago
    I was under the impression that the cell phone shutoff was to prevent the towers from freaking out about dozens of phones coming in & out of range at 650mph+.
    - PidGin128 16y ago
      I was under the impression that towers had some type of signal baffle to prevent reception from devices a certain number of degrees from the horizon. I have no merit or citation to exert with this claim.
    - jemfinch 16y ago
      I've heard that claim but I'm unsure why airlines would inconvenience their customers for cell providers.
  - aik 16y ago
    I have never been told to put down my book or magazine during takeoff or landing, or ever heard an attendant ask anyone else to.
    - MichaelSalib 16y ago
      Neither have I. That's why the flight attendants insisting that I have to put away my Kindle during takeoff and landing "to make sure I'm not distracted during these safety-critical times" is so absurd.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
ataggart 16y ago
Primary reason I haven't purchased a kindle: no way to lock the page orientation. I borrowed one from a friend and tried reading on the beach; the damn thing kept flipping around so I couldn't read it. Such a trivial thing to add, but lacking in the iphone as well.
- blehn 16y ago
  I'm assuming you were using a Kindle DX (the others don't auto-rotate). But anyway, you can lock the orientation: http://thekindle.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/screenrotationdx.jpg?w=299&h=210 http://thekindle.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/screenrotationd...
zsouthboy 16y ago
Will someone please release an API so I can write a printer driver and we can print directly to our ebook readers already? The APIs that have been available so far (AFAIK - someone please correct me) for any of the readers have been lackluster.

45 points by charlief 16y ago

Amongst my group, I'm known for my near hatred of Amazon's Kindle (not the ecosystem or apps, just the devices) due to their shoddy typography, but even I've caved and ordered one of the new ones. They're cheap enough now that, I think, anyone involved in writing/publishing needs to keep a good eye on what Amazon's up to. For writers, the Kindle (ecosystem) is rapidly looking like it could become their equivalent of the App Store.

hyperbovine 16y ago
I was pretty anti on the Kindle as well--I don't like the idea of my book running out of batteries--but the cheaper price (plus, for whatever reason, graphite) had me within one-click of buying one the other day. Right then I read a very convincing case that it will drop below $100 in time for xmas (http://www.slate.com/id/2263787/pagenum/all/ http://www.slate.com/id/2263787/pagenum/all/). FYI.
- gaius 16y ago
  The battery life on e-Ink devices is phenomenal. They only draw power when redrawing the page. You can literally go weeks between charges.
  - mdh 16y ago
    (genuine question) don't the wifi/3G draw power? or is your 'weeks' assessment including normal wireless use? Oddly, i feel must less strongly about Amazon's hold over the the platform the Kindle represents than i do about Apple and its hold over the music platform iTunes represents. Irrational? Probably. Uneconomnical? maybe (i buy far fewer books than i do albums/audiobooks). I can't fathom why but i just somehow feel like, when i've read a book, the ideas it containws stay with me and become mine whereas an album is something that perpetually stays somehow external (apologies for the airy-fairieness of that: i'm not sure how to express it but i feels like a difference thats significant for me and i'm curious whether anyone else feels the same).
    - gaius 16y ago
      Only when you're getting new books over Whispernet. And if you'd loaded up on reading material and were off on holiday, you would just leave it off. I don't see the iPad and Kindle being direct competitors esp. since Kindle is really just software; an iPad is a "Kindle" with a couple of clicks on the App Store (there are Kindle clients for BlackBerry, etc too) and Amazon makes the same money regardless of what physical device they deliver the file to. It is vaguely annoying having both iBooks and Kindle apps tho' I've not yet forgotten which one had a particular book in!
      - mdh 16y ago
        Oh. Yes, that would seem blindingly obvious wouldn't it? OK, I'm an idiot (in my defense, i've been awake since before 4am this morning. Be gentle with me). Isn't technology wonderful that our biggest issue is which app we have to launch to read the best that the literary world has to offer (and Dan Brown novels :-).
    - MichaelSalib 16y ago
      With a Kindle 2, I found that I only get the 3 weeks of battery life if I leave the radio disabled. So I only enable the radio for a few minutes when I need something. With the radio enabled continuously, battery life reduces to a few days. But the newer Kindle might be better in that regard.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
    - glhaynes 16y ago
      ... but Kindle books are DRMed and iTunes music isn't.
      - unfletch 16y ago
        but Kindle books are DRMed and iTunes music isn't. ...anymore. iTunes books have DRM. iTunes music had DRM for years. DRM is the way you get big media to shift business models. Without DRM they'll happily forgo the new revenue stream and die slowly. So you first concede on the DRM point and restrict content just to begin the transition to the new model. 10 years after Napster major labels finally allow (most of) their music to be sold DRM-free. Print publishers will get there too.
brk 16y ago
I love my Kindle. Not because it's the best, prettist, most elegant way to consume books, but because it's the best, prettiest, most elegant way for ME to consume books, based on the currently available options. I find myself reading more since I've gotten my Kindle, and for the price point, if I decide in a year that I DON'T like it, it's not a major loss (plus has some decent residual value).
- tghw 16y ago
  I completely agree with this. I'm also reading more, which in and of itself makes it worth having. I recently went on a trip to Europe, and the free 3G was invaluable, since we didn't always have a good source of internet. It's getting to the point that, were I to have to choose between losing my iPhone and losing the Kindle, I'd rather lose the iPhone, even though it costs 3 times as much to replace. It makes me that irrationally happy.
tghw 16y ago
You can use your own fonts if you want to: http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Font_Hacks http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Font_Hacks I use their screensaver hack (with covers and images from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and it has been completely stable and reversible.

