17 ms·

Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story

316 points by lelf 12y ago

facepalm 12y ago
Funny how you can inflate an issue. I have a paperwhite and love it. I guess I am lucky that I don't know so much about typography.
- coldtea 12y ago
  Yeah, the easily amused are always more satisfied.
- Rambunctious 12y ago
  Maybe if you used your Kindle more instead of making snarky posts you would get a clue.
aaronbrethorst 12y ago
To be fair, I find it much easier to fall asleep after using my Kindle Paperwhite than I do with an iPad. But, virtually every aspect of the Kindle ecosystem user experience is an experience in mediocrity. In some respects, I feel like the company is like what you'd get if you crossed the worst aspects of Microsoft and Google. (And apologies to my friends who work at Amazon, but let's be honest: you're all going to quit within a year or two to work somewhere that's less abusive of its employees.)
- _mgr 12y ago
  I too fall asleep easier while reading on my Paperwhite. Rather annoying actually.
  - ArekDymalski 12y ago
    Did you try reading something less boring? ;)
    - aryamaan 12y ago
      I will vouch about this statement for myself. Rather than how I am reading the book (physical or ebook), kind of book I am reading play more significant role in helping me sleep.
- daok 12y ago
  Haha your parentheses is what I hear every week since I came living at Seattle. Too bad for Amazon I suppose.
- jmspring 12y ago
  I stuck with my gen 3 kindle -- more memory than future gens, no ads, and the option of audio books (never used it). As technology progresses, I expect more not less. That said, it doesn't have the backlight and using a cover w/ built in light while the significant other tries to sleep? Yeah, no. I've resorted to using a camping headlamp set on "red" (not as bright/obtrusive) when I want to use the kindle to read. However, I mostly just use my phone and the Kindle app. Advances in the display beyond the gen 3 (first I bought) didn't merit any sort of upgrade for me.
- megablast 12y ago
  I found it easier switching my iPad into night mode.
- dotBen 12y ago
  Why would Amazon want to help you fall asleep while reading a book. More awake time, more books read, more $$$ :) Mostly a tongue-in-cheek comment but somewhere deep in the halls of Amazon I bet that discussion was had...
- fpgeek 12y ago
  While there are plenty of mediocre aspects of the Kindle ecosystem, there are plenty of excellent ones as well. For example: 1. Return policy. Amazon has the best ebook return policy in the business. It seems essentially the same as their physical book policy. The last time I checked, Google Play was next-best (7 days no-questions-asked, regardless of jurisdiction) and everyone else grudgingly had a return policy where it was required by law (i.e. Europe) and none otherwise. 2. Sideloaded books. AFAIK, of the major ebook retailers, only Amazon and Google will let you sync books you didn't purchase from them to your cloud library. Other retailers might let you read sideloaded books in their clients, but you have to use Dropbox or an equivalent for backup and syncing across devices. 3. Client support. If it supports third-party applications, Amazon makes a Kindle client for almost anything you might want to read an ebook on, plus they have a web-based reader. Meanwhile, Google and Apple are busy paying "strategy taxes" for platforms it isn't in their interest to support, and B&N and Kobo don't quite have the resources to keep up.
  - ursidae 12y ago
    One frustrating thing about side loaded books, you cannot read them with Kindle for PC, Kindle for Mac, or Kindle cloud reader.
    - elemeno 12y ago
      I was under the impression that you can, though they might show up under Documents rather than Books - assuming you've side-loaded by sending the files to your kindle e-mail address. It's not something I try to do very often though, so I might be mistaken - they don't seem to appear in the Cloud Reader though. In any case, since you can just open the files in the desktop version of Kindle, it doesn't seem like it would be such a big deal.
      - lucian1900 12y ago
        It's annoying because I rely on Kindle's progress syncing. Why do some of my books randomly not support this useful feature?
  - 12y ago
- rhino369 12y ago
  Amazon seems like Microsoft but without the massive profits from cash cows (windows+office) to subsidize R&D.
  - scott_karana 12y ago
    Actually, Amazon plays that same game, to the hilt. They're very profitable, but reinvest almost all of their money. http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-why-it-works http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-has-n...
stblack 12y ago
It's about time someone said this so well.
nether 12y ago
I really pity the author. He's lost the ability to enjoy a book and throws a fit when typesetting is flawed. A sure path to disappointment and unhappiness is to demand only "the best" in everything. He should just learn to read his books as they are.
- leereeves 12y ago
  "Reading books is a large part of how I make a living." Sounds like he spends a lot of time reading, and it's natural for minor annoyances to become like Chinese water torture when one does something often.
- jfb 12y ago
  Why should someone choose to read on Amazon if the experience is so hostile? It's a lament for a lost opportunity most of all.
  - Spooky23 12y ago
    Amazon's octopus stranglehold on books. He mentioned that he reads a lot and listens to audiobooks... audible is basically the only game in town, and Kindle editions add $1 to the cost.
    - fpgeek 12y ago
      While you're right about Amazon's bundling advantages (with both Audible and MatchBook), there are other audiobook alternatives (e.g. Downpour, which sells many DRM-free audiobooks).
- MBCook 12y ago
  Have you used a Kindle? It's not small nitpicking, sometimes they layouts it makes are laughably bad and hard to read. Basic stuff that anyone who has read a book would notice at some point and it hasn't been fixed in YEARS.
  - epochwolf 12y ago
sliverstorm 12y ago
To replicate the experience of the Kindle Voyage ‘button’ find an immovable surface in your house: a marble kitchen countertop will do. Place your thumb upon the surface, then press down – deforming your thumb. Not pleasant, is it? I don't follow. It feels like I'm pressing down on something. Of all the things I can think of that would cause an RSI, pinching a pressure-sensitive button seems low on the list. I also don't understand why, if the author loved his first kindle so much, he doesn't just keep using it. They release new ones frequently enough (and old ones keep working long enough) that you can skip several generations and pick out the revisions that you like most.
- MBCook 12y ago
  I own a voyage, but can't come up with the answer to one simple question. In what way are those stupid little touch strips actually BETTER than real buttons? Since there's no actual physical feedback you can't tell how hard you have to press. They've tried to fix this by letting you set sensitivity levels, but that doesn't work great. Then I thought it would be a good idea to add a pager motor to fake physical feedback by vibrating when you would've made a press. None of this works as well as the buttons on Kindle keyboard , but I bet it cost a hell of lot more money. > that you can skip several generations and pick out the revisions that you like most. The problem is that you really can't. Despite owning the absolute top-of-the-line device the software feels half-baked. Shortly after launch it would often crash itself and require physical restarts. The on screen keyboard is absolutely atrocious, Which they appear to tried to fix with text suggestions. The suggestions are slow and wildly inconsistent which makes it impossible to quickly use them. Even if it suggests the right word you never know where on the suggestion bar to actually going to pop-up. As the author mentions the text layout system hasn't been updated in years despite obvious problems. I waited years for a new version with physical buttons but ended up settling for the somewhat acceptable touch strips. He complains about the lighting system, which is apparently still a problem for a lot of for a lot of voyage users (luckily I'm not one). Also Amazon doesn't seem to do anything to control or improve the quality of e-books. They're often laughably bad. His main thesis is dead on. The project doesn't feel like anyone who actually likes books is working on it. It doesn't feel like a passion, it feels like a terrible afterthought that people rotate in and out of making random changes to try and look like they did some management.
Johnythree 12y ago
Totally agree with this article, but I'm surprised he doesn't mention the train wreck of the touch screen on the Paperwhite. For a start it's incredibly flaky. Sometimes the slightest accidental touch will cause it to jump randomly to somewhere in the book. Other times I can press it hard or rub furiously and still nothing happens. Then sometimes it will pause for a few seconds, then do something incomprehensible. If it had simply retained touch for "go forward" and "go back" it would be acceptable, but it seems that the Sales Department insisted that the engineers overload it with extra features. When I'm reading I'm constantly interrupted by the idiotic "change font" or "look up dictionary" or "take notes" function when I don't want them. It's infuriating. And then when reading a Magazine, the actions change and suddenly there's a jump forward (or back) one chapter which causes you to completely loose your page. I love my Kindle, but I hate the touch function.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > I love my Kindle, but I hate the touch function. I don't know, I read a lot on the Paperwhite and I got used to the touch screen. It's quite comfortable, even though I would probably prefer some actual buttons. In any case I was won over. I was reading a lot of paper books before and I am finding the experience of reading with an ereader to be superior in almost every way.
  - MBCook 12y ago
    > ... and I am finding the experience of reading with an ereader to be superior in almost every way. That's what keep sneezing or Kindle. Not having to fiddle and accidentally leave my place if I set the book down, being able to get a new book almost instantly, being able to look up words I don't know keep using the Kindle despite all the software/hardware faults. Not having to fiddle and accidentally leave my place if I set the book down, being able to get a new book almost instantly, being able to look up words I don't know. But the absolute best is progress syncing. I don't bring my Kindle in less I know I'm going to need it, but anywhere I get stuck I can pull out my phone and pick up the book I was reading right at my last position. When I get back to my Kindle it already knows how much further I read. It's like hav when I get back to my Kindle it already knows how much further I read. It's so much more convenient than carrying a physical book around. Especially large/long books. I read King's The Stand last summer. I'm glad I didn't have to struggle with the 1,200 page physical edition.
dcre 12y ago
Agree with all the typesetting points, but I do not share the author's experience with the buttons—I think they're great. You don't have to press them hard, and the vibration feedback works perfectly for me.
SwellJoe 12y ago
