The Kindle is fine, but could’ve been much more

They're right that it could've been more. Back in the early days, after the launch of the second version, many people internally saw this. If this works for books, it should work for magazines! Newspapers! Websites! Crosswords! Apps of all sorts! Social networks! The possibilities were endless. Teams scaled up, rapid category expansion ensued, Amazon started grappling for dominance in eBooks and all these other categories.

Then the iPad came out. I remember going with my boss to the Apple Store on launch day and buying one; the future of the Kindle felt pretty clear. Our product was stuck with a shitty general-purpose display technology and a clunky SDK not suited to external developers. Then, Android launched. The writing was on the wall. eInk was going to be niche, the Kindle group pivoted to the Fire, we all know how that turned out.

The failure of Kindle as a better, more general purpose device is a great lesson in business strategy. Thousands of smart engineers and product people were dedicated to making it the next big computing device, but in the end they failed to build a platform, and the platform players ended up on top. They're still trying to get over this failure with the Alexa series of products, we'll see if they succeed.

1. Vendor lock: You can't install or change most of the things including OS and Apps.

2. Locked down OS: You can't do anything with your device. If you try to change the OS you'll maybe brick it.

3. Planned obsolescence built in: If the vendor decides it's "time to say goodbye" you won't get updates anymore and probably feature by feature your device won't work any longer. After some time it's so old, insecure etc. you don't even want to use it to do even the simple tasks it was designed for.

The kindle isn't a reference for me in this sector at all. If you want to start the discussion about nice e-Readers you should consider comparing the Sony DP, Onyx Boox Note and the Remarkable. Those are the leading innovators and so far I'm afraid I haven't seen any device that can compete.

Personally I'm waiting for an eInk device with color (at least some colors), wacom pen that works without battery (like in Onyx & Remarkable) but an open, real linux on it so you can do anything with it. The Onyx comes close to this as it uses android but as we all know it's not really the linux you want when you wish for a "real linux" ;-)

I'm a bit sad that innovation in this sector stopped and I'd be willing to pay up to 1k $ for the described features.

I have a few complaints - I wish the device wasn’t so slow or that the e-ink display didn’t take so long to update. I wish the keyboard had autocorrect because I’ve come to rely on that quite a bit. I wish it would use a USB-C cable so I could carry around fewer chargers.

But otherwise, I’m pretty happy.

When you have a paper book whenever you pick it up you see the title and the author and the cover image. I find I still remember these from books I read long ago.

However on the Kindle you only see the cover of the book you are reading if you make an effort to scroll to the start of the book - by default the kindle starts you at the first bit of text.

Kindles also don't show author and title on each page like (some) paper books do.

I find I can read a Kindle book then have no idea who the author is or what the title of the book I've just read was.

I'd really like it if the Kindle (as an option as it wouldn't suit everyone) showed the book cover of the book you are reading when it is off. Then when you come to pick the kindle up and turn it on you see the cover, title and author.

That tiny change would really improve the reading experience for me.

Fix that, and I don't need anything else. It's the paperback book I always carry with me, only the book can be swapped out at a whim.

I bought the Kindle Oasis, really wanting to like it. At least it brought back the page turning buttons. But they got the buttons wrong. The KK got it right. You can read and turn pages with one hand. Not so on the Oasis. And the Oasis is so slippery it's hard to hold it vertically. I was astonished at that.

The KK doesn't slip out of your hands.

I like the KK so much I bought two of them, so I have one when the other dies. I don't understand why each successor is worse.

Bring back the DX!

I'm just being finicky, but I still find the e-ink screen flash a little distracting from the flow of reading (even in newer screens that only need it every 6 pages or whatever). Just had a stray idea: what if an e-ink reader had an accelerometer and a screen on either side; the next page is already ready to read, and flipping it over silently preps page n+2 on the screen you were just reading? :)

The Boox is awesome. It was expensive, but I think it was worth it. It's a huge 10" paperwhite tablet that runs custom Android. You would not want to lay in bed with it because of it's size and weight, but you can read large PDFs that are difficult to view on smaller screens (mostly due to obnoxious margins and font choices).

Because it's Android I can install browsers and other apps that I might want. I mostly just use it as a boring reader though.

The Onyx software isn't perfect, but it's pretty good considering. They are innovating, which is more than I can say for Amazon or Rakuten/Kobo.

The KKB's screen looks better to me than the paperwhite's (the text seems to be more on the surface rather than below it) and it's got buttons -- but no back light.