tvon 16y ago

Some records are easier to break than others. Of course, if I read more I'd probably have one by now, at $190 for the free 3G model it's very tempting. Relatedly, has anything come of the SDK?

davidw 16y ago
> Relatedly, has anything come of the SDK? No, still waiting on that - I applied something like 6 months ago and haven't heard a peep. Maybe Oracle is making a mess of things (it's based on Java ME). I'm really curious to hear about these new kindles... I'm very tempted. No more paying to import books to Italy!
brk 16y ago
Relatedly, has anything come of the SDK? Two apps that I'm aware of, a hangman app and a "find the words you can make out of this random block of characters". Nothing too ground breaking, but it's gotten me thinking about some reader-centric style apps, including things that pull references or quotes from a users' Kindle library.
- ableal 16y ago
  Not available worldwide, by the way. URLs: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93450 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93450 http://www.kindlepost.com/2010/08/free-games-on-kindle.html http://www.kindlepost.com/2010/08/free-games-on-kindle.html http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P37FW0 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P37FW0 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P38AAG http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003P38AAG
charlief 16y ago
Slow refresh rate of e-ink (1.35 Hz), limited contrast and shade resolution, no touch screen yet and a book-centric context make the immediate scope of apps a lot less varied than say the iPad. Better colour gradience, resolution and refresh rate means a greater variety of books, games and media. We'll see what happens as app development actually starts and matures as future Kindle iterations come out. Kindle's future success is tied to E-ink's viability in cost versus quality and right now, one could only guess beyond reading and reference-type apps. I think E-Ink is exciting in the sense of how little power it consumes in static display. The Kindle 3 supposedly lasts up to a month if the wireless radio is turned off. Lowering e-ink cost regardless of the quality combined with a few solar panels here+there, and the technology's use cases in advertising, retail, consumer, and corporate stuff etc go up drastically.

rbranson 16y ago

Ah, the psychology of price points. Let us all take note of this when we decide how to price our products and/or services. People are now perceiving that the value that this device delivers is significantly higher than it's price.

robryan 16y ago

Would be interesting to know whether Amazon is outselling Apple for eBooks on the iPad.

jgerman 16y ago
I'd probably bet that they are. I use the iPad exclusively for my eBooks and 80-90% of my non-free books are on through the Kindle app. Exact same situation with my wife as well as a few others we know.

listic 16y ago

I wonder why they still don't sell to Russia and over 100 other countries. Copyright issues?