I had a second generation Kindle (still had buttons, still had free 3G everywhere in the world, which was an awesome feature), and loved it. I dropped it many, many times, over the years, and finally the screen broke. So, I replaced it with a Paper White. It's a better product in most regards, but I find I use it for reading far less. I tend to almost exclusively read on my Nexus 7. Twilight makes it possible to dim and turn the screen orange, which isn't something Kindle can do, so I like it for night time reading. I haven't tried to figure out which is better for getting to sleep after reading, but I suspect both are problematic. Also, the Nexus is faster than the Kindle, in every dimension, so it's just more fun to browse/buy books. And, as others have noted, the touch screen on the Paper White is bad. Not a little bad, either. It's annoying as hell. And, I've also had problems with unintended page turns, and intended turns not working. The Nexus 7 has a great touch screen. I also have an Amazon Fire Phone, and that's enough to convince me that Amazon just can't do hardware well. It's an awful phone; it would have been barely passable three years ago. Today it's laughable. And, their priorities for where to expend resources are way out of whack. The 3D stuff and four front-facing cameras to make it work, is just ridiculous. I'd much rather have one good camera than five shitty ones. I recently got some ebooks from O'Reilly, and found that they looked much better in Google Books than on the Kindle or in the Kindle app. Amazon might be in trouble. I currently have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, so I still do most of my reading in Kindle (whether the app or the hardware Kindle), but the experience of reading in Google Books is better.
- ericd 12y ago
  I absolutely hated my Kindle Touch (1st gen), so I sold it and bought a used 3G. Since then, I've cracked two screens, but fortunately, they're very easy to get parts for and repair (http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Amazon-Kindle-Parts-for-Repair-p-1-c-641.html http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Amazon-Kindle-Parts-for-Repair...). Amazon still sells used Kindle Keyboard 3Gs for reasonable prices, if you're ever tempted to go back.
  - SwellJoe 12y ago
    Only 15 bucks to fix my old Kindle! Why didn't I think of that? I definitely miss the old one, and wish I'd thought of doing this to start with. I wasn't really excited about the new Kindles (the move to touch screens everywhere has been a thing I've been unenthusiastic about, always...I was hesitant to move away from the G1 to a touchscreen Android phone, too). I just assumed I had to "uprade". Thanks for the link.
blocke 12y ago
I use the Kindle app for Android because that is where the indie authors seem to be. I use the app in spite of itself. The Kindle app on Android has over the past few years been such a buggy piece of shit that I curse it's very existence. It alone has demonstrated that Amazon can't competently develop mobile apps worth a damn and made me laugh when I heard Amazon was making a phone. Once a month Amazon seems to make a release that outright breaks a critical flow in the app. For the past couple weeks I've had to use the website to skim through books because every time the app tries to open the store view for a book the app instead opens Chrome with "about:blank" as the URL. /facepalm I'll ignore the fact the tablet version gets a proper store interface (when it's not completely broken) but the cellphone version gets a regurgitated ancient web view that was last updated a half decade ago. I can only conclude that Kindle isn't profitable for Amazon at all and they throw appropriate talent at it... that is none at all. Does Apple give a rip about iBooks? Google doesn't seem to give a crap about getting indies on Google Play.
- fpgeek 12y ago
  I think you have the causality backwards. It's not that Google doesn't care about getting indies on Google Play (though, to be fair, not enough to deal with the havoc their automatic discounting creates for indies, last I heard), it's that indies often don't really care about being anywhere but Amazon (largest market, extra perks for titles that are exclusive, less to manage and so on). For obvious reasons, this may not be a great long-run choice for them, but it can be very attractive in the short-run.
- rurounijones 12y ago
  > Once a month Amazon seems to make a release that outright breaks a critical flow in the app. For the past couple weeks I've had to use the website to skim through books because every time the app tries to open the store view for a book the app instead opens Chrome with "about:blank" as the URL. /facepalm Had same issue, reported it, was told to uninstall and reinstall, no joy. Upgraded to Android 5.1 which included a new webview component update, issue fixed.
mintplant 12y ago
It's not for the faint of heart, given the inaccessible brick-ness of the Kindle and its long, nerve-racking reboot time, but you can jailbreak your device and install KUAL (app launcher) and KOReader. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203326 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203326 https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/koreader/koreader ePub and PDF support, text reflow/cropping/reformatting (great for papers!), plethora of options from contrast to margins, custom fonts, per-document style sheets, etc etc. You can also install things like Gargoyle for interactive fiction on the go. http://www.fabiszewski.net/kindle-gargoyle/ http://www.fabiszewski.net/kindle-gargoyle/ Just make sure to set up BackDoorLock so that Amazon can't force an OTA update on you. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205666 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205666 You might also want the Rescue Pack in case things go wrong. It boots you into diagnostics mode if you start your Kindle with a USB cable plugged in.. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195670 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195670 (how to exit diags mode) http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Touch_Hacking#Exiting_Diags_Mode http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Touch_Hacking#Exiting... See the FGA thread and MobileRead's "Kindle Developer's Corner" for more info. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237083 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237083 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150
- joshuapants 12y ago
  Does KOReader fix the Kindle typography? That is, get rid of the rivers of white running through the poorly justified pages?
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    Yes, it fixes most of it. I would not say it's perfect either but it's much, much better than the default Kindle Viewer. it also gives you a lot more options on how to tweak the way it reflows text, as well as font choices. It makes it a much better device for reading.
    - 12y ago
mwcampbell 12y ago
I don't know about the Kindle line, but I wonder why this author thinks the Echo is such a disaster. Seems to me like it could be quite useful, if it lives up to the ad.
- meow_mix 12y ago
  I think the ad itself is what they were making fun of
AndrewUnmuted 12y ago
I had been planning to launch a big, public campaign about Kindle typography to try and get Amazon to change her ways. But I came to the conclusion: why bother? This is precisely the feeling I had right before I resigned from my position at Amazon. Though I worked at a subsidiary, not Amazon proper, the culture at Amazon everywhere can be absurdly stubborn. In the presence of a bad team, the "leadership principles" can be used for evil, and not for good. Which is why I was consistently told that bugs in software were OK if a majority of customers didn't care to call up and complain about it to our poor, overworked customer service teams. Amazon thinks that it already has "the customer," in its most broad abstraction, already in its grasp, and doesn't ever need to fight to keep any of them there. That is why, when I departed my Amazon subsidiary in December of 2014, they were only just starting to hire a UX team. These principles can be made so dogmatic to the point of destructive company culture that outwardly resists change, be it to marketing designs or entire technology infrastructures that entire teams comprising hundreds of people rely upon to get work done. This is why it is very hard to keep talented people in positions of management at Amazon.
- nevir 12y ago
  I'm curious: were you at Lab126?
  - AndrewUnmuted 12y ago
    I was not at Lab126. :)
- pookieinc 12y ago
  I agree with this post, but not with regards to the Kindle, but more Amazon as an entity. Also, perfect timing to read this article, after just purchasing a Kindle Paperwhite and having it for a few weeks now. As a casual reader, I find the Kindle Paperwhite as the perfect medium for my reading needs. I can hold it in one hand, I can read it any time of the day with adjustable brightness, and the e-ink is very clear and the font is fine. With respect to the article, I don't think the typical person cares much for typography, as long as it can be read and understood. The justification notion, I would argue that the typical user may not notice it as much as the hardcore reader. This is where I disagree with the parent post here, as in Amazon may understand "the customer" in this particular case, or at least the majority. Everyone who I've come across absolutely loves, and heavily uses, their Kindle(s). Some people even collect them! All reviews love them and it's a great experience. The point of the article: Now, I'm all for making the Kindle the best reading device ever by adding all these cool features (justification, typography, different modes for different things like iBooks, etc.), but instead of targeting the Kindle as being deficient for most users, the article is targeting Amazon more so for it's lack of pushing the product to all it can be and I think this can be extracted toward larger companies doing what they can to push the envelope with their product. This is where I agree with the parent post, Amazon seems to be lacking in this area. The blogpost written and the parent post both point to deficiencies in how Amazon looks to their customers and pushes their products to the best they can be.
jayvanguard 12y ago
This person seems extremely picky. I have pretty much every generation of kindle and they just keep getting incrementally better. Resolution, backlight, multiple dictionaries, x-ray, etc.
- bduerst 12y ago
  Yeah, it reads like no matter what would be done, this person would find something wrong with the product experience. I use a paperwhite and read to fall asleep. The white-tinted light isn't as much of an issue as people or f.lux make it out to be. If the paperwite were tinted, this person would probably be complaining that it makes them fall asleep rather than stay alert while reading.
  - karmajunkie 12y ago
    Its not just the wavelength of light that affects the sleep question. Backlit devices like the iPad are far more likely to affect your sleep than a device like the kindle, which has both lower levels of light and the light is reflected rather than shone directly into your eyes.
    - exodust 12y ago
      Exactly. I can't see why the author is complaining about white light. I have a Kindle Paperwhite and in no way can the background be called "white"! When you adjust the backlight down, it's a nice warm off-white. Maybe I have a different model, but I can't see any "white light problem".
  - epochwolf 12y ago
    I'm willing to give the author a pass on the white-light issue since it is a legitimate problem for some people. But I don't expect amazon to ever address that problem. There's always a group of people that can't use a given product because they have one issue or another. For example, the Kindle Voyage isn't accessible for a blind person.
