
Voyage to Nowhere: The Amazon Kindle Story - lelf
http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/voyage-to-nowhere
======
AndrewUnmuted

        I had been planning to launch a big, public campaign about Kindle typography to try and get Amazon to change her ways.  But I came to the conclusion: why bother?
    

This is precisely the feeling I had right before I resigned from my position
at Amazon. Though I worked at a subsidiary, not Amazon proper, the culture at
Amazon everywhere can be absurdly stubborn. In the presence of a bad team, the
"leadership principles" can be used for evil, and not for good. Which is why I
was consistently told that bugs in software were OK if a majority of customers
didn't care to call up and complain about it to our poor, overworked customer
service teams.

Amazon thinks that it already has "the customer," in its most broad
abstraction, already in its grasp, and doesn't ever need to fight to keep any
of them there. That is why, when I departed my Amazon subsidiary in December
of 2014, they were only just starting to hire a UX team. These principles can
be made so dogmatic to the point of destructive company culture that outwardly
resists change, be it to marketing designs or entire technology
infrastructures that entire teams comprising hundreds of people rely upon to
get work done.

This is why it is very hard to keep talented people in positions of management
at Amazon.

~~~
pookieinc
I agree with this post, but not with regards to the Kindle, but more Amazon as
an entity.

Also, perfect timing to read this article, after just purchasing a Kindle
Paperwhite and having it for a few weeks now.

As a casual reader, I find the Kindle Paperwhite as the perfect medium for my
reading needs. I can hold it in one hand, I can read it any time of the day
with adjustable brightness, and the e-ink is very clear and the font is fine.
With respect to the article, I don't think the typical person cares much for
typography, as long as it can be read and understood. The justification
notion, I would argue that the typical user may not notice it as much as the
hardcore reader. This is where I disagree with the parent post here, as in
Amazon may understand "the customer" in this particular case, or at least the
majority. Everyone who I've come across absolutely loves, and heavily uses,
their Kindle(s). Some people even collect them! All reviews love them and it's
a great experience.

The point of the article: Now, I'm all for making the Kindle the best reading
device ever by adding all these cool features (justification, typography,
different modes for different things like iBooks, etc.), but instead of
targeting the Kindle as being deficient for most users, the article is
targeting Amazon more so for it's lack of pushing the product to all it can be
and I think this can be extracted toward larger companies doing what they can
to push the envelope with their product. This is where I agree with the parent
post, Amazon seems to be lacking in this area. The blogpost written and the
parent post both point to deficiencies in how Amazon looks to their customers
and pushes their products to the best they can be.

~~~
cbsmith
> The justification notion, I would argue that the typical user may not notice
> it as much as the hardcore reader.

The fact of the matter is it impacts all readers, whether they recognize it or
not, and there is a reason the printing industry generally doesn't do it.

~~~
andrewla
I'm confused by this -- looking through my physical books now, I'm hard-
pressed to find any that aren't fully justified.

~~~
matthewmcg
The issue isn't justification--it's justification without hyphenation. Books
with justified text almost always break lines using hyphens. The Kindle
doesn't do this, and that's what creates the "rivers" of white space.

------
aaronbrethorst
To be fair, I find it much easier to fall asleep after using my Kindle
Paperwhite than I do with an iPad. But, virtually every aspect of the Kindle
ecosystem user experience is an experience in mediocrity. In some respects, I
feel like the company is like what you'd get if you crossed the worst aspects
of Microsoft and Google.

(And apologies to my friends who work at Amazon, but let's be honest: you're
all going to quit within a year or two to work somewhere that's less abusive
of its employees.)

~~~
fpgeek
While there are plenty of mediocre aspects of the Kindle ecosystem, there are
plenty of excellent ones as well. For example:

1\. Return policy. Amazon has the best ebook return policy in the business. It
seems essentially the same as their physical book policy. The last time I
checked, Google Play was next-best (7 days no-questions-asked, regardless of
jurisdiction) and everyone else grudgingly had a return policy where it was
required by law (i.e. Europe) and none otherwise.

2\. Sideloaded books. AFAIK, of the major ebook retailers, only Amazon and
Google will let you sync books you didn't purchase from them to your cloud
library. Other retailers might let you read sideloaded books in their clients,
but you have to use Dropbox or an equivalent for backup and syncing across
devices.

3\. Client support. If it supports third-party applications, Amazon makes a
Kindle client for almost anything you might want to read an ebook on, plus
they have a web-based reader. Meanwhile, Google and Apple are busy paying
"strategy taxes" for platforms it isn't in their interest to support, and B&N
and Kobo don't quite have the resources to keep up.