The paperwhite's backlight makes it convenient because I can read it in bed -- but no physical buttons and the backlight is very blue, which I find annoying. Sometimes it hurts to read it in a dark room.

The phone is almost perfect. I can set the text to white on black, use Night Shift to make it even warmer, so I can read for hours in a dark room. It's always with me so I can read anywhere -- but I don't feel like I'm reading a book when I read a book on a phone. It feels like I'm cheapening the experience somehow.

Physical books are the least convenient. The reading experience is the best here though and it feels most like what I think reading should feel like. I can easily flip around if I've forgotten some reference. I can easily see my progress. I can put it on a shelf and see it as a reference to a reading experience.

It gets to the point of me buying a book, starting it on a kindle, switching to the phone, buying the physical copy, reading that for a bit, then back to the phone. And the problem here is that switching formats feels even less like I've read the book than reading it on the phone alone. It's like it wasn't a homogenous experience.

I just want to settle on one way of reading a book but can't. I think this is what is called option paralysis.

I say lets let it be.

From what I understand, the publishing industry is to blame, thanks to their fear of cannibalizing audiobook sales. I will never forgive them for this.

It's a quality android tablet with a high speed e-ink display.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/not-ereader-first-e-ink-m...

For me, it is the biggest feature! Normally I cannot read - I get distracted every few minutes or so.

(Though, there are things missing. I would love a better experience of reading previously saved articles, on Pocket or with subscribed newspapers. There are workarounds with Calibre, but it gives an overall experience too bad to read it regularly.)

I don't know if this is a sign that "people who care" have left the Kindle team. It's just so plainly wrong.

Other than that, if you're listening: Please give me Dvorak keyboard. My kindle is the only device I own that can't do Dvorak.

Kindle is a perfect tool for one and just one task: longreading. It's display is optimized for hours of non-eyes-violent usage, including before-sleep time with internal lighting only. It has a great battery life, it's compact and can be fit into almost any inside pocket, it's really lightweight — 33% to 50% less weight compared to similar form-factor tablets.

It doesn't need an internet connection and it is great: no distraction! It is a natural selection for airplane or time far from civilization. I like sailing, and there were tons of great books and articles read during sea passages and anchorage evenings.

Maybe, just maybe, it can be better with file transfers. Something like Bluetooth or direct WiFi. But I have a small USB OTG adapter for my Android phone, always tucked into a Kindle's soft case, so when once a month I want to read something on my Kindle immediately - I just use it as an external drive. My condolences to Apple ecosystem inmates.

(I actually understand that it is not in Amazon best interests to have a good file transfer for Kindles — it messes with their business model. $1.5 OTG adapter is just fine)

If it succeeds then maybe amazon will get off its butt and do something about it - https://remarkable.com/

Epub seems to be present everywhere and I always need to convert it to mobi/azw3 while uploading...

The best would be to design a dual screen book-like device like the "Surface Neo/Duo" but with e-Ink display (preferably colour) and give me an easy and affordable way to download Technical papers/Textbooks (mainly in PDF format). Allow markup/annotations and the ability to print/export notes/everything and every Student/Teacher/Professor will buy one. Bonus if i can use it as a second monitor (ala Onyx Boox Max 2). No other distractions are needed. All the money goes into the display and giving me a complete immersive book-like experience.

This statement is made as if the author thinks rendering the contemporary web is a trivial achievement.

Also love that it is a pretty dumb device just for reading. Since it has no camera or potential to attach one, it means it is allowed into places like the sauna where phones and tablets are prohibited.

I'm not so impressed with the newer models. Switching to a touchscreen instead of the physical buttons is a huge regression. If mine ever dies I'll have to fix it or find a refurb.

Some of the blame lies on the publisher's feet. They literally colluded to stop Amazon's rise. However, Amazon did not think of reading as an activity you can create a platform around. You can, the rising popularity of Pocket is testament to that fact.

I'm basically locked to Amazon now, especially since their latest DRM hasn't been cracked yet (AFAIK). All the workarounds I know of result in a lower quality file.

The only thing I really wish they'd do software-wise is add reading stats / achievements — they have that for kid accounts but for some reason didn't extend it to adult readers.

One feature I would really like to see is a decent hyphenation engine for improved typography.

Seems that a Kobo and https://getpocket.com would be right up his alley.

(The recent Aura HD is a 300 dpi pocketable device comparable to the Kindle Paperwhite)

Just use your iPad if you want more than an “electronic book”.