- epochwolf 12y ago
teleological 12y ago
Amazon, please hire this person and pay them whatever they ask.
- TheDong 12y ago
  As this user states, these issues are easily googleable and well known already. They could read the amazon reviews page for the kindle to learn these specific gripes. What they need is not someone now who sees the problems with the product (believe me, they know the problems), but someone who sees all these problems as it's being created and people who are able to produce reliable code that fixes it now. The cow has left the barn on the point where this person would have been most useful.
  - ikeboy 12y ago
    My biggest problem is that they're actively preventing jailbreaking. If I could jailbreak my Kindle Touch, most of my problems would go away. I filled out a 15 minute survey shortly after buying one, and noted that in the comments issue. The more people who do something like that, the more likely Amazon will decide to allow user "hacks".
WalterBright 12y ago
I was fortunate enough to get a Kindle DX. It's the best of the Kindles. The second best is the Kindle 3. I have some other Kindles, but I always go back to the DX and the 3. No, I don't like touch screens. The buttons are much better. The Kindle 3 nailed it. The only thing it is missing is a backlight.
- MBCook 12y ago
  That's why I moved from a keyboard up to the voyage. The back light is really nice, as is the much higher resolution screen. The touch screen isn't bad, but the software doesn't make good use of it. The fake touch that's why I moved from a keyboard up to the voyage. The back light is really nice, as is the much higher resolution screen. The touch screen isn't bad, but the software doesn't make good use of it. The fake touch buttons are acceptable. If they had used real buttons, or actually polish the software, it be a pretty great device. As it is, it's just okay.
- pnathan 12y ago
  The Kindle DX is a great device. I have one; it's the Kindle made for serious readers. It needs overhauling and improving though. Sigh. I don't know of any good ereaders through.
  - WalterBright 12y ago
    I'd buy a new DX if it had: 1. a higher res screen 2. a glow screen 3. the screen saver was my last page read but if they make it a touch screen and take the buttons away, no, I'll stick with the old DX.
jccalhoun 12y ago
He mentions lack of including any allegedly dyslexic-friendly font as one strike against Kindles. I thought that there wasn't actually a lot of evidence those work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexie I hate justified margins though so that's reason enough not to be happy with Kindles.
- hysan 12y ago
  I've read through that study before when I was reading about fonts for dyslexics a long time ago. The study didn't come to any conclusion and even states itself that the same size was too small and further studies needed to be done. Specifically, some major points where the study needs to be more robust are: 1. font comparisons 2. age range (university students were tested, but these fonts will most likely have the greatest effect on younger people who have not learned to adapt to being dyslexic) 3. languages Overall, there isn't evidence either way. But there is one thing that the studies consistently find, that the majority of dyslexics, both anecdotally and from the participant pool, have a favorable opinion of the font compared to normal ones. For that reason alone, I think it would be wise for Amazon to include such a font on the Kindle.
phaed 12y ago
That was brutal. And 100% on point.
pinkunicorn 12y ago
" Since Amazon hasnt updated anything about their typography since 2009 I wouldn’t hold my breath." That is actually not true - http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2015/01/bookerly_amazons_new_kindle_font.html http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2015/01/bookerly_am... Oh and this - "Speaking of highlights: Amazon has no graceful option to update books. Updating a book, in Amazon’s world, is the digital equivalent of handing you a new book, then burning your old one. Hope you didn’t have any notes or highlights in there." Hey that's actually not true. I beg the author to please provide examples and scenarios. Amazon goes to great lengths to not impact the reader by erasing their notes.
- hysan 12y ago
  It could have been true at the time of the post though. You can't tell from the post, but the article was put up on Dec. 15, 2014 so writing occurred before then (I have his blog in my rss reader). The Bookerly font, from my short searching, was released that same month on limited devices and was not pushed out to the Voyage until January (time of your linked post).
- kemayo 12y ago
  I'd suspect that the notes issue might be true when you're updating a side-loaded book (or possibly even one that you've uploaded to Documents, since the only way to update those is to delete them and upload a new version).
zetax123 12y ago
"Their Firephone is so terrible they literally can’t give it away" Okay, fair enough -- it was a disastrous product. "and the existence of the Amazon Echo strains all reason." Wait, what? How do you extend your hatred for typesetting and buttons on the Kindle to a product that has neither? At this point, you are just being presumptuous.
- gurkendoktor 12y ago
  > How do you extend your hatred for typesetting and buttons on the Kindle to a product that has neither? I'm not sure if that's why the author added it, but I really wish Amazon would first fix a bit more low-hanging fruit for its most beloved hardware product, instead of sinking time and money into unrelated crap. It always feels good when you pay for something and you can feel that the money goes into making it even better (software updates, next hardware iteration...).
  - cthalupa 12y ago
    >but I really wish Amazon would first fix a bit more low-hanging fruit for its most beloved hardware product, instead of sinking time and money into unrelated crap It'd be very surprising to me if the resources put into the Echo had any impact whatsoever on the amount of resources put into the Kindle team. I hear this argument a lot - "Why does company X work on feature Y when feature Z isn't complete", when features Y and Z are handled by completely different teams with their own dedicated resources.
    - gurkendoktor 12y ago
      People can be moved from team to team, and the Echo and the Fire gadgets need hardware and software engineers just like the Kindle does. Given how little the Kindle software evolves, it's hard to say whether it even has a proper team. Amazon is famous for taking all profits from one product, and investing them into other (new) products. This is precisely what annoys me here :|
Derbasti 12y ago
After having owned three kindles, I have switched to a kobo about a year ago. The kobo has many of its own problems, but it gets the reading experience right: it uses (very un-aggressive) hyphenation, and the lock screen displays the book cover. I miss going on Amazon, clicking some button, and immediately start reading a new book. Now that's a multi step process that involves a computer and a DRM removal tool. But the reading experience is easily worth it for me.
- te_chris 12y ago
  Came in here to say this, but I just use the Kobo store so it's not that different to the kindle experience sans-3G. I love my Kobo Aura HD, great piece of hardware.
- stormbeta 12y ago
  I've been seriously considering switching to a Kobo. I already convert/strip the DRM from all my books anyways, as I loathe the idea of ever being stuck in one ecosystem (and have switched before, from Kindle -> Nook -> Kindle). The new waterproof Kobo especially shows me that Kobo actually understands making a better e-reader.
- WalterBright 12y ago
  > the lock screen displays the book cover. That's almost right. It should display the last page read!
  - kawsper 12y ago
    The problem with that is (at least on e-ink displays) you wouldn't know if the device was on or off. Showing the book cover solves that :)
    - WalterBright 12y ago
      Easy. It could be shown with a black border instead of a white one. Or any of innumerable other ways.
  - 12y ago
teekert 12y ago
I have been using a kindle keyboard (3.5) since January 2011 (still use it actually). It took until September 2012 for them to introduce what they call "crisper fonts" which were fonts that actually match the pixels of the device. This means that before "crisper fonts" the same letter could look different depending on its position (which was not aligned with the pixels). I have for that entire 20 months wondered if anyone at Amazon actually used the kindle themselves. Other than that I'm still quite pleased with the thing (apart from the small trouble of having to remove DRM from most books to read my, paid for books on unsupported devices. Calibre plugins make this quite painless thankfully.)
vinceyuan 12y ago
I use Kindle Paperwhite 2 every day in bed. The built-in light is very useful. I hope they will make Kindle's screen bigger.
mlopes 12y ago
I have to say I disagree with the author on everything except the typesetting issues. The buttons to change the page are really good and the feedback try provide is very pleasant, just like clicking a physical button. I'm also quite happy with the white light, and don't really understand why a light that is meant for me to read should make me fall asleep. Quite the opposite, if anything it should help me keep awake and concentrate on the book. The Voyage is my second Kindle and in the 4 months I've had it I've read more than 30 books on it, which is a big increase over my previous average, and it's a lot thanks to the device being great. The fact that the author doesn't have one nice thing to say about the Kindle, and yet keeps buying them makes it seem there's some kind of Kindle dissing agenda behind it.
- regularfry 12y ago
  The theory is that a warmer light wouldn't wear your eyes out, so you'd be able to keep them open to read and stay awake for longer, not that it would make you fall asleep.
cthalupa 12y ago
>and white light is the worst for reading in bed. It’s proven to keep you awake. This is not a great argument. First, because the Kindle allows you to dim the screen, and in fact, does so automatically in dark rooms. Pulling my Voyage out and comparing it to my screen with Flux, anecdotally, it looks to be producing less light than my laptop does. And what are the alternatives? Not lighting the kindle display, and having you use an external light source? You have the same problem if you use LED lights - white light is generated in much the same way in LED bulbs, so you need to dim them as well, leaving you in the same position. >You can tap both margins to advance the page. (Unlike Amazon who thinks readers always hold their books in the same hand. Have they ever seen people read books?) The pressure sensitive buttons previously mentioned by the author are on both sides of the Voyage. You can use either hand to move forward or backward.
- creshal 12y ago
  > The pressure sensitive buttons previously mentioned by the author are on both sides of the Voyage. Yes, but they're a total usability disaster. The author's description of them is spot on, I've disabled them because they're just too painful to use.
  - cthalupa 12y ago
    I think this comes down to personal preference - I absolutely love them. I didn't even change the sensitivity/haptic feedback settings on my Voyage for a few months because I really had no complaints, and my changes have been minor tweaks to get it just right. I think this falls into the whole 'You can't please everyone' bucket - my anecdotal evidence among friends/family/coworkers with the Voyage suggest it's a big hit.
