

Amazon Is Building a Better Browser for Kindle - barredo
http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/03/amazon-is-building-a-better-browser-for-kindle/

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Terretta
1) First, there is already a better "browser" for Kindle:
<http://www.instapaper.com/extras>

Anything that you'd want to take time to read, bookmarklet it, and each day or
week Instapaper compiles a wrapup for you, reformatted to be readable on the
Kindle. (Something like "Readability", but delivered wirelessly to the Kindle
for reading at leisure.)

Instapaper has a live reformatting engine you can use on the fly for more
readable browsing as well. This WebMonkey link, for example:
[http://www.instapaper.com/m?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webmonkey.com...](http://www.instapaper.com/m?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.webmonkey.com%2F2010%2F03%2Famazon-
is-building-a-better-browser-for-kindle%2F)

Amazon should consider acquiring Instapaper, associating themselves with
making things easier to read.

2) Second, Amazon should be fixing other usability issues with the Kindle,
starting with organizing books and documents in something other than a flat
list. At the very least, group books by author sorted by original publication
date, so it's easier to read through a series of books by a prolific author.
And do this intelligently, so Patterson's co-authored books still show under
Patterson. For example, Patterson's Women's Murder Club series, by various
authors, actually follow a narrative arc across books, so should be read in
order. The titles have numbers, so this one is easy. Other series are not as
easy.

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awt
Why even try to compete with the iPhone in the browser space? Without color or
responsiveness I don't see the point.

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tomerico
Some people, use the web for a lot of reading. I would assume this is
especially true for the HN community. Kindle, with its e-ink paper, is
optimized for your eyes, for long term reading. In a way, you may take it even
further, and imagine that we might all code on an e-ink display in the future.
Perhaps a dual monitor e-ink + lcd setup... I'm getting geeky now.

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sketerpot
I would be really happy if the Kindle made it easier to read stuff on
Fanfiction.net. Their current web browser is less than ideal. (My current
solution is to use a Python script to download a bunch of chapters and mangle
them into a single HTML file, which I convert into a Kindle-compatible ebook
format. This is a hassle.)

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zitterbewegung
Why don't they just ask Opera to build a better browser?

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ZeroGravitas
Isn't ePub (which Kindle doesn't yet support) based on XHTML? Doesn't Apple
use Webkit for the iTunes Store? Aren't there lots of Apps in the App Store
that are basically rich content being run on a Webkit browser component?

Browser engineers don't necessarily have to be working on a standard _roam-
the-wild-internet_ web browser.

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frederickcook
I love these articles using job posts as references. (There have been others
from Apple and Google up here before.) THey show what managers are thinking
about, and what is in the pipeline for 18 months from now, long before a
company would ever publicly announce a new product or feature.

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eduardoflores
The problem here is assuming that the Kindle needs a "full" browser. It
doesn't. It's a ebook reader, not a tablet. A better or faster rendering would
be nice, but I think Amazon should position it in it's own niche.

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gr366
I adore my Kindle and use it every day, but I have never once tried to browse
the web on it. Instapaper's Kindle integration handles any longer web pages I
might want to read on the Kindle.

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grandalf
The kindle browser isn't all that bad, but its concepts (such as using the
little wheel to navigate and the page back/forward buttons to scroll
vertically) are a bit crude still.

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dan_sim
no... please no... I don't want to be compatible with yet another browser...

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ZeroGravitas
Yes you do. The more browsers, and the more evenly distributed their market
share, the less any individual one gets to muck around with standards as it's
in their own self-interest to converge.

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nazgulnarsil
can you save pdf's from the browser and then read them? if not I don't see
much of the point. most of the content heavy sites I visit have everything in
pdf.

~~~
zandorg
Kindle version 2.3 (eg, Kindle 2 and DX) support reading PDFs. But it's only
really practical on the DX, because a PDF is generally A4 - and the Kindle 2
is like a small paperback - A6 or so.

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ableal
I have a Kindle DX, and in my corner of Europe, the web access is limited to
Wikipedia (just the English language one, if memory of my test serves). Google
maps would be nice sometimes ... but it _is_ Amazon's nickel paying for the 3G
cellular phone calls, not mine ...

Anyway, I think Amazon has decided to push for a Kindle platform - they have a
call outstanding for external developers of "active content", and a beta SDK
you can sign up for (not yet public, haven't seen it).

The issue will turn on who pays for the 3G data line. If it's Amazon, of
course they'll use the line to pull in paying customers. The limited freebies
(such as Wikipedia) are just a loss-leader.

A model where the Kindle can be used with a regular (owner-paid) data line
would be needed for things such as corporate VPNs. I don't know if Amazon are
prepared to go there just to make a little bit more money on hardware.

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zandorg
Ditto, I'm in the UK and bought a Kindle Monday. You can only browse to
Wikipedia, but as this XKCD cartoon says, that's almost as good as a
hitchhiker's guide because (I assume) the Web access from the Kindle is
international - and because Wikipedia is huge. But unlike the XKCD, it doesn't
actually let you go to Wikitravel: <http://xkcd.com/548/>

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rman666
Let me guess ... it won't work on the Kindle 1. If not, Amazon should upgrade
all us Kindle 1 owners to a Kindle 2 at a steep discount (or for free). We got
the Kindle on the map, so how about showin' a little love?

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kqr2
I'm a first generation Kindle owner too and it actually has advantages over
subsequent generations that I would hesitate to give up. Namely,

* a removable battery

* external SD card slot

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sketerpot
It works well, and it's very cheap now that the Kindle 2 is the main product.

