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Have they lifted the DRM? Can it display PDF's? Can I load whatever I want on it from whatever source I want? The biggest shortcomings of the first Kindle we

Have they lifted the DRM? Can it display PDF's? Can I load whatever I want on it from whatever source I want? The biggest shortcomings of the first Kindle were not its physical limitations.

unalone 18y ago
You... apparently haven't used a Kindle before. Because... yes. You CAN load whatever you want on it from whatever source you want. The PDF thing: guys, I'm sorry, it's overblown. There are good converters available for Windows and Mac, and you can EMAIL the PDF to Amazon to get it converted and emailed back instantly. You can even pay a buck to have it sent there automatically. The PDF format is not necessary. Frankly, if I can load Ulysses from Gutenberg as a TXT file and have it good enough to read without distraction, then things are pretty good. If you insist on chapter indexes and hypertext, the .prc is completely fine and basically works just as the PDF would have. It even displays images, though I didn't get a Kindle for that. HN has a habit of dismissing what they don't like offhand. The Kindle is one of those suffering products. I speak now not as a "hacker," but as somebody who loves the written language, loves novels, even loves certain poetry, and the Kindle is wonderful for people who want to read books. That's what it's for. This isn't an enterprise tool. This isn't meant to help you with work. This is for literature, for novels, for people who like reading. And it does what it does STUNNINGLY well. The physical limitations weren't really limitations. I dunno, I love the Kindle's original design. I'll have to use this one to see if it's still just as intuitive, but if you've ever used a Kindle, it's something where the design just makes perfect sense. You fall in love with it. I know I did. And, between getting a mobile browser that displays fairly nicely, being able to mark up texts as I see fit, and having the ability to download The Complete Shakespeare for 99 cents if I need it (oh, and I DO need it), makes the Kindle basically an extreme orgasm of a literature product. I found ebooks online for books that have been out of print for 20 years, books that I read when I was younger and couldn't find again. Think of what it would be like if we moved directly from LP to mp3 with nothing in between for music. It opens up an entire world of literature for the casual/hardcore reader. So... please. If you're going to diss the Kindle, diss things that actually make sense to diss. Because this is an excellent product, people happen to love it, and it also happens to be selling well, and we Kindle users aren't dicks like Mac users are yet. Don't push people like me into being sarcastic and abrasive. There's still hope for our entire userbase.

Have they lifted the DRM? Can it display PDF's? Can I load whatever I want on it from whatever source I want? The biggest shortcomings of the first Kindle were not its physical limitations.

unalone 18y ago

You... apparently haven't used a Kindle before. Because... yes. You CAN load whatever you want on it from whatever source you want. The PDF thing: guys, I'm sorry, it's overblown. There are good converters available for Windows and Mac, and you can EMAIL the PDF to Amazon to get it converted and emailed back instantly. You can even pay a buck to have it sent there automatically. The PDF format is not necessary. Frankly, if I can load Ulysses from Gutenberg as a TXT file and have it good enough to read without distraction, then things are pretty good. If you insist on chapter indexes and hypertext, the .prc is completely fine and basically works just as the PDF would have. It even displays images, though I didn't get a Kindle for that. HN has a habit of dismissing what they don't like offhand. The Kindle is one of those suffering products. I speak now not as a "hacker," but as somebody who loves the written language, loves novels, even loves certain poetry, and the Kindle is wonderful for people who want to read books. That's what it's for. This isn't an enterprise tool. This isn't meant to help you with work. This is for literature, for novels, for people who like reading. And it does what it does STUNNINGLY well. The physical limitations weren't really limitations. I dunno, I love the Kindle's original design. I'll have to use this one to see if it's still just as intuitive, but if you've ever used a Kindle, it's something where the design just makes perfect sense. You fall in love with it. I know I did. And, between getting a mobile browser that displays fairly nicely, being able to mark up texts as I see fit, and having the ability to download The Complete Shakespeare for 99 cents if I need it (oh, and I DO need it), makes the Kindle basically an extreme orgasm of a literature product. I found ebooks online for books that have been out of print for 20 years, books that I read when I was younger and couldn't find again. Think of what it would be like if we moved directly from LP to mp3 with nothing in between for music. It opens up an entire world of literature for the casual/hardcore reader. So... please. If you're going to diss the Kindle, diss things that actually make sense to diss. Because this is an excellent product, people happen to love it, and it also happens to be selling well, and we Kindle users aren't dicks like Mac users are yet. Don't push people like me into being sarcastic and abrasive. There's still hope for our entire userbase.