- ane 12y ago
  Plus, the article gets it wrong: the Paperwhite screen isn't backlit, the leds are oriented perpendicularly from the reading angle, so there is no direct light shining your eyes. Add that to the automatic dimming, the Paperwhite isn't going to keep you awake. As an anecdote, I am immensely susceptible to falling asleep when reading in the dark with the Paperwhite.
beyondcompute 12y ago
Oh, those seething bureaucracies with faceless collectives and blurred responsibilities... Also that's sort of interesting to see how a company which is supposed to take over the world is unable to deliver even the ordinary products. I hope, this will prove in the long run that to be successful you need to have a good product or service.
Red_Tarsius 12y ago
I love the virtual bookshelf concept. I love not to waste time wandering through libraries and that almost any book is two clicks away from me. That said, I'm also a graphic designer and many book layouts are awful. I can't tell how many times I read 1 star reviews of good books which were worthless as an ebook. The ebook is thrashing 500 years of typographic tradition. It's trashing everything we know about making a good reading experience. This is not only insulting, but insightful. Amazon is telling his costumers: "We are a GOOD ENOUGH company. We are not striving for excellence." OT: I've recently tried Audible as well. I felt dirty and cheated on. I gave a chance to Amazon Kindle, but I'll never compromise with Audible's business tactics.
- polarix 12y ago
  Citation for Audible's business tactics? How could it be done better, given the labor outlay and legal coordination required to record an audiobook?
bitL 12y ago
My biggest gripe with Voyage is the silly restriction to 4GB and no SD card in order to make PDF viewing far less likely. A lot of scientific papers are available in PDF only as well as older books and magazines and they are considerably larger than Kindle's own format yet preserving layout nicely, so they are my preferred media. I don't care about uneven lighting (yellow-blue cast across the screen) as I turn the light completely off. Is there any e-reader with "retina"-style e-ink that is optimized for viewing PDFs/PostScript and allowing a SD card?
- dcreemer 12y ago
  The Kobo Aura [1] (and Aura HD) may work for you. [1]https://www.kobo.com/koboaura https://www.kobo.com/koboaura
- geoelectric 12y ago
  The previous generation had a silly restriction to 2GB, so at least there's that. I actually couldn't fit my whole Kindle (not sideloaded) collection on it at the same time, even discounting cookbooks, comics, and other heavy-graphics things, which was a problem because the category feature at the time only supported on-device books.
taylorling 12y ago
I think he has some valid points in his rant, although I must say I enjoyed my Paperwhite 1st Gen very much and I don't find those issues (especially on the justification and font choices) to be a blocker for me from enjoying the books.
Shivetya 12y ago
having owned both a touch and button kindle I would prefer a marriage of the two. keep the physical page buttons that many of us want but use the touch screen for entry, high lighting, and even selection. If anything I give Amazon credit for making it so easy to read again that I find myself forgetting to do much else
cwmma 12y ago
As a commuter the kindle paperwhite was such a step back, the removal of the side buttons effectively prevented you from reading it left handed, I find myself halving to turn the page with my nose if for some reason I have to hold on with my right hand while on the subway.
- andrewla 12y ago
  I've found that there are two things that let me use the Kindle Paperwhite left-handed -- one is that the "back" area of the screen is small, so pressing close to the center with my left thumb, once I've gotten used to the "sweet spot", is very reliable. The other is that it recognizes swiping gestures, so a small swipe with the thumb will also turn the page if my hand is in an awkward position. That said, I would love to have the physical buttons back -- when the touch screen works, it is okay, but when it decides for some reason that I want to change my font size instead of turning the page, or just decides that I didn't press it, or turns the page twice when I think it didn't register my first touch, I get unaccountably mad.
cwmma 12y ago
As a commuter the kindle paperwhite was such a step back, the removal of the side buttons effectively prevented you from reading it left handed, I find myself halving to turn the page with my nose if for some reason I have to hold on with my right hand while on the subway.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
dash2 12y ago
Another point is just how dreadful the Kindle store is. That is just a rat-infested cellar of literature. I'm not even talking about bad writers; I mean literal fraudsters. And the personalization is useless. I have a very specific profile: history, statistics textbooks, classic literature, modern poetry. The front page of the store, right now, is offering me "Billy The Bug: Short Stories, Games, Jokes and More"; "Frontiers Saga 13", some kind of space crap; and "Highland Guard" (picture: weedy man with sword). Plus about four 50 Shades clones. I used to worry about the age of Total Internet Surveillance; turns out Amazon can't even figure out my gender.
giancarlostoro 12y ago
One thing I always wanted out of the Kindle (not the Fire / Tablets) is a web browser that actually works. Maybe not every page would work, but at least some would, the internet has a bad habit of not being backwards compatible so maybe there is this at fault sadly. A guy can dream I suppose.
- ikeboy 12y ago
  The web browser works decent for me. I mostly use it for gmail and reddit, which both have mobile versions that are pretty stable. If you have trouble with a site, try turning off javascript temporarily and turning on article mode after it loads.
noir_lord 12y ago
I have a Kobo Glo (one of the first ones) and it has been without doubt one of the best RoI's I've ever gotten on a piece of technology. It's light, has nice type, a decent battery, it's rubberised case is easy to grip and non-slip. It falls down epically on the store experience but since I side load with Calibre that makes not a jot of difference. The kindle I had before had an incredibly slick shopping experience but in every other way was inferior.
- paulornothing 12y ago
  I'm definitely looking to get a Kobo Glo HD. I loved my Kindle w/ Keyboard but the battery is shot and it crashes pretty often (also 4 years old). I'm not tied to the Amazon eco-system per se so I'm ok with going to Kobo.
heykjo 12y ago
Right about the Kindle - still like my original with the keyboard best. All wrong about the Echo - best thing in my kitchen. Not sure where the connection to typography is. Bit of a whinger?
jkestner 12y ago
Question: why does the Voyage exist? After progressively getting the price down, a very Amazon thing to do, a high-end model seems un-Amazonian. Especially if it doesn't really meet the needs of serious readers. Did Amazon just see an unmet market at that price point? Curious as to when companies move upmarket with a product line - it's usually the other way around.
- worklogin 12y ago
  Hey, everybody, I have an announcement! I like the Voyage! I own one, and reading on it is quite pleasant. I can see the rationale for pressure buttons (you can adjust the sensitivity). The resolution is fantastic, backlighting is great compared to reading in my particular low-light environment. The store works for what I need as a casual reader. I had a Kobo H2O, which was alright, but felt less refined. Also, the Kobo didn't have any useful newspaper subscriptions.
Paul_S 12y ago
I don't wish to derail but there are other e-ink readers that don't suffer from any of these problems. You can just read whatever you want on them in any way you want.
plg 12y ago
I've been reading books on my iPad and it's fantastic. I recently switched to buying books from apple rather than from amazon and reading using iBooks. Again, fantastic. Great typesetting, great UI. Also I can share books with my family with Family iCloud sharing. I know there's a kindle version of this sort of thing but it seems like a hassle.
dilap 12y ago
The problem is that they don't really have any competition. I had a weird sudden wish watching the Pepple Time video on kickstarter that they would expand into e-readers. They've already got the experience with the screens...
dfc 12y ago
My biggest complaint with the kindle (post beige / side buttons era) is the black plastic. If i read in the sun for 20-30 minutes the device begins to get very hot. After 40 minutes the heat starts to cause performance and display problems. Using a towel or newspaper helps but it screws with the mechanics of holding the device and turning pages.
upofadown 12y ago
Pretty obscure complaints for a reader that doesn't even support EPUB...
ForHackernews 12y ago
Why doesn't the author consider other, competing eReaders? The Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight (ironic Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Barnes-Noble-Touchscreen-Technology-Illumination/dp/B00O0G4FNI/ http://www.amazon.com/Barnes-Noble-Touchscreen-Technology-Il...) has a nice, even light and two physical page-turn buttons on the sides of the screen.
capedape 12y ago
I've had three Kindles and while I like the convenience of them, there is something about a regular book that absorbs me into the page better. The strange grey/blue tint and any sort of lighting whether front or back, for me, is irritating enough that I don't absorb information or get lost in a story as well. I like the Voyage alright, but I want the ability to turn the light ALL the way off, not just to a minimum. I still have one and use it, they just really need improve on these things so it feels less like just another screen, and more like a book.
geoelectric 12y ago
For all that he portrays the Voyage as a trainwreck, I like mine a lot, after having several Kindles before it including a Gen-1 Paperwhite. I don't mind the justification as a general rule, and actually find extreme hyphenization (which was their route on the iOS apps) much more distracting. My only real problems have been: * The haptic feedback can't be made prominent enough to be obvious through the first-party leather cover. * The tap zone for switching percentage/page number/etc has no visual affordance and I find it pretty non-obvious to reliably find. * The automatic lighting is way more sensitive to what's over my shoulder than the ambient light, so goes very dark if the room is softly lit from behind the Kindle (or very bright if there's a light in my background). * The font size isn't consistent between books even if I don't use publisher font. I assume that's because the markup of the books has some influence on the font size and doesn't always use "default." * I'd prefer a first-party book spine case over a notepad style case--that said, the origami stand has been extremely useful for reading while eating. Other than those niggles, it's been great, and certainly has been a more enjoyable device to use than any of my past Kindles.
sina 12y ago
I agree about the em dashes are written incorrectly in Kindle. I really hope that Amazon fixes this. Just a suggestion about the blog's formatting; please remove the ` `s from the html. These non-breaking white-spaces are messing the left justification of the text in the blog. E.g., the word "Search": https://imgur.com/HF6lhSH https://imgur.com/HF6lhSH

