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The Price of a Free Kindle

Posted by susabelle at 5:04 PM on December 31, 2011

When we moved from Missouri to Colorado, it meant we had to find a new bank, new utility providers, the whole kit ‘n k’boodle.  I chose a bank by seeing which one was closest to the house.  A bank is a bank is a bank, in my experience.

So it turns out this bank (FirstBank) gives free gifts to customers who use direct deposit and a debit card.  I don’t know anyone who doesn’t use these two things, and after three months and three direct deposits, I got an email from the bank informing me that I qualified for a free gift.  The gifts were things like an iPod touch, a Kindle, electric coffee mugs, and ski lift tickets.  I decided to go with the Kindle, since I had had to give up my Kindle DX when I left my job in Missouri.

I got it in the mail, unboxed it, plugged it in to charge…and immediately saw an ad for the Twilight books on my Kindle.  Dismayed is not a strong enough word to describe my feelings about this.  Yes, I realize I didn’t pay anything for this Kindle, but couldn’t they have given me one without ads?  I get to see ads instead of the usual screen savers, and there are ads at the bottom of my menu.  The ads disappear when I’m reading, so far, but how long will it be before a software update gives me ads in the middle of the book I’m reading?  Right now the thing is sitting here giving me a T-Mobile ad because I set it down for ten minutes.  Later, there will be another ad, and generally, the ads aren’t even for things I would buy or be interested in.

I’m annoyed.  I suppose if I’d have been buying the Kindle, I’d have to chosen the non-ad-supported one.  But in this case, I didn’t have any choice, so therefore I have no way of turning off the ads.  I guess I’m stuck with them for the life of the device.

I understand it.  I really do.  Companies need to make money, especially in this economy.  But really, ads on my Kindle, which my bank did pay for, after all?  Really?

How utterly rude.  Can’t they make enough off the books I’m buying, and all the other stuff I manage to buy through Amazon in general, to provide a paid-for device that is not laden with ads?

Posted in amazon, Information, Kindle

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It’s The Content, Stupid

Posted by tomwiles at 8:28 PM on October 6, 2011

Admittedly I’m coming in late to the party. I had all sorts of excuses – I already have a MacBook Pro, as well as the latest generation of iPod Touch. Why would I need an iPod with a giant screen to run mostly the same apps I can already run on my iPod?

After buying an iPad 2, I understand what all the fuss is about. It has also become immediately clear to me why there is a booming iPad market but currently not much of a tablet market. The reason is staring everyone in the face, yet few seem to see it, particularly large tech companies that are struggling to compete in the wrong arena.

The iPad is admittedly an incredibly nice piece of hardware – however, that’s not why it is so successful. The reason for the iPad’s overwhelming appeal and success is very simple – it revolves in large part around being able to run well-written targeted iOS iPad-specific apps that take advantage of the iPad’s screen size and svelte form factor. At about the size of a traditional magazine, it takes the best elements of the multimedia computer and puts them into a highly-readable, touch-interactive color screen that will easily fit into places and situations where even laptop computers don’t work so well.

In short, it’s all about the content and being able to easily consume it anywhere. The content isn’t just about browsing, listening to music or watching videos. The content in large part is the iPad-specific apps themselves, some of which are incredible, such as the 100% free Flipbook RSS reader app.

Amazon has a chance at success with the 7” Kindle Fire, not so much because of the $200 price point, but because Amazon has a lot of ready-made content hanging out in its cloud. Many people pooh-poohed the original Amazon Kindle, only to witness it quickly morph into a success. The Kindle was not and has never been a success because of the Kindle hardware – the plethora of Amazon ebook content is what caused the original Kindle rise to stardom. The availability of the content finally got the ebook ball rolling in a huge way, and the mass market finally realized the incredible convenience and advantage of having a cloud-connected ereader.

Would-be iPad competitors will never effectively compete with hardware alone, no matter how sexy or inexpensive they are able to make it. To borrow part of a phrase from an early 1990’s presidential campaign, we would all do well to paste this sign on our wall:

“It’s the content, stupid.”

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Posted in amazon, Apple, application, cloud, content, internet, iOS, IPAD, iPhone, ipod, Kindle, Market share, marketing

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The new Kindles

Posted by Mike Dell - Geek of the North at 8:08 AM on September 29, 2011

Kindle

 

 

Amazon announced their new line-up of Kindle e-readers and a tablet. The lineup now consists of 6 different models that will fit almost anyone’s budget. Starting at $79 for the new “Kindle”. This base model has the same size (6″) e-ink display. The new ones do not have a keyboard. I never really used the keyboard on my kindle 3 anyway.  It makes the new one lighter and smaller. It has wifi only (No 3G option). This version is listed as “in-Stock” and you can order now.