MarkSweep 16y ago
Setting up Whispernet with local cell providers would also probably be a bottleneck.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

pmjordan 16y ago

I'm curious how well the Kindle renders tech/scientific books, with graphs, diagrams and formulae. I'd imagine the larger form factor of most printed technical books compared to fiction paperbacks to be an issue. I'd assume the 10" version does better than the smaller one.

MichaelSalib 16y ago
I was just speaking to a friend of mine who is a EE/physicist who had just returned a Kindle DX two days ago. He got it specifically to read IEEE journal papers and found that it was unacceptable. His specific beef wasn't with the e-ink or the e-ink page turn speed but rather with the huge delay spent processing PDFs when you turned pages. In other words, page turn delays were no problem when reading a text only document, but when reading a PDF, they were really long, presumably because of the slow processor and an unwillingness to pre-rasterize pages. I love my kindle, but for technical documents, I just print them out.
- pmjordan 16y ago
  Interesting, thanks. As far as I can tell, it's possible to convert PDFs to the Kindle's native format, any idea if this improves the situation? I've noticed the PDF delay on the iPad as well, although it's not sufficient to bother me. I'm reluctant to use the illuminated screen for extended periods of reading though, especially in the evening.
  - MichaelSalib 16y ago
    Sorry, I have no idea.
  - kroger 16y ago
    "Interesting, thanks. As far as I can tell, it's possible to convert PDFs to the Kindle's native format, any idea if this improves the situation?" Yes. I use mobipocket creator [1] to convert pdf files to the mobi format. It's free and works pretty well for documents with one column. For papers with multiple columns (like those from journals) I use papercrop [2] to slice the pdf in smaller parts so I can read in my (non-dx) kindle 2. [1] http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscreator.asp http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscrea... [2] http://code.google.com/p/papercrop/ http://code.google.com/p/papercrop/ edit: small fixes

johndoe77 16y ago

Having ordered several weeks ago, I am anxiously awaiting it's arrival. The wifi only version was a nice move and the price point is really attractive.

jemfinch 16y ago

I just wish flight attendants would stop making me turn it off for takeoff and landing.

MichaelSalib 16y ago
Yeah, but remember, your Kindle is a much bigger threat to the navigation system than the 30 or 40 cell phones in people's pockets that they forgot to turn off. Plus, reading a Kindle might distract you in an emergency, which is why they don't let anyone read books or magazines during takeoff and landing either.
- lallysingh 16y ago
  I was under the impression that the cell phone shutoff was to prevent the towers from freaking out about dozens of phones coming in & out of range at 650mph+.
  - PidGin128 16y ago
    I was under the impression that towers had some type of signal baffle to prevent reception from devices a certain number of degrees from the horizon. I have no merit or citation to exert with this claim.
  - jemfinch 16y ago
    I've heard that claim but I'm unsure why airlines would inconvenience their customers for cell providers.
- aik 16y ago
  I have never been told to put down my book or magazine during takeoff or landing, or ever heard an attendant ask anyone else to.
  - MichaelSalib 16y ago
    Neither have I. That's why the flight attendants insisting that I have to put away my Kindle during takeoff and landing "to make sure I'm not distracted during these safety-critical times" is so absurd.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

ataggart 16y ago

Primary reason I haven't purchased a kindle: no way to lock the page orientation. I borrowed one from a friend and tried reading on the beach; the damn thing kept flipping around so I couldn't read it. Such a trivial thing to add, but lacking in the iphone as well.

blehn 16y ago
I'm assuming you were using a Kindle DX (the others don't auto-rotate). But anyway, you can lock the orientation: http://thekindle.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/screenrotationdx.jpg?w=299&h=210 http://thekindle.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/screenrotationd...

zsouthboy 16y ago

Will someone please release an API so I can write a printer driver and we can print directly to our ebook readers already? The APIs that have been available so far (AFAIK - someone please correct me) for any of the readers have been lackluster.