316 points by lelf 12y ago

Funny how you can inflate an issue. I have a paperwhite and love it. I guess I am lucky that I don't know so much about typography.

coldtea 12y ago
Yeah, the easily amused are always more satisfied.
Rambunctious 12y ago
Maybe if you used your Kindle more instead of making snarky posts you would get a clue.

aaronbrethorst 12y ago

To be fair, I find it much easier to fall asleep after using my Kindle Paperwhite than I do with an iPad. But, virtually every aspect of the Kindle ecosystem user experience is an experience in mediocrity. In some respects, I feel like the company is like what you'd get if you crossed the worst aspects of Microsoft and Google. (And apologies to my friends who work at Amazon, but let's be honest: you're all going to quit within a year or two to work somewhere that's less abusive of its employees.)

_mgr 12y ago
I too fall asleep easier while reading on my Paperwhite. Rather annoying actually.
- ArekDymalski 12y ago
  Did you try reading something less boring? ;)
  - aryamaan 12y ago
    I will vouch about this statement for myself. Rather than how I am reading the book (physical or ebook), kind of book I am reading play more significant role in helping me sleep.
daok 12y ago
Haha your parentheses is what I hear every week since I came living at Seattle. Too bad for Amazon I suppose.
jmspring 12y ago
I stuck with my gen 3 kindle -- more memory than future gens, no ads, and the option of audio books (never used it). As technology progresses, I expect more not less. That said, it doesn't have the backlight and using a cover w/ built in light while the significant other tries to sleep? Yeah, no. I've resorted to using a camping headlamp set on "red" (not as bright/obtrusive) when I want to use the kindle to read. However, I mostly just use my phone and the Kindle app. Advances in the display beyond the gen 3 (first I bought) didn't merit any sort of upgrade for me.
megablast 12y ago
I found it easier switching my iPad into night mode.
dotBen 12y ago
Why would Amazon want to help you fall asleep while reading a book. More awake time, more books read, more $$$ :) Mostly a tongue-in-cheek comment but somewhere deep in the halls of Amazon I bet that discussion was had...
fpgeek 12y ago
While there are plenty of mediocre aspects of the Kindle ecosystem, there are plenty of excellent ones as well. For example: 1. Return policy. Amazon has the best ebook return policy in the business. It seems essentially the same as their physical book policy. The last time I checked, Google Play was next-best (7 days no-questions-asked, regardless of jurisdiction) and everyone else grudgingly had a return policy where it was required by law (i.e. Europe) and none otherwise. 2. Sideloaded books. AFAIK, of the major ebook retailers, only Amazon and Google will let you sync books you didn't purchase from them to your cloud library. Other retailers might let you read sideloaded books in their clients, but you have to use Dropbox or an equivalent for backup and syncing across devices. 3. Client support. If it supports third-party applications, Amazon makes a Kindle client for almost anything you might want to read an ebook on, plus they have a web-based reader. Meanwhile, Google and Apple are busy paying "strategy taxes" for platforms it isn't in their interest to support, and B&N and Kobo don't quite have the resources to keep up.
- ursidae 12y ago
  One frustrating thing about side loaded books, you cannot read them with Kindle for PC, Kindle for Mac, or Kindle cloud reader.
  - elemeno 12y ago
    I was under the impression that you can, though they might show up under Documents rather than Books - assuming you've side-loaded by sending the files to your kindle e-mail address. It's not something I try to do very often though, so I might be mistaken - they don't seem to appear in the Cloud Reader though. In any case, since you can just open the files in the desktop version of Kindle, it doesn't seem like it would be such a big deal.
    - lucian1900 12y ago
      It's annoying because I rely on Kindle's progress syncing. Why do some of my books randomly not support this useful feature?
- 12y ago
rhino369 12y ago
Amazon seems like Microsoft but without the massive profits from cash cows (windows+office) to subsidize R&D.
- scott_karana 12y ago
  Actually, Amazon plays that same game, to the hilt. They're very profitable, but reinvest almost all of their money. http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-why-it-works http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-has-n...

stblack 12y ago

It's about time someone said this so well.

nether 12y ago

I really pity the author. He's lost the ability to enjoy a book and throws a fit when typesetting is flawed. A sure path to disappointment and unhappiness is to demand only "the best" in everything. He should just learn to read his books as they are.

leereeves 12y ago
"Reading books is a large part of how I make a living." Sounds like he spends a lot of time reading, and it's natural for minor annoyances to become like Chinese water torture when one does something often.
jfb 12y ago
Why should someone choose to read on Amazon if the experience is so hostile? It's a lament for a lost opportunity most of all.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  Amazon's octopus stranglehold on books. He mentioned that he reads a lot and listens to audiobooks... audible is basically the only game in town, and Kindle editions add $1 to the cost.
  - fpgeek 12y ago
    While you're right about Amazon's bundling advantages (with both Audible and MatchBook), there are other audiobook alternatives (e.g. Downpour, which sells many DRM-free audiobooks).
MBCook 12y ago
Have you used a Kindle? It's not small nitpicking, sometimes they layouts it makes are laughably bad and hard to read. Basic stuff that anyone who has read a book would notice at some point and it hasn't been fixed in YEARS.
- epochwolf 12y ago

sliverstorm 12y ago

To replicate the experience of the Kindle Voyage ‘button’ find an immovable surface in your house: a marble kitchen countertop will do. Place your thumb upon the surface, then press down – deforming your thumb. Not pleasant, is it? I don't follow. It feels like I'm pressing down on something. Of all the things I can think of that would cause an RSI, pinching a pressure-sensitive button seems low on the list. I also don't understand why, if the author loved his first kindle so much, he doesn't just keep using it. They release new ones frequently enough (and old ones keep working long enough) that you can skip several generations and pick out the revisions that you like most.

MBCook 12y ago
I own a voyage, but can't come up with the answer to one simple question. In what way are those stupid little touch strips actually BETTER than real buttons? Since there's no actual physical feedback you can't tell how hard you have to press. They've tried to fix this by letting you set sensitivity levels, but that doesn't work great. Then I thought it would be a good idea to add a pager motor to fake physical feedback by vibrating when you would've made a press. None of this works as well as the buttons on Kindle keyboard , but I bet it cost a hell of lot more money. > that you can skip several generations and pick out the revisions that you like most. The problem is that you really can't. Despite owning the absolute top-of-the-line device the software feels half-baked. Shortly after launch it would often crash itself and require physical restarts. The on screen keyboard is absolutely atrocious, Which they appear to tried to fix with text suggestions. The suggestions are slow and wildly inconsistent which makes it impossible to quickly use them. Even if it suggests the right word you never know where on the suggestion bar to actually going to pop-up. As the author mentions the text layout system hasn't been updated in years despite obvious problems. I waited years for a new version with physical buttons but ended up settling for the somewhat acceptable touch strips. He complains about the lighting system, which is apparently still a problem for a lot of for a lot of voyage users (luckily I'm not one). Also Amazon doesn't seem to do anything to control or improve the quality of e-books. They're often laughably bad. His main thesis is dead on. The project doesn't feel like anyone who actually likes books is working on it. It doesn't feel like a passion, it feels like a terrible afterthought that people rotate in and out of making random changes to try and look like they did some management.

Johnythree 12y ago

Totally agree with this article, but I'm surprised he doesn't mention the train wreck of the touch screen on the Paperwhite. For a start it's incredibly flaky. Sometimes the slightest accidental touch will cause it to jump randomly to somewhere in the book. Other times I can press it hard or rub furiously and still nothing happens. Then sometimes it will pause for a few seconds, then do something incomprehensible. If it had simply retained touch for "go forward" and "go back" it would be acceptable, but it seems that the Sales Department insisted that the engineers overload it with extra features. When I'm reading I'm constantly interrupted by the idiotic "change font" or "look up dictionary" or "take notes" function when I don't want them. It's infuriating. And then when reading a Magazine, the actions change and suddenly there's a jump forward (or back) one chapter which causes you to completely loose your page. I love my Kindle, but I hate the touch function.

ekianjo 12y ago
> I love my Kindle, but I hate the touch function. I don't know, I read a lot on the Paperwhite and I got used to the touch screen. It's quite comfortable, even though I would probably prefer some actual buttons. In any case I was won over. I was reading a lot of paper books before and I am finding the experience of reading with an ereader to be superior in almost every way.
- MBCook 12y ago
  > ... and I am finding the experience of reading with an ereader to be superior in almost every way. That's what keep sneezing or Kindle. Not having to fiddle and accidentally leave my place if I set the book down, being able to get a new book almost instantly, being able to look up words I don't know keep using the Kindle despite all the software/hardware faults. Not having to fiddle and accidentally leave my place if I set the book down, being able to get a new book almost instantly, being able to look up words I don't know. But the absolute best is progress syncing. I don't bring my Kindle in less I know I'm going to need it, but anywhere I get stuck I can pull out my phone and pick up the book I was reading right at my last position. When I get back to my Kindle it already knows how much further I read. It's like hav when I get back to my Kindle it already knows how much further I read. It's so much more convenient than carrying a physical book around. Especially large/long books. I read King's The Stand last summer. I'm glad I didn't have to struggle with the 1,200 page physical edition.

dcre 12y ago

Agree with all the typesetting points, but I do not share the author's experience with the buttons—I think they're great. You don't have to press them hard, and the vibration feedback works perfectly for me.