The next models are the Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G. These are the same as the basic Kindle only they have a multi-touch E ink display and cost $99 for the wifi version and $149 for the 3G version. These will be available on November 21st, 2011.

Kindle Touch

They also still have the old models around and now call them the Kindle Keyboard. In both a Wifi and a 3G model. $99 and $139 respectively.

Kindle Fire

The one that is most interesting is the $199 Kindle Fire. Very much like the Nook color, this one has a color, backlit multi-touch screen and runs a very skinned version of Android. You will be able to download apps from the Amazon App Store. No word on if you can also use the Android Marketplace. You can pre-order your Kindle Fire now and it will be released on November 15th, 2011.

At around $200, the Kindle Fire could be the the tablet that those who were put off by the prices of other Android tablets would go for. They are $300 less then the cheapest iPad. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal to me. No word on if there will be a 3G version of the Fire.

Posted in amazon, Android, Kindle

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$3 Dollar Tablet Stand

Posted by tomwiles at 6:43 PM on September 8, 2011

Ever wander into the iPad/tablet accessory isle at your local big box electronics store looking for an inexpensive stand for your iPad, Nook, Kindle, or other tablet/reader device? If so, you know these things have a tendency to be rather pricey and may not even do what you want them to.

I’ve got an inexpensive, very effective solution you may not have thought about. Make a trip to your local hobby store, a dollar store, or any store that sells nick-nack type items. What you are looking for are small easels either made of metal wire or even wooden ones with folding hinges. These can sell for as little as a $1 and up.

I purchased the pictured wire metal easel from my local Hobby Lobby store for $2.99 plus tax to hold my Barnes & Noble Nook – about $60 dollars or so less than I would have paid for a specialty tablet stand.

Save your money and have an effective solution all in one fell swoop.

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Posted in Info, Information, IPAD, Kindle, tablet

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Kindle Cloud Reader

Posted by KL Tech Muse at 8:28 AM on August 12, 2011

Kindle in the CloudRecently Apple began to enforce it’s in app purchase policies which prevents ebook readers such as the Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook from linking out to their own stores and so avoid paying Apple 30% of the purchase. If you had the Kindle app downloaded from the iTunes on your iPad and did the latest update you will have noticed that you can no longer purchase a book from within the app. You actually have to go out of the app and into Safari to purchase a book. This was not something that would work for either the consumer or Amazon in the long run.

So this week Amazon announced that they were offering the Kindle in the Cloud. It is a web page created using HTML5 once you sign in to it using your Amazon account information, You will see a pop up that recommend that you create a bookmark and add it to your Home screen. When you click on the bookmark you will see a beautiful rendition of your Kindle library and in the right top hand corner an icon that will take you directly to the Kindle store. Any book you buy will show up immediately in your library. You library is organized so the book you are reading now is first. Your most recent books are automatically downloaded and available for offline reading.
While reading a book using the HTML5 app I did run into what for me is a glaring weakness, the inability to add notes or bookmarks. You can view them but you can’t add them. I have a regular Kindle and the one thing that the app on the iPad had over it (besides the beautiful screen) is the ability to easily add notes. Adding notes on a Kindle is rather awkward, at least for me. If I am a student and use my iPad as my sole E-reader, then the ability to add notes is a must. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed in an update.

As an end user I am not directly effected by the controversy over the Apple’s in app purchase policy at least not immediately. There is a part of me that says that Apple has the right to have any policy they want it is their store. However I do understand if I was a developer giving away 30% of what I earn to Apple would drive me crazy, therefore I am glad that HTML5 gives developers an option. Some people have complain that HTML5 is great for sites like Amazon who are already well establish, but smaller and newer developer’s depend on the app store to publicize their apps. There are more then 450000 apps, 100000 of them for iPad in the Apple app store, so if you are depending on being in the app store to promote your app, maybe you should rethink your marketing strategy. I like the Kindle in the Cloud, but to be honest since I have a actual Kindle I probably will not use it much.

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Posted in amazon, Information, Kindle

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Barnes & Noble Nook – A UK Perspective

Posted by Andrew at 1:04 AM on May 6, 2011

When it comes to ebook readers, I think it’s fairly safe to say that there are three main contenders in the market – Amazon with the Kindle, Barnes & Noble with the Nook and Sony with the Pocket Reader range. Three contenders in the US market that is. If you live in the UK, your choice is more restricted with only the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Pocket Reader being widely available.

Regrettably, Barnes & Noble don’t exist over here but there are plenty of bookstores such as Waterstones and WHSmith. There are others readers available too, such as the Samsung E60/E65, the Kobo, the iriver Story but I’ve never met anyone who actually has one, whereas I know several people with Kindles and Sony Readers. The latter was previously reviewed on GNC in the autumn.