~~~
ursidae
One frustrating thing about side loaded books, you cannot read them with
Kindle for PC, Kindle for Mac, or Kindle cloud reader.

~~~
elemeno
I was under the impression that you can, though they might show up under
Documents rather than Books - assuming you've side-loaded by sending the files
to your kindle e-mail address. It's not something I try to do very often
though, so I might be mistaken - they don't seem to appear in the Cloud Reader
though.

In any case, since you can just open the files in the desktop version of
Kindle, it doesn't seem like it would be such a big deal.

~~~
lucian1900
It's annoying because I rely on Kindle's progress syncing. Why do some of my
books randomly not support this useful feature?

------
mintplant
It's not for the faint of heart, given the inaccessible brick-ness of the
Kindle and its long, nerve-racking reboot time, but you can jailbreak your
device and install KUAL (app launcher) and KOReader.

[http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203326](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203326)

[https://github.com/koreader/koreader](https://github.com/koreader/koreader)

ePub and PDF support, text reflow/cropping/reformatting (great for papers!),
plethora of options from contrast to margins, custom fonts, per-document style
sheets, etc etc.

You can also install things like Gargoyle for interactive fiction on the go.

[http://www.fabiszewski.net/kindle-
gargoyle/](http://www.fabiszewski.net/kindle-gargoyle/)

Just make sure to set up BackDoorLock so that Amazon can't force an OTA update
on you.

[http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205666](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=205666)

You might also want the Rescue Pack in case things go wrong. It boots you into
diagnostics mode if you start your Kindle with a USB cable plugged in..

[http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195670](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=195670)

(how to exit diags mode)
[http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Touch_Hacking#Exiting...](http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kindle_Touch_Hacking#Exiting_Diags_Mode)

See the FGA thread and MobileRead's "Kindle Developer's Corner" for more info.

[http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237083](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237083)

[http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=150)

~~~
joshuapants
Does KOReader fix the Kindle typography? That is, get rid of the rivers of
white running through the poorly justified pages?

~~~
ekianjo
Yes, it fixes most of it. I would not say it's perfect either but it's much,
much better than the default Kindle Viewer.

it also gives you a lot more options on how to tweak the way it reflows text,
as well as font choices. It makes it a much better device for reading.

~~~
joshuapants
Awesome, thanks. I'm going to give it a try.

~~~
ekianjo
let me know if you need some help to set it up.

------
blocke
I use the Kindle app for Android because that is where the indie authors seem
to be. I use the app in spite of itself. The Kindle app on Android has over
the past few years been such a buggy piece of shit that I curse it's very
existence. It alone has demonstrated that Amazon can't competently develop
mobile apps worth a damn and made me laugh when I heard Amazon was making a
phone.

Once a month Amazon seems to make a release that outright breaks a critical
flow in the app. For the past couple weeks I've had to use the website to skim
through books because every time the app tries to open the store view for a
book the app instead opens Chrome with "about:blank" as the URL. /facepalm

I'll ignore the fact the tablet version gets a proper store interface (when
it's not completely broken) but the cellphone version gets a regurgitated
ancient web view that was last updated a half decade ago.

I can only conclude that Kindle isn't profitable for Amazon at all and they
throw appropriate talent at it... that is none at all.

