(no subject)
Addressing tiarala from Twitter
"@MrBobaFett I'm curious about the appeal of the Kindle as a techie who totally doesn't get it. Why do you want one?"
I guess this has at least two parts to the answer. The first part is the general, why e-books? If you're not already excited about e-books then an e-reader probably isn't very interesting. I love e-books and have been reading them almost exclusivly for several years now. I like the convenience of being able to carry them with me where ever I go, my whole library in my pocket. I can get a new book almost on demand, I don't have to go out to a store or wait for delivery. I've usually had some form of built in dictionary which is helpfull because well I run into words I don't know sometimes.
Of course e-books without some form of a reader are a moot point. I have been using various Palm devices and a couple different e-reader programs. Mostly MobiPocket. It's great that it fits in my pocket and I can carry it all the fucking time. Also the backlit display is nice in some situations. It isn't perfect but works, however I am moving toward phasing out my Palm PDA for a Palm smartphone.
So I want to look at a dedicated e-book device. Battery life on smart phones are never great and when you use a display heavy app like a e-book you're going to burn them even faster. Also LCDs can get tiring to look at for long periods of time, plus the screens are small. This is a huge plus for the Kindle with it's large e-ink display. Easy on the eyes and able to be read in full daylight. Also the e-ink technology is very power efficient since it only uses power to redraw the screen, but not to maintain the image. Lots of ebook readers have that of course.
So why the Kindle over the Iliad or Sony readers? A big part is the always available free to use cellular data network, I can hit Wikipedia anytime I have signal. Now I have my normal library, a dictionary (it comes with one pre-loaded, but you can upgrade to something like the full OED if you want) and now I have a full encyclopedia. Downloading books at home and uploading them to the device via USB is no big deal, but being able to get new books where ever I am over the air is nice. Also I like the new text-to-speech integration. It means I can read my book on the way to work, then while I'm working I can contiue to listen to it like an audiobook, and after work it drops me a the page it stopped reading at and I can continue to read like normal.
There is a lot of potential for this device it wouldn't be too hard to make some upgrades to make it a more social device, which is where I really thing they should go with it. As suggested here.
Anyway, that's my long rambling answer.
"@MrBobaFett I'm curious about the appeal of the Kindle as a techie who totally doesn't get it. Why do you want one?"
I guess this has at least two parts to the answer. The first part is the general, why e-books? If you're not already excited about e-books then an e-reader probably isn't very interesting. I love e-books and have been reading them almost exclusivly for several years now. I like the convenience of being able to carry them with me where ever I go, my whole library in my pocket. I can get a new book almost on demand, I don't have to go out to a store or wait for delivery. I've usually had some form of built in dictionary which is helpfull because well I run into words I don't know sometimes.
Of course e-books without some form of a reader are a moot point. I have been using various Palm devices and a couple different e-reader programs. Mostly MobiPocket. It's great that it fits in my pocket and I can carry it all the fucking time. Also the backlit display is nice in some situations. It isn't perfect but works, however I am moving toward phasing out my Palm PDA for a Palm smartphone.
So I want to look at a dedicated e-book device. Battery life on smart phones are never great and when you use a display heavy app like a e-book you're going to burn them even faster. Also LCDs can get tiring to look at for long periods of time, plus the screens are small. This is a huge plus for the Kindle with it's large e-ink display. Easy on the eyes and able to be read in full daylight. Also the e-ink technology is very power efficient since it only uses power to redraw the screen, but not to maintain the image. Lots of ebook readers have that of course.
So why the Kindle over the Iliad or Sony readers? A big part is the always available free to use cellular data network, I can hit Wikipedia anytime I have signal. Now I have my normal library, a dictionary (it comes with one pre-loaded, but you can upgrade to something like the full OED if you want) and now I have a full encyclopedia. Downloading books at home and uploading them to the device via USB is no big deal, but being able to get new books where ever I am over the air is nice. Also I like the new text-to-speech integration. It means I can read my book on the way to work, then while I'm working I can contiue to listen to it like an audiobook, and after work it drops me a the page it stopped reading at and I can continue to read like normal.
There is a lot of potential for this device it wouldn't be too hard to make some upgrades to make it a more social device, which is where I really thing they should go with it. As suggested here.
Anyway, that's my long rambling answer.