SwellJoe 12y ago

I had a second generation Kindle (still had buttons, still had free 3G everywhere in the world, which was an awesome feature), and loved it. I dropped it many, many times, over the years, and finally the screen broke. So, I replaced it with a Paper White. It's a better product in most regards, but I find I use it for reading far less. I tend to almost exclusively read on my Nexus 7. Twilight makes it possible to dim and turn the screen orange, which isn't something Kindle can do, so I like it for night time reading. I haven't tried to figure out which is better for getting to sleep after reading, but I suspect both are problematic. Also, the Nexus is faster than the Kindle, in every dimension, so it's just more fun to browse/buy books. And, as others have noted, the touch screen on the Paper White is bad. Not a little bad, either. It's annoying as hell. And, I've also had problems with unintended page turns, and intended turns not working. The Nexus 7 has a great touch screen. I also have an Amazon Fire Phone, and that's enough to convince me that Amazon just can't do hardware well. It's an awful phone; it would have been barely passable three years ago. Today it's laughable. And, their priorities for where to expend resources are way out of whack. The 3D stuff and four front-facing cameras to make it work, is just ridiculous. I'd much rather have one good camera than five shitty ones. I recently got some ebooks from O'Reilly, and found that they looked much better in Google Books than on the Kindle or in the Kindle app. Amazon might be in trouble. I currently have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, so I still do most of my reading in Kindle (whether the app or the hardware Kindle), but the experience of reading in Google Books is better.

ericd 12y ago
I absolutely hated my Kindle Touch (1st gen), so I sold it and bought a used 3G. Since then, I've cracked two screens, but fortunately, they're very easy to get parts for and repair (http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Amazon-Kindle-Parts-for-Repair-p-1-c-641.html http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Amazon-Kindle-Parts-for-Repair...). Amazon still sells used Kindle Keyboard 3Gs for reasonable prices, if you're ever tempted to go back.
- SwellJoe 12y ago
  Only 15 bucks to fix my old Kindle! Why didn't I think of that? I definitely miss the old one, and wish I'd thought of doing this to start with. I wasn't really excited about the new Kindles (the move to touch screens everywhere has been a thing I've been unenthusiastic about, always...I was hesitant to move away from the G1 to a touchscreen Android phone, too). I just assumed I had to "uprade". Thanks for the link.

blocke 12y ago

I use the Kindle app for Android because that is where the indie authors seem to be. I use the app in spite of itself. The Kindle app on Android has over the past few years been such a buggy piece of shit that I curse it's very existence. It alone has demonstrated that Amazon can't competently develop mobile apps worth a damn and made me laugh when I heard Amazon was making a phone. Once a month Amazon seems to make a release that outright breaks a critical flow in the app. For the past couple weeks I've had to use the website to skim through books because every time the app tries to open the store view for a book the app instead opens Chrome with "about:blank" as the URL. /facepalm I'll ignore the fact the tablet version gets a proper store interface (when it's not completely broken) but the cellphone version gets a regurgitated ancient web view that was last updated a half decade ago. I can only conclude that Kindle isn't profitable for Amazon at all and they throw appropriate talent at it... that is none at all. Does Apple give a rip about iBooks? Google doesn't seem to give a crap about getting indies on Google Play.

fpgeek 12y ago
I think you have the causality backwards. It's not that Google doesn't care about getting indies on Google Play (though, to be fair, not enough to deal with the havoc their automatic discounting creates for indies, last I heard), it's that indies often don't really care about being anywhere but Amazon (largest market, extra perks for titles that are exclusive, less to manage and so on). For obvious reasons, this may not be a great long-run choice for them, but it can be very attractive in the short-run.
rurounijones 12y ago
> Once a month Amazon seems to make a release that outright breaks a critical flow in the app. For the past couple weeks I've had to use the website to skim through books because every time the app tries to open the store view for a book the app instead opens Chrome with "about:blank" as the URL. /facepalm Had same issue, reported it, was told to uninstall and reinstall, no joy. Upgraded to Android 5.1 which included a new webview component update, issue fixed.

mintplant 12y ago

It's not for the faint of heart, given the inaccessible brick-ness of the Kindle and its long, nerve-racking reboot time, but you can jailbreak your device and install KUAL (app launcher) and KOReader. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203326 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203326 https://github.com/koreader/koreader https://github.com/koreader/koreader ePub and PDF support, text reflow/cropping/reformatting (great for papers!), plethora of options from contrast to margins, custom fonts, per-document style sheets, etc etc. You can also install things like Gargoyle for interactive fiction on the go. http://www.fabiszewski.net/kindle-gargoyle/ http://www.fabiszewski.net/kindle-gargoyle/ Just make sure to set up BackDoorLock so that Amazon can't force an OTA update on you. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205666 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205666 You might also want the Rescue Pack in case things go wrong. It boots you into diagnostics mode if you start your Kindle with a USB cable plugged in.. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195670 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195670 (how to exit diags mode) http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Touch_Hacking#Exiting_Diags_Mode http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Touch_Hacking#Exiting... See the FGA thread and MobileRead's "Kindle Developer's Corner" for more info. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237083 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237083 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150 http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150

joshuapants 12y ago
Does KOReader fix the Kindle typography? That is, get rid of the rivers of white running through the poorly justified pages?
- ekianjo 12y ago
  Yes, it fixes most of it. I would not say it's perfect either but it's much, much better than the default Kindle Viewer. it also gives you a lot more options on how to tweak the way it reflows text, as well as font choices. It makes it a much better device for reading.
  - 12y ago

mwcampbell 12y ago

I don't know about the Kindle line, but I wonder why this author thinks the Echo is such a disaster. Seems to me like it could be quite useful, if it lives up to the ad.

meow_mix 12y ago
I think the ad itself is what they were making fun of

AndrewUnmuted 12y ago

I had been planning to launch a big, public campaign about Kindle typography to try and get Amazon to change her ways. But I came to the conclusion: why bother? This is precisely the feeling I had right before I resigned from my position at Amazon. Though I worked at a subsidiary, not Amazon proper, the culture at Amazon everywhere can be absurdly stubborn. In the presence of a bad team, the "leadership principles" can be used for evil, and not for good. Which is why I was consistently told that bugs in software were OK if a majority of customers didn't care to call up and complain about it to our poor, overworked customer service teams. Amazon thinks that it already has "the customer," in its most broad abstraction, already in its grasp, and doesn't ever need to fight to keep any of them there. That is why, when I departed my Amazon subsidiary in December of 2014, they were only just starting to hire a UX team. These principles can be made so dogmatic to the point of destructive company culture that outwardly resists change, be it to marketing designs or entire technology infrastructures that entire teams comprising hundreds of people rely upon to get work done. This is why it is very hard to keep talented people in positions of management at Amazon.

nevir 12y ago
I'm curious: were you at Lab126?
- AndrewUnmuted 12y ago
  I was not at Lab126. :)
pookieinc 12y ago
I agree with this post, but not with regards to the Kindle, but more Amazon as an entity. Also, perfect timing to read this article, after just purchasing a Kindle Paperwhite and having it for a few weeks now. As a casual reader, I find the Kindle Paperwhite as the perfect medium for my reading needs. I can hold it in one hand, I can read it any time of the day with adjustable brightness, and the e-ink is very clear and the font is fine. With respect to the article, I don't think the typical person cares much for typography, as long as it can be read and understood. The justification notion, I would argue that the typical user may not notice it as much as the hardcore reader. This is where I disagree with the parent post here, as in Amazon may understand "the customer" in this particular case, or at least the majority. Everyone who I've come across absolutely loves, and heavily uses, their Kindle(s). Some people even collect them! All reviews love them and it's a great experience. The point of the article: Now, I'm all for making the Kindle the best reading device ever by adding all these cool features (justification, typography, different modes for different things like iBooks, etc.), but instead of targeting the Kindle as being deficient for most users, the article is targeting Amazon more so for it's lack of pushing the product to all it can be and I think this can be extracted toward larger companies doing what they can to push the envelope with their product. This is where I agree with the parent post, Amazon seems to be lacking in this area. The blogpost written and the parent post both point to deficiencies in how Amazon looks to their customers and pushes their products to the best they can be.

jayvanguard 12y ago

This person seems extremely picky. I have pretty much every generation of kindle and they just keep getting incrementally better. Resolution, backlight, multiple dictionaries, x-ray, etc.

bduerst 12y ago
Yeah, it reads like no matter what would be done, this person would find something wrong with the product experience. I use a paperwhite and read to fall asleep. The white-tinted light isn't as much of an issue as people or f.lux make it out to be. If the paperwite were tinted, this person would probably be complaining that it makes them fall asleep rather than stay alert while reading.
- karmajunkie 12y ago
  Its not just the wavelength of light that affects the sleep question. Backlit devices like the iPad are far more likely to affect your sleep than a device like the kindle, which has both lower levels of light and the light is reflected rather than shone directly into your eyes.
  - exodust 12y ago
    Exactly. I can't see why the author is complaining about white light. I have a Kindle Paperwhite and in no way can the background be called "white"! When you adjust the backlight down, it's a nice warm off-white. Maybe I have a different model, but I can't see any "white light problem".
- epochwolf 12y ago
  I'm willing to give the author a pass on the white-light issue since it is a legitimate problem for some people. But I don't expect amazon to ever address that problem. There's always a group of people that can't use a given product because they have one issue or another. For example, the Kindle Voyage isn't accessible for a blind person.
epochwolf 12y ago

teleological 12y ago

Amazon, please hire this person and pay them whatever they ask.