Does Apple give a rip about iBooks? Google doesn't seem to give a crap about
getting indies on Google Play.

~~~
fpgeek
I think you have the causality backwards. It's not that Google doesn't care
about getting indies on Google Play (though, to be fair, not enough to deal
with the havoc their automatic discounting creates for indies, last I heard),
it's that indies often don't really care about being anywhere but Amazon
(largest market, extra perks for titles that are exclusive, less to manage and
so on). For obvious reasons, this may not be a great long-run choice for them,
but it can be very attractive in the short-run.

------
dash2
Another point is just how dreadful the Kindle store is. That is just a rat-
infested cellar of literature. I'm not even talking about bad writers; I mean
literal fraudsters.

And the personalization is useless. I have a very specific profile: history,
statistics textbooks, classic literature, modern poetry. The front page of the
store, right now, is offering me "Billy The Bug: Short Stories, Games, Jokes
and More"; "Frontiers Saga 13", some kind of space crap; and "Highland Guard"
(picture: weedy man with sword).

Plus about four 50 Shades clones. I used to worry about the age of Total
Internet Surveillance; turns out Amazon can't even figure out my gender.

------
Johnythree
Totally agree with this article, but I'm surprised he doesn't mention the
train wreck of the touch screen on the Paperwhite.

For a start it's incredibly flaky. Sometimes the slightest accidental touch
will cause it to jump randomly to somewhere in the book. Other times I can
press it hard or rub furiously and still nothing happens. Then sometimes it
will pause for a few seconds, then do something incomprehensible.

If it had simply retained touch for "go forward" and "go back" it would be
acceptable, but it seems that the Sales Department insisted that the engineers
overload it with extra features.

When I'm reading I'm constantly interrupted by the idiotic "change font" or
"look up dictionary" or "take notes" function when I don't want them. It's
infuriating.

And then when reading a Magazine, the actions change and suddenly there's a
jump forward (or back) one chapter which causes you to completely loose your
page.

I love my Kindle, but I hate the touch function.

~~~
ekianjo
> I love my Kindle, but I hate the touch function.

I don't know, I read a lot on the Paperwhite and I got used to the touch
screen. It's quite comfortable, even though I would probably prefer some
actual buttons. In any case I was won over. I was reading a lot of paper books
before and I am finding the experience of reading with an ereader to be
superior in almost every way.

~~~
MBCook
> ... and I am finding the experience of reading with an ereader to be
> superior in almost every way.

That's what keep sneezing or Kindle. Not having to fiddle and accidentally
leave my place if I set the book down, being able to get a new book almost
instantly, being able to look up words I don't know keep using the Kindle
despite all the software/hardware faults. Not having to fiddle and
accidentally leave my place if I set the book down, being able to get a new
book almost instantly, being able to look up words I don't know.

But the absolute best is progress syncing. I don't bring my Kindle in less I
know I'm going to need it, but anywhere I get stuck I can pull out my phone
and pick up the book I was reading right at my last position. When I get back
to my Kindle it already knows how much further I read. It's like hav when I
get back to my Kindle it already knows how much further I read. It's so much
more convenient than carrying a physical book around.

Especially large/long books. I read King's The Stand last summer. I'm glad I
didn't have to struggle with the 1,200 page physical edition.

~~~
ekianjo
> I'm glad I didn't have to struggle with the 1,200 page physical edition.

Yes. I read a lot in bed before sleeping, and i found it extremely
uncomfortable nowadays to have to turn pages in a paper book - having the
possibility to just be on the same "surface" when reading text is just great.
And the paperwhite is just light enough that it does not get too painful on
your wrists, compared to a large book that just makes you tired holding it.

------
jayvanguard
This person seems extremely picky. I have pretty much every generation of
kindle and they just keep getting incrementally better. Resolution, backlight,
multiple dictionaries, x-ray, etc.

~~~
megablast
> This person seems extremely picky.

I don't understand this? Why not disagree with the valid points he made,
rather than just calling him picky? When you use a device a lot, as you would
an ereader, I can imagine these problems becoming magnified.

