Can you explain to me what's so bad about the UI? I've used it for years and I never really gave the UI a second thought.
If I were designing a "competitor," for a start:
- have a "File" menu that collects the commands relating to, you know, files: open, delete, rename, add, edit metadata (akin to the "Get Info" command in most other file menus), etc. Converting between file types could be in a submenu here.
- have an "Edit" menu that does Edit Menu Things (tm), most notably copy, cut, and paste . - let me drag and drop files to add them to the library.
- when I connect a Kindle or other device, show me a second pane with its content side-by-side with my library, rather than making me switch between "here is your library with flags to indicate what's on your device" and "here is your device with flags to indicate what's in your library."
- since I have two panes like the gods intended, let me copy files from my library to my device with drag and drop.
Calibre has all of that functionality, but it ignores three decades of UX convention to no particular benefit.
But, at the same time, I wonder how many HNers have even built a UI for a product with so many features. It's incredibly hard to find a good place for everything. And experimentation is expensive and time consuming.