Like many of my compatriots, I’ve looked longingly at the Nook while on holiday. It seemed to have the best of both worlds – although it has access to a closely integrated store in the same way as the Kindle, it reads the more open epub format like the Sony Pocket Reader can. It doesn’t have the full touchscreen of the Pocket Reader but it does replace the Kindle’s keyboard with a small colour touchscreen, which I like.

But a little research showed that Barnes & Noble won’t sell ebooks outside of the USA, so I was reluctant to purchase a Nook in case I ended up with an expensive paperweight.

Further research on the forums suggested that sideloading ebooks onto the Nook worked fine, i.e. copying ebooks via USB, so in the end, I took the risk and imported a Nook back into the UK. I only purchased the wifi version rather than the 3G version as even if the 3G worked (and I doubted it would), there wasn’t going to be much I could do with it if I couldn’t buy directly from Barnes & Noble.

Here’s what I’ve discovered after a few days of playing around.

The good news is the you can easily purchase books from the likes of Waterstone’s and read them on the Nook. The first step is to download and install Adobe’s Digital Editions on to your PC or laptop. When the program is run, you “authorise” the computer to store and manage your DRM’d ebooks (not that you have any at this stage).

Once that’s done, the second step is to go to the ebook store of your choice and purchase what you’d like to read. When you download the purchased books, Adobe’s Digital Editions will automatically launch to receive them and once completed, you can see and read them within the software.

Finally, when you connect your Nook via USB, Adobe Digital Editions will ask you if you want to “authorise” the Nook reader. After accepting this, the Nook appears as another container within Digital Editions and you can then copy your newly purchased ebooks to the Nook. Disconnect the Nook from the PC or laptop and the ebooks will appear in “my library” on the Nook. Select one of your choice and you’re reading. Excellent!

That’s the main concern dealt with so what else is good? I didn’t exhaustively try to break B&N’s regional restrictions but some content, e.g. The Daily blog, is available to be read.

Disappointingly, the built-in web browser doesn’t allow downloads. There are many ebook stores such as SmashWords which offer un-DRM’d ebooks which could be downloaded direct to the Nook because there’s no need for Digital Editions to manage the DRM. Unfortunately, when you try to download anything directly to the Nook, the web browser refuses to do it. A little irritating.

The audio player works ok, though it relies on the small colour screen to select tracks. This is fine if you have a small music collection or you shuffle the playlist, but it’s not great if you have a big collection and want to listen to ZZ Top.

If weight is an issue, Nook is definitely a bit heavier than both the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader. Folio covers seem to work better on the Kindle with its latching mechanism whereas the Nook seems to rely on “pockets and elastic”.

Overall, I like the Nook. The loss of the connection to the Barnes and Noble shop puts in on a par with the non-Kindle ereaders in the UK and it’s really a choice between the touch screen of the Sonys and the colour navigation screen of the Nook. But the main point of this article is that if you are in the US and you like the look of the Nook, you can be confident that you’ll be able to purchase and read ebooks from bookstores here in the UK.

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Posted in amazon, ebook, Kindle, Sony

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Kindle to Add Page Numbers, Sort Of

Posted by susabelle at 7:04 AM on March 19, 2011

One of my biggest beefs with the Kindle (I have the Kindle DX first gen) is that I cannot see page numbers.  Considering the DX was made for textbooks and professional manuals, the lack of a page number of any kind makes the device relatively useless.  “Turn to page 329 in your text” does nothing for me, I have to search by content or know what chapter I’m looking for, then search back and forth manually a few pages to see if I can get to where my classmates are in the book.  And just for fiction reading, it’s nice to know what page I’m on.  If the book is 200 pages long, and I’m on page 98, then I know I’m almost half-way through, which tells me how much longer before I’m finished with the book.  That might seem cosmetic, but I’ve been reading books for a long time and there are just some things I’ve gotten used to.

I’m not the only one to have complained about the lack of page numbers.  I have a few friends who’ve asked me (because they think I’m an expert) to show them how to turn on page numbers.  I have to tell them that there is no way to turn on page numbers, that there isn’t a feature for that.

Amazon has announced that a software upgrade now makes it possible to display the page numbers on the latest generation of Kindles.  That doesn’t do me a whole lot of good, but it does mean that from now on, people who want page numbers can have them.  The feature is also available on the Kindle for iPhone/iPad/PC too, through a standard update.

The downside is the numbers don’t appear automatically, you have to press the menu button to get them.  And Amazon is not going to make the feature available on older devices, like mine.  But, when it’s time to upgrade my Kindle (if I decide to do that) the addition of the page numbers may make me decide on the Kindle instead of a different device.

Posted in amazon, Kindle

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