~~~
jlarocco
The article is basically just some guy's rant against Amazon. He found some
very minor nitpicks, has blown them way out of proportion, and is using them
as evidence that Amazon hates readers. Or something. Factor in all the
insults, and it's not really worth trying to start a discussion, IMO.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
As a semi-new owner of a Kindle Voyage I find all of his points right on the
money. Criticisms of the user experience shouldn't be written off as nit-picky
but instead should start a conversation regarding improving the user
experience.

~~~
jlarocco
I've owned Kindles for years, and never noticed any of these things. Nobody I
know has noticed them either. My anecdote is just as valid as yours.

I'm not saying user experience critiques aren't valid, I'm saying the article
is so filled with hypberbole and anti-Amazon insults that there's no point
debating his complaints.

Like others have said, this guy is going to hate on everything Amazon is
doing, because he's making it perfectly clear hates Amazon. It's a no win
argument.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
That seems unfair; just because he presented the criticisms in a manner which
you disagree with doesn't negate the criticisms themselves.

Also keep in mind that just because you don't notice something doesn't make it
any more or less valid. The typography issues were pointed out and as a former
print designer they are very valid albeit a bit subtle (in my opinion anyway).

------
Derbasti
After having owned three kindles, I have switched to a kobo about a year ago.
The kobo has many of its own problems, but it gets the reading experience
right: it uses (very un-aggressive) hyphenation, and the lock screen displays
the book cover.

I miss going on Amazon, clicking some button, and immediately start reading a
new book. Now that's a multi step process that involves a computer and a DRM
removal tool. But the reading experience is easily worth it for me.

~~~
WalterBright
> the lock screen displays the book cover.

That's almost right. It should display the last page read!

~~~
kawsper
The problem with that is (at least on e-ink displays) you wouldn't know if the
device was on or off.

Showing the book cover solves that :)

~~~
WalterBright
Easy. It could be shown with a black border instead of a white one. Or any of
innumerable other ways.

------
cthalupa
>and white light is the worst for reading in bed. It’s proven to keep you
awake.

This is not a great argument. First, because the Kindle allows you to dim the
screen, and in fact, does so automatically in dark rooms. Pulling my Voyage
out and comparing it to my screen with Flux, anecdotally, it looks to be
producing less light than my laptop does.

And what are the alternatives? Not lighting the kindle display, and having you
use an external light source? You have the same problem if you use LED lights
- white light is generated in much the same way in LED bulbs, so you need to
dim them as well, leaving you in the same position.

>You can tap both margins to advance the page. (Unlike Amazon who thinks
readers always hold their books in the same hand. Have they ever seen people
read books?)

The pressure sensitive buttons previously mentioned by the author are on both
sides of the Voyage. You can use either hand to move forward or backward.

~~~
stupidcar
It's not the luminance of the light that's a problem, it's the colour. White
light contains a lot of blue, which is associated with melatonin suppression
that in turn throws out sleeping patterns[1]. This problem remains even with
very dim light sources.

The alternative therefore is to use LEDs with a lower colour temperature[2],
producing the kind of orange light associated with flames and traditional
incandescent lights, which people have been using to read by for centuries.

This isn't obscure or novel science, it's something the Amazon product team
should know, or at least discover through basic research into their chosen
field. The fact that they haven't backs the article author's suggestion that
they're incompetent or uncaring about the quality of their product.

[1] [http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-
has...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-
side) [2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature)

~~~
cthalupa
While the colour is the main factor, the lux probably matters as well. Your
article there specifically mentions eight lux, or twice the brightness of a
night light. Would a faint light at four lux also have an affect? The articles
don't seem clear.

I don't have a measurement handy for the lux on a kindle at the dimmest
setting, nor can I find any details on if brighter lights have a more
pronounced affect on melatonin suppression.

The thing is no matter what, this is still assuming that your preferred method
of reading is the right one. Some people do not like the look of orange lights
- personally I hate incandescents, and have been using CFLs and LEDs putting
out white light for a long time now. Perhaps using said lighting directly
inside the kindle looks particularly bad. Perhaps they assumed people want to
stay awake while reading.

Making a design decision you don't agree with means they made a design
decision you don't agree with - not that they don't care or are incompetent.

------
sliverstorm
_To replicate the experience of the Kindle Voyage ‘button’ find an immovable
surface in your house: a marble kitchen countertop will do. Place your thumb
upon the surface, then press down – deforming your thumb.

Not pleasant, is it?_

I don't follow. It feels like I'm pressing down on something.