TheDong 12y ago
As this user states, these issues are easily googleable and well known already. They could read the amazon reviews page for the kindle to learn these specific gripes. What they need is not someone now who sees the problems with the product (believe me, they know the problems), but someone who sees all these problems as it's being created and people who are able to produce reliable code that fixes it now. The cow has left the barn on the point where this person would have been most useful.
- ikeboy 12y ago
  My biggest problem is that they're actively preventing jailbreaking. If I could jailbreak my Kindle Touch, most of my problems would go away. I filled out a 15 minute survey shortly after buying one, and noted that in the comments issue. The more people who do something like that, the more likely Amazon will decide to allow user "hacks".

WalterBright 12y ago

I was fortunate enough to get a Kindle DX. It's the best of the Kindles. The second best is the Kindle 3. I have some other Kindles, but I always go back to the DX and the 3. No, I don't like touch screens. The buttons are much better. The Kindle 3 nailed it. The only thing it is missing is a backlight.

MBCook 12y ago
That's why I moved from a keyboard up to the voyage. The back light is really nice, as is the much higher resolution screen. The touch screen isn't bad, but the software doesn't make good use of it. The fake touch that's why I moved from a keyboard up to the voyage. The back light is really nice, as is the much higher resolution screen. The touch screen isn't bad, but the software doesn't make good use of it. The fake touch buttons are acceptable. If they had used real buttons, or actually polish the software, it be a pretty great device. As it is, it's just okay.
pnathan 12y ago
The Kindle DX is a great device. I have one; it's the Kindle made for serious readers. It needs overhauling and improving though. Sigh. I don't know of any good ereaders through.
- WalterBright 12y ago
  I'd buy a new DX if it had: 1. a higher res screen 2. a glow screen 3. the screen saver was my last page read but if they make it a touch screen and take the buttons away, no, I'll stick with the old DX.

jccalhoun 12y ago

He mentions lack of including any allegedly dyslexic-friendly font as one strike against Kindles. I thought that there wasn't actually a lot of evidence those work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexie I hate justified margins though so that's reason enough not to be happy with Kindles.

hysan 12y ago
I've read through that study before when I was reading about fonts for dyslexics a long time ago. The study didn't come to any conclusion and even states itself that the same size was too small and further studies needed to be done. Specifically, some major points where the study needs to be more robust are: 1. font comparisons 2. age range (university students were tested, but these fonts will most likely have the greatest effect on younger people who have not learned to adapt to being dyslexic) 3. languages Overall, there isn't evidence either way. But there is one thing that the studies consistently find, that the majority of dyslexics, both anecdotally and from the participant pool, have a favorable opinion of the font compared to normal ones. For that reason alone, I think it would be wise for Amazon to include such a font on the Kindle.

phaed 12y ago

That was brutal. And 100% on point.

pinkunicorn 12y ago

" Since Amazon hasnt updated anything about their typography since 2009 I wouldn’t hold my breath." That is actually not true - http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2015/01/bookerly_amazons_new_kindle_font.html http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2015/01/bookerly_am... Oh and this - "Speaking of highlights: Amazon has no graceful option to update books. Updating a book, in Amazon’s world, is the digital equivalent of handing you a new book, then burning your old one. Hope you didn’t have any notes or highlights in there." Hey that's actually not true. I beg the author to please provide examples and scenarios. Amazon goes to great lengths to not impact the reader by erasing their notes.

hysan 12y ago
It could have been true at the time of the post though. You can't tell from the post, but the article was put up on Dec. 15, 2014 so writing occurred before then (I have his blog in my rss reader). The Bookerly font, from my short searching, was released that same month on limited devices and was not pushed out to the Voyage until January (time of your linked post).
kemayo 12y ago
I'd suspect that the notes issue might be true when you're updating a side-loaded book (or possibly even one that you've uploaded to Documents, since the only way to update those is to delete them and upload a new version).

zetax123 12y ago

"Their Firephone is so terrible they literally can’t give it away" Okay, fair enough -- it was a disastrous product. "and the existence of the Amazon Echo strains all reason." Wait, what? How do you extend your hatred for typesetting and buttons on the Kindle to a product that has neither? At this point, you are just being presumptuous.

gurkendoktor 12y ago
> How do you extend your hatred for typesetting and buttons on the Kindle to a product that has neither? I'm not sure if that's why the author added it, but I really wish Amazon would first fix a bit more low-hanging fruit for its most beloved hardware product, instead of sinking time and money into unrelated crap. It always feels good when you pay for something and you can feel that the money goes into making it even better (software updates, next hardware iteration...).
- cthalupa 12y ago
  >but I really wish Amazon would first fix a bit more low-hanging fruit for its most beloved hardware product, instead of sinking time and money into unrelated crap It'd be very surprising to me if the resources put into the Echo had any impact whatsoever on the amount of resources put into the Kindle team. I hear this argument a lot - "Why does company X work on feature Y when feature Z isn't complete", when features Y and Z are handled by completely different teams with their own dedicated resources.
  - gurkendoktor 12y ago
    People can be moved from team to team, and the Echo and the Fire gadgets need hardware and software engineers just like the Kindle does. Given how little the Kindle software evolves, it's hard to say whether it even has a proper team. Amazon is famous for taking all profits from one product, and investing them into other (new) products. This is precisely what annoys me here :|

Derbasti 12y ago

After having owned three kindles, I have switched to a kobo about a year ago. The kobo has many of its own problems, but it gets the reading experience right: it uses (very un-aggressive) hyphenation, and the lock screen displays the book cover. I miss going on Amazon, clicking some button, and immediately start reading a new book. Now that's a multi step process that involves a computer and a DRM removal tool. But the reading experience is easily worth it for me.

te_chris 12y ago
Came in here to say this, but I just use the Kobo store so it's not that different to the kindle experience sans-3G. I love my Kobo Aura HD, great piece of hardware.
stormbeta 12y ago
I've been seriously considering switching to a Kobo. I already convert/strip the DRM from all my books anyways, as I loathe the idea of ever being stuck in one ecosystem (and have switched before, from Kindle -> Nook -> Kindle). The new waterproof Kobo especially shows me that Kobo actually understands making a better e-reader.
WalterBright 12y ago
> the lock screen displays the book cover. That's almost right. It should display the last page read!
- kawsper 12y ago
  The problem with that is (at least on e-ink displays) you wouldn't know if the device was on or off. Showing the book cover solves that :)
  - WalterBright 12y ago
    Easy. It could be shown with a black border instead of a white one. Or any of innumerable other ways.
- 12y ago

teekert 12y ago

I have been using a kindle keyboard (3.5) since January 2011 (still use it actually). It took until September 2012 for them to introduce what they call "crisper fonts" which were fonts that actually match the pixels of the device. This means that before "crisper fonts" the same letter could look different depending on its position (which was not aligned with the pixels). I have for that entire 20 months wondered if anyone at Amazon actually used the kindle themselves. Other than that I'm still quite pleased with the thing (apart from the small trouble of having to remove DRM from most books to read my, paid for books on unsupported devices. Calibre plugins make this quite painless thankfully.)

vinceyuan 12y ago

I use Kindle Paperwhite 2 every day in bed. The built-in light is very useful. I hope they will make Kindle's screen bigger.

mlopes 12y ago

I have to say I disagree with the author on everything except the typesetting issues. The buttons to change the page are really good and the feedback try provide is very pleasant, just like clicking a physical button. I'm also quite happy with the white light, and don't really understand why a light that is meant for me to read should make me fall asleep. Quite the opposite, if anything it should help me keep awake and concentrate on the book. The Voyage is my second Kindle and in the 4 months I've had it I've read more than 30 books on it, which is a big increase over my previous average, and it's a lot thanks to the device being great. The fact that the author doesn't have one nice thing to say about the Kindle, and yet keeps buying them makes it seem there's some kind of Kindle dissing agenda behind it.

regularfry 12y ago
The theory is that a warmer light wouldn't wear your eyes out, so you'd be able to keep them open to read and stay awake for longer, not that it would make you fall asleep.

cthalupa 12y ago

>and white light is the worst for reading in bed. It’s proven to keep you awake. This is not a great argument. First, because the Kindle allows you to dim the screen, and in fact, does so automatically in dark rooms. Pulling my Voyage out and comparing it to my screen with Flux, anecdotally, it looks to be producing less light than my laptop does. And what are the alternatives? Not lighting the kindle display, and having you use an external light source? You have the same problem if you use LED lights - white light is generated in much the same way in LED bulbs, so you need to dim them as well, leaving you in the same position. >You can tap both margins to advance the page. (Unlike Amazon who thinks readers always hold their books in the same hand. Have they ever seen people read books?) The pressure sensitive buttons previously mentioned by the author are on both sides of the Voyage. You can use either hand to move forward or backward.

creshal 12y ago
> The pressure sensitive buttons previously mentioned by the author are on both sides of the Voyage. Yes, but they're a total usability disaster. The author's description of them is spot on, I've disabled them because they're just too painful to use.
- cthalupa 12y ago
  I think this comes down to personal preference - I absolutely love them. I didn't even change the sensitivity/haptic feedback settings on my Voyage for a few months because I really had no complaints, and my changes have been minor tweaks to get it just right. I think this falls into the whole 'You can't please everyone' bucket - my anecdotal evidence among friends/family/coworkers with the Voyage suggest it's a big hit.
ane 12y ago
Plus, the article gets it wrong: the Paperwhite screen isn't backlit, the leds are oriented perpendicularly from the reading angle, so there is no direct light shining your eyes. Add that to the automatic dimming, the Paperwhite isn't going to keep you awake. As an anecdote, I am immensely susceptible to falling asleep when reading in the dark with the Paperwhite.

beyondcompute 12y ago

Oh, those seething bureaucracies with faceless collectives and blurred responsibilities... Also that's sort of interesting to see how a company which is supposed to take over the world is unable to deliver even the ordinary products. I hope, this will prove in the long run that to be successful you need to have a good product or service.

