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The e-readers are great but the apps are frankly garbage. They take forever to launch, gatekeep TTS, and have laughably few display options. It's great if you w

The e-readers are great but the apps are frankly garbage. They take forever to launch, gatekeep TTS, and have laughably few display options. It's great if you want blazing white text on a black background or brown text on an infinitesimally lighter brown background but God forbid you want grey on black or to listen to a book there's no audiobook for. Other ebook apps like Moon+Reader make the Kindle app look like a pathetic joke.

nindalf 5y ago
> forever to launch I cold started the app just now. It takes less than half a second to get me into the book after showing me the cover art of the book. It’s about the same as any other app on my phone. Certainly doesn’t take “forever”, although I concede my phone is about a year old. It could be different if you’re using the app on a much older device. Seems harsh to call it a “pathetic joke” or “frankly garbage”. I was just reading a book on my phone so I checked the “laughably few display options”. I see the ability to customise font (8 fonts, serif, sans-serif, dyslexic friendly), font size, page colour, the option to update page colour according to system theme, line spacing, alignment, orientation lock, continuous or page scrolling and 8 other options. It’s better to say that your specific need to change the font colour isn’t catered to. But there’s no need to talk in such harsh terms. Get a hold of yourself.
- Causality1 5y ago
  That was a decent feature set when I had it on my Palm twenty years ago. If you haven't tried other much more powerful e-readers you might be pleasantly surprised. The Kindle app won't even let you keep the nav buttons and status bar displayed while you read.
  - nindalf 5y ago
    I have 200 hours on Moon Reader reading The Wheel of Time alone. At least 200 more reading other books. I still prefer Kindle because it has features that are important to me, such as a simple and effective notes+highlights system and syncing my place across devices.
idonotknowwhy 5y ago
What do you mean gate keep tts? It comes out of the box and plays through the headphone jack or speaker. I use it all the time
- Causality1 5y ago
  I'm talking about the app, not the Kindle device.
kureikain 5y ago
same here. book sometime only show up on a particular device but not on other device, even though I send them to kindle email or upload on aws ui. I ended up just ditch it and use Apple Book. Though I still have book that only available on Kindle cuz I bough them on AWS. I wish it has an easy way to export those to Apple Book.
quietbritishjim 5y ago
That one feature might be killer for you, but for someone else it might be something else, perhaps advanced additions for highlighting or bookmarks. There's a long tail of possible improvements. But instead Amazon have gone for simplicity. That isn't laziness, it's a deliberate feature, and I like it. It's tempting to jam more features in a product, but surprisingly it ends up being equivalent to removing them, because it becomes hopeless for the average user to find anything. I think it's a good thing the Kindle app hasn't fallen into that trap.
- nindalf 5y ago
  Cloud synced highlights and notes is exactly why I love the Kindle app. It’s as simple as it needs to be.
mdp2021 5y ago
Why don't you just buy, like the rest of us, an Android tablet with an Electro-Phoretic Display, normally from E-Ink? I spend many hours per week on a 13'' Android tablet with EPD and BlueTooth keyboard, and work on it proficiently. Surely you can use Moon+Reader there, and much much more.

nindalf 5y ago

> forever to launch I cold started the app just now. It takes less than half a second to get me into the book after showing me the cover art of the book. It’s about the same as any other app on my phone. Certainly doesn’t take “forever”, although I concede my phone is about a year old. It could be different if you’re using the app on a much older device. Seems harsh to call it a “pathetic joke” or “frankly garbage”. I was just reading a book on my phone so I checked the “laughably few display options”. I see the ability to customise font (8 fonts, serif, sans-serif, dyslexic friendly), font size, page colour, the option to update page colour according to system theme, line spacing, alignment, orientation lock, continuous or page scrolling and 8 other options. It’s better to say that your specific need to change the font colour isn’t catered to. But there’s no need to talk in such harsh terms. Get a hold of yourself.

Causality1 5y ago
That was a decent feature set when I had it on my Palm twenty years ago. If you haven't tried other much more powerful e-readers you might be pleasantly surprised. The Kindle app won't even let you keep the nav buttons and status bar displayed while you read.
- nindalf 5y ago
  I have 200 hours on Moon Reader reading The Wheel of Time alone. At least 200 more reading other books. I still prefer Kindle because it has features that are important to me, such as a simple and effective notes+highlights system and syncing my place across devices.

idonotknowwhy 5y ago

What do you mean gate keep tts? It comes out of the box and plays through the headphone jack or speaker. I use it all the time

Causality1 5y ago
I'm talking about the app, not the Kindle device.

kureikain 5y ago

same here. book sometime only show up on a particular device but not on other device, even though I send them to kindle email or upload on aws ui. I ended up just ditch it and use Apple Book. Though I still have book that only available on Kindle cuz I bough them on AWS. I wish it has an easy way to export those to Apple Book.

quietbritishjim 5y ago

That one feature might be killer for you, but for someone else it might be something else, perhaps advanced additions for highlighting or bookmarks. There's a long tail of possible improvements. But instead Amazon have gone for simplicity. That isn't laziness, it's a deliberate feature, and I like it. It's tempting to jam more features in a product, but surprisingly it ends up being equivalent to removing them, because it becomes hopeless for the average user to find anything. I think it's a good thing the Kindle app hasn't fallen into that trap.

nindalf 5y ago
Cloud synced highlights and notes is exactly why I love the Kindle app. It’s as simple as it needs to be.

mdp2021 5y ago

Why don't you just buy, like the rest of us, an Android tablet with an Electro-Phoretic Display, normally from E-Ink? I spend many hours per week on a 13'' Android tablet with EPD and BlueTooth keyboard, and work on it proficiently. Surely you can use Moon+Reader there, and much much more.