Of all the things I can think of that would cause an RSI, pinching a pressure-
sensitive button seems low on the list.

I also don't understand why, if the author loved his first kindle so much, he
doesn't just keep using it. They release new ones frequently enough (and old
ones keep working long enough) that you can skip several generations and pick
out the revisions that you like most.

~~~
MBCook
I own a voyage, but can't come up with the answer to one simple question. In
what way are those stupid little touch strips actually BETTER than real
buttons? Since there's no actual physical feedback you can't tell how hard you
have to press. They've tried to fix this by letting you set sensitivity
levels, but that doesn't work great. Then I thought it would be a good idea to
add a pager motor to fake physical feedback by vibrating when you would've
made a press.

None of this works as well as the buttons on Kindle keyboard , but I bet it
cost a hell of lot more money.

> that you can skip several generations and pick out the revisions that you
> like most.

The problem is that you really can't. Despite owning the absolute top-of-the-
line device the software feels half-baked. Shortly after launch it would often
crash itself and require physical restarts. The on screen keyboard is
absolutely atrocious, Which they appear to tried to fix with text suggestions.
The suggestions are slow and wildly inconsistent which makes it impossible to
quickly use them. Even if it suggests the right word you never know where on
the suggestion bar to actually going to pop-up.

As the author mentions the text layout system hasn't been updated in years
despite obvious problems. I waited years for a new version with physical
buttons but ended up settling for the somewhat acceptable touch strips. He
complains about the lighting system, which is apparently still a problem for a
lot of for a lot of voyage users (luckily I'm not one).

Also Amazon doesn't seem to do anything to control or improve the quality of
e-books. They're often laughably bad.

His main thesis is dead on. The project doesn't feel like anyone who actually
likes books is working on it. It doesn't feel like a passion, it feels like a
terrible afterthought that people rotate in and out of making random changes
to try and look like they did some management.

~~~
delecti
> The project doesn't feel like anyone who actually likes books is working on
> it. It doesn't feel like a passion, it feels like a terrible afterthought
> that people rotate in and out of making random changes to try and look like
> they did some management.

You couldn't imagine how right you are.

------
zetax123

      "Their Firephone is so terrible they literally can’t give it away"
    

Okay, fair enough -- it was a disastrous product.

    
    
      "and the existence of the Amazon Echo strains all reason."
    

Wait, what? How do you extend your hatred for typesetting and buttons on the
Kindle to a product that has neither? At this point, you are just being
presumptuous.

~~~
gurkendoktor
> How do you extend your hatred for typesetting and buttons on the Kindle to a
> product that has neither?

I'm not sure if that's why the author added it, but I really wish Amazon would
first fix a bit more low-hanging fruit for its most beloved hardware product,
instead of sinking time and money into unrelated crap.

It always feels good when you pay for something and you can feel that the
money goes into making it even better (software updates, next hardware
iteration...).

~~~
cthalupa
>but I really wish Amazon would first fix a bit more low-hanging fruit for its
most beloved hardware product, instead of sinking time and money into
unrelated crap

It'd be very surprising to me if the resources put into the Echo had any
impact whatsoever on the amount of resources put into the Kindle team.

I hear this argument a lot - "Why does company X work on feature Y when
feature Z isn't complete", when features Y and Z are handled by completely
different teams with their own dedicated resources.

~~~
gurkendoktor
People can be moved from team to team, and the Echo and the Fire gadgets need
hardware and software engineers just like the Kindle does. Given how little
the Kindle software evolves, it's hard to say whether it even has a proper
team.

Amazon is famous for taking all profits from one product, and investing them
into other (new) products. This is precisely what annoys me here :|

------
noir_lord
I have a Kobo Glo (one of the first ones) and it has been without doubt one of
the best RoI's I've ever gotten on a piece of technology.

It's light, has nice type, a decent battery, it's rubberised case is easy to
grip and non-slip.

It falls down epically on the store experience but since I side load with
Calibre that makes not a jot of difference.

The kindle I had before had an incredibly slick shopping experience but in
every other way was inferior.