Red_Tarsius 12y ago

I love the virtual bookshelf concept. I love not to waste time wandering through libraries and that almost any book is two clicks away from me. That said, I'm also a graphic designer and many book layouts are awful. I can't tell how many times I read 1 star reviews of good books which were worthless as an ebook. The ebook is thrashing 500 years of typographic tradition. It's trashing everything we know about making a good reading experience. This is not only insulting, but insightful. Amazon is telling his costumers: "We are a GOOD ENOUGH company. We are not striving for excellence." OT: I've recently tried Audible as well. I felt dirty and cheated on. I gave a chance to Amazon Kindle, but I'll never compromise with Audible's business tactics.

polarix 12y ago
Citation for Audible's business tactics? How could it be done better, given the labor outlay and legal coordination required to record an audiobook?

bitL 12y ago

My biggest gripe with Voyage is the silly restriction to 4GB and no SD card in order to make PDF viewing far less likely. A lot of scientific papers are available in PDF only as well as older books and magazines and they are considerably larger than Kindle's own format yet preserving layout nicely, so they are my preferred media. I don't care about uneven lighting (yellow-blue cast across the screen) as I turn the light completely off. Is there any e-reader with "retina"-style e-ink that is optimized for viewing PDFs/PostScript and allowing a SD card?

dcreemer 12y ago
The Kobo Aura [1] (and Aura HD) may work for you. [1]https://www.kobo.com/koboaura https://www.kobo.com/koboaura
geoelectric 12y ago
The previous generation had a silly restriction to 2GB, so at least there's that. I actually couldn't fit my whole Kindle (not sideloaded) collection on it at the same time, even discounting cookbooks, comics, and other heavy-graphics things, which was a problem because the category feature at the time only supported on-device books.

taylorling 12y ago

I think he has some valid points in his rant, although I must say I enjoyed my Paperwhite 1st Gen very much and I don't find those issues (especially on the justification and font choices) to be a blocker for me from enjoying the books.

Shivetya 12y ago

having owned both a touch and button kindle I would prefer a marriage of the two. keep the physical page buttons that many of us want but use the touch screen for entry, high lighting, and even selection. If anything I give Amazon credit for making it so easy to read again that I find myself forgetting to do much else

cwmma 12y ago

As a commuter the kindle paperwhite was such a step back, the removal of the side buttons effectively prevented you from reading it left handed, I find myself halving to turn the page with my nose if for some reason I have to hold on with my right hand while on the subway.

andrewla 12y ago
I've found that there are two things that let me use the Kindle Paperwhite left-handed -- one is that the "back" area of the screen is small, so pressing close to the center with my left thumb, once I've gotten used to the "sweet spot", is very reliable. The other is that it recognizes swiping gestures, so a small swipe with the thumb will also turn the page if my hand is in an awkward position. That said, I would love to have the physical buttons back -- when the touch screen works, it is okay, but when it decides for some reason that I want to change my font size instead of turning the page, or just decides that I didn't press it, or turns the page twice when I think it didn't register my first touch, I get unaccountably mad.

cwmma 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

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dash2 12y ago

Another point is just how dreadful the Kindle store is. That is just a rat-infested cellar of literature. I'm not even talking about bad writers; I mean literal fraudsters. And the personalization is useless. I have a very specific profile: history, statistics textbooks, classic literature, modern poetry. The front page of the store, right now, is offering me "Billy The Bug: Short Stories, Games, Jokes and More"; "Frontiers Saga 13", some kind of space crap; and "Highland Guard" (picture: weedy man with sword). Plus about four 50 Shades clones. I used to worry about the age of Total Internet Surveillance; turns out Amazon can't even figure out my gender.

giancarlostoro 12y ago

One thing I always wanted out of the Kindle (not the Fire / Tablets) is a web browser that actually works. Maybe not every page would work, but at least some would, the internet has a bad habit of not being backwards compatible so maybe there is this at fault sadly. A guy can dream I suppose.

ikeboy 12y ago
The web browser works decent for me. I mostly use it for gmail and reddit, which both have mobile versions that are pretty stable. If you have trouble with a site, try turning off javascript temporarily and turning on article mode after it loads.

noir_lord 12y ago

I have a Kobo Glo (one of the first ones) and it has been without doubt one of the best RoI's I've ever gotten on a piece of technology. It's light, has nice type, a decent battery, it's rubberised case is easy to grip and non-slip. It falls down epically on the store experience but since I side load with Calibre that makes not a jot of difference. The kindle I had before had an incredibly slick shopping experience but in every other way was inferior.

paulornothing 12y ago
I'm definitely looking to get a Kobo Glo HD. I loved my Kindle w/ Keyboard but the battery is shot and it crashes pretty often (also 4 years old). I'm not tied to the Amazon eco-system per se so I'm ok with going to Kobo.

heykjo 12y ago

Right about the Kindle - still like my original with the keyboard best. All wrong about the Echo - best thing in my kitchen. Not sure where the connection to typography is. Bit of a whinger?

jkestner 12y ago

Question: why does the Voyage exist? After progressively getting the price down, a very Amazon thing to do, a high-end model seems un-Amazonian. Especially if it doesn't really meet the needs of serious readers. Did Amazon just see an unmet market at that price point? Curious as to when companies move upmarket with a product line - it's usually the other way around.

worklogin 12y ago
Hey, everybody, I have an announcement! I like the Voyage! I own one, and reading on it is quite pleasant. I can see the rationale for pressure buttons (you can adjust the sensitivity). The resolution is fantastic, backlighting is great compared to reading in my particular low-light environment. The store works for what I need as a casual reader. I had a Kobo H2O, which was alright, but felt less refined. Also, the Kobo didn't have any useful newspaper subscriptions.

Paul_S 12y ago

I don't wish to derail but there are other e-ink readers that don't suffer from any of these problems. You can just read whatever you want on them in any way you want.

plg 12y ago

I've been reading books on my iPad and it's fantastic. I recently switched to buying books from apple rather than from amazon and reading using iBooks. Again, fantastic. Great typesetting, great UI. Also I can share books with my family with Family iCloud sharing. I know there's a kindle version of this sort of thing but it seems like a hassle.

dilap 12y ago

The problem is that they don't really have any competition. I had a weird sudden wish watching the Pepple Time video on kickstarter that they would expand into e-readers. They've already got the experience with the screens...

dfc 12y ago

My biggest complaint with the kindle (post beige / side buttons era) is the black plastic. If i read in the sun for 20-30 minutes the device begins to get very hot. After 40 minutes the heat starts to cause performance and display problems. Using a towel or newspaper helps but it screws with the mechanics of holding the device and turning pages.

upofadown 12y ago

Pretty obscure complaints for a reader that doesn't even support EPUB...

ForHackernews 12y ago

Why doesn't the author consider other, competing eReaders? The Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight (ironic Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Barnes-Noble-Touchscreen-Technology-Illumination/dp/B00O0G4FNI/ http://www.amazon.com/Barnes-Noble-Touchscreen-Technology-Il...) has a nice, even light and two physical page-turn buttons on the sides of the screen.

capedape 12y ago

I've had three Kindles and while I like the convenience of them, there is something about a regular book that absorbs me into the page better. The strange grey/blue tint and any sort of lighting whether front or back, for me, is irritating enough that I don't absorb information or get lost in a story as well. I like the Voyage alright, but I want the ability to turn the light ALL the way off, not just to a minimum. I still have one and use it, they just really need improve on these things so it feels less like just another screen, and more like a book.

geoelectric 12y ago

For all that he portrays the Voyage as a trainwreck, I like mine a lot, after having several Kindles before it including a Gen-1 Paperwhite. I don't mind the justification as a general rule, and actually find extreme hyphenization (which was their route on the iOS apps) much more distracting. My only real problems have been: * The haptic feedback can't be made prominent enough to be obvious through the first-party leather cover. * The tap zone for switching percentage/page number/etc has no visual affordance and I find it pretty non-obvious to reliably find. * The automatic lighting is way more sensitive to what's over my shoulder than the ambient light, so goes very dark if the room is softly lit from behind the Kindle (or very bright if there's a light in my background). * The font size isn't consistent between books even if I don't use publisher font. I assume that's because the markup of the books has some influence on the font size and doesn't always use "default." * I'd prefer a first-party book spine case over a notepad style case--that said, the origami stand has been extremely useful for reading while eating. Other than those niggles, it's been great, and certainly has been a more enjoyable device to use than any of my past Kindles.

sina 12y ago

I agree about the em dashes are written incorrectly in Kindle. I really hope that Amazon fixes this. Just a suggestion about the blog's formatting; please remove the ` `s from the html. These non-breaking white-spaces are messing the left justification of the text in the blog. E.g., the word "Search": https://imgur.com/HF6lhSH https://imgur.com/HF6lhSH