3 ms·

What I think is driving this is the lack of competition. No-one is going to take on the Kindle. Not because they don’t think they couldn’t make a better device,

What I think is driving this is the lack of competition. No-one is going to take on the Kindle. Not because they don’t think they couldn’t make a better device, but because the don’t think they could create a digital bookstore with enough titles to be useful.

patkai 6y ago
Maybe a tablet maker will one day add a second, e-ink screen to the back of the tablet and run the Kindle app on it.
donatzsky 6y ago
There is actually competition to the Kindle, although you often wouldn't know it, reading "mainstream" US-centric forums such as HN. Kobo offers a complete ecosystem similar to the Kindle, with bookstore, devices and syncing. There are a number of regional players as well in this space. Then, of course, there are all the device makers that simply expect you to bring your own content.
- Multicomp 6y ago
  > Then, of course, there are all the device makers that simply expect you to bring your own content. Someone on hacker news talked about using syncthing for their ebook and I had to replicate it. it sounded so much more useful than my previous experience with ebook readers, the nook simple touch. My quest to find an e-reader that supported Android 4.4+ and both headphone jacks and SD cards resulted in a likebook Mars. Now I can use syncthing to sync my library...ebooks, PDF, and audiobooks, automatically in the background, no account needed. I would have preferred to purchase a modern incarnation of the very first Kindle, with a headphone jack, SD card, and keyboard, but nobody makes such a device any longer, or if they do, it is so out of date that it cannot run syncthing. I continue to be excited about the pine phone keyboard design, because from there it is only a properly sized e ink screen away from being a tiny e-reader with keyboard headphone jack and Linux!

3 ms·

What I think is driving this is the lack of competition. No-one is going to take on the Kindle. Not because they don’t think they couldn’t make a better device,

by kekeblom 6y ago

patkai 6y ago
Maybe a tablet maker will one day add a second, e-ink screen to the back of the tablet and run the Kindle app on it.
donatzsky 6y ago
There is actually competition to the Kindle, although you often wouldn't know it, reading "mainstream" US-centric forums such as HN. Kobo offers a complete ecosystem similar to the Kindle, with bookstore, devices and syncing. There are a number of regional players as well in this space. Then, of course, there are all the device makers that simply expect you to bring your own content.
- Multicomp 6y ago
  > Then, of course, there are all the device makers that simply expect you to bring your own content. Someone on hacker news talked about using syncthing for their ebook and I had to replicate it. it sounded so much more useful than my previous experience with ebook readers, the nook simple touch. My quest to find an e-reader that supported Android 4.4+ and both headphone jacks and SD cards resulted in a likebook Mars. Now I can use syncthing to sync my library...ebooks, PDF, and audiobooks, automatically in the background, no account needed. I would have preferred to purchase a modern incarnation of the very first Kindle, with a headphone jack, SD card, and keyboard, but nobody makes such a device any longer, or if they do, it is so out of date that it cannot run syncthing. I continue to be excited about the pine phone keyboard design, because from there it is only a properly sized e ink screen away from being a tiny e-reader with keyboard headphone jack and Linux!