~~~
paulornothing
I'm definitely looking to get a Kobo Glo HD. I loved my Kindle w/ Keyboard but
the battery is shot and it crashes pretty often (also 4 years old). I'm not
tied to the Amazon eco-system per se so I'm ok with going to Kobo.

------
jccalhoun
He mentions lack of including any allegedly dyslexic-friendly font as one
strike against Kindles. I thought that there wasn't actually a lot of evidence
those work:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexie)

I hate justified margins though so that's reason enough not to be happy with
Kindles.

~~~
hysan
I've read through that study before when I was reading about fonts for
dyslexics a long time ago. The study didn't come to any conclusion and even
states itself that the same size was too small and further studies needed to
be done. Specifically, some major points where the study needs to be more
robust are:

    
    
      1. font comparisons
      2. age range (university students were tested, but these fonts will most likely have the greatest effect on younger people who have not learned to adapt to being dyslexic)
      3. languages
    

Overall, there isn't evidence either way. But there is one thing that the
studies consistently find, that the majority of dyslexics, both anecdotally
and from the participant pool, have a favorable opinion of the font compared
to normal ones. For that reason alone, I think it would be wise for Amazon to
include such a font on the Kindle.

------
Red_Tarsius
I love the _virtual bookshelf_ concept. I love not to waste time wandering
through libraries and that almost any book is two clicks away from me.

That said, I'm also a graphic designer and many book layouts are awful. I
can't tell how many times I read 1 star reviews of good books which were
worthless as an ebook.

The ebook is thrashing 500 years of typographic tradition. It's trashing
everything we know about making a good reading experience. This is not only
insulting, but insightful. Amazon is telling his costumers:

    
    
      "We are a GOOD ENOUGH company. We are not striving for excellence."
      
    

OT: I've recently tried _Audible_ as well. I felt dirty and cheated on. I gave
a chance to _Amazon Kindle_ , but I'll never compromise with Audible's
business tactics.

~~~
polarix
Citation for Audible's business tactics? How could it be done better, given
the labor outlay and legal coordination required to record an audiobook?

------
WalterBright
I was fortunate enough to get a Kindle DX. It's the best of the Kindles. The
second best is the Kindle 3. I have some other Kindles, but I always go back
to the DX and the 3.

No, I don't like touch screens. The buttons are much better. The Kindle 3
nailed it. The only thing it is missing is a backlight.

~~~
pnathan
The Kindle DX is a great device. I have one; it's the Kindle made for serious
readers. It needs overhauling and improving though. Sigh.

I don't know of any _good_ ereaders through.

~~~
WalterBright
I'd buy a new DX if it had: 1\. a higher res screen 2\. a glow screen 3\. the
screen saver was my last page read

but if they make it a touch screen and take the buttons away, no, I'll stick
with the old DX.

------
mlopes
I have to say I disagree with the author on everything except the typesetting
issues. The buttons to change the page are really good and the feedback try
provide is very pleasant, just like clicking a physical button. I'm also quite
happy with the white light, and don't really understand why a light that is
meant for me to read should make me fall asleep. Quite the opposite, if
anything it should help me keep awake and concentrate on the book. The Voyage
is my second Kindle and in the 4 months I've had it I've read more than 30
books on it, which is a big increase over my previous average, and it's a lot
thanks to the device being great.

The fact that the author doesn't have one nice thing to say about the Kindle,
and yet keeps buying them makes it seem there's some kind of Kindle dissing
agenda behind it.

~~~
regularfry
The theory is that a warmer light wouldn't wear your eyes out, so you'd be
able to keep them open to read and stay awake for longer, not that it would
make you fall asleep.

------
bitL
My biggest gripe with Voyage is the silly restriction to 4GB and no SD card in
order to make PDF viewing far less likely. A lot of scientific papers are
available in PDF only as well as older books and magazines and they are
considerably larger than Kindle's own format yet preserving layout nicely, so
they are my preferred media. I don't care about uneven lighting (yellow-blue
cast across the screen) as I turn the light completely off.

Is there any e-reader with "retina"-style e-ink that is optimized for viewing
PDFs/PostScript and allowing a SD card?

~~~
dcreemer
The Kobo Aura [1] (and Aura HD) may work for you.

[1][https://www.kobo.com/koboaura](https://www.kobo.com/koboaura)

------
giancarlostoro
One thing I always wanted out of the Kindle (not the Fire / Tablets) is a web
browser that actually works. Maybe not every page would work, but at least
some would, the internet has a bad habit of not being backwards compatible so
maybe there is this at fault sadly. A guy can dream I suppose.

~~~
ikeboy
The web browser works decent for me. I mostly use it for gmail and reddit,
which both have mobile versions that are pretty stable.

If you have trouble with a site, try turning off javascript temporarily and
turning on article mode after it loads.

------
cwmma
As a commuter the kindle paperwhite was such a step back, the removal of the
side buttons effectively prevented you from reading it left handed, I find
myself halving to turn the page with my nose if for some reason I have to hold
on with my right hand while on the subway.

~~~
andrewla
I've found that there are two things that let me use the Kindle Paperwhite
left-handed -- one is that the "back" area of the screen is small, so pressing
close to the center with my left thumb, once I've gotten used to the "sweet
spot", is very reliable. The other is that it recognizes swiping gestures, so
a small swipe with the thumb will also turn the page if my hand is in an
awkward position.

That said, I would love to have the physical buttons back -- when the touch
screen works, it is okay, but when it decides for some reason that I want to
change my font size instead of turning the page, or just decides that I didn't
press it, or turns the page twice when I think it didn't register my first
touch, I get unaccountably mad.

------
mwcampbell
I don't know about the Kindle line, but I wonder why this author thinks the
Echo is such a disaster. Seems to me like it could be quite useful, if it
lives up to the ad.

~~~
meow_mix
I think the ad itself is what they were making fun of

------
dcre
Agree with all the typesetting points, but I do not share the author's
experience with the buttons—I think they're great. You don't have to press
them hard, and the vibration feedback works perfectly for me.

------
teekert
I have been using a kindle keyboard (3.5) since January 2011 (still use it
actually). It took until September 2012 for them to introduce what they call
"crisper fonts" which were fonts that actually match the pixels of the device.
This means that before "crisper fonts" the same letter could look different
depending on its position (which was not aligned with the pixels). I have for
that entire 20 months wondered if anyone at Amazon actually used the kindle
themselves.

Other than that I'm still quite pleased with the thing (apart from the small
trouble of having to remove DRM from most books to read my, paid for books on
unsupported devices. Calibre plugins make this quite painless thankfully.)

------
taylorling
I think he has some valid points in his rant, although I must say I enjoyed my
Paperwhite 1st Gen very much and I don't find those issues (especially on the
justification and font choices) to be a blocker for me from enjoying the
books.

------
dilap
The problem is that they don't really have any competition. I had a weird
sudden wish watching the Pepple Time video on kickstarter that they would
expand into e-readers. They've already got the experience with the screens...

------
Paul_S
I don't wish to derail but there are other e-ink readers that don't suffer
from any of these problems. You can just read whatever you want on them in any
way you want.

------
geoelectric
For all that he portrays the Voyage as a trainwreck, I like mine a lot, after
having several Kindles before it including a Gen-1 Paperwhite.

I don't mind the justification as a general rule, and actually find extreme
hyphenization (which was their route on the iOS apps) much more distracting.

My only real problems have been:

* The haptic feedback can't be made prominent enough to be obvious through the first-party leather cover.

* The tap zone for switching percentage/page number/etc has no visual affordance and I find it pretty non-obvious to reliably find.

* The automatic lighting is way more sensitive to what's over my shoulder than the ambient light, so goes very dark if the room is softly lit from behind the Kindle (or very bright if there's a light in my background).

* The font size isn't consistent between books even if I don't use publisher font. I assume that's because the markup of the books has some influence on the font size and doesn't always use "default."

* I'd prefer a first-party book spine case over a notepad style case--that said, the origami stand has been extremely useful for reading while eating.

Other than those niggles, it's been great, and certainly has been a more
enjoyable device to use than any of my past Kindles.

------
SwellJoe
I had a second generation Kindle (still had buttons, still had free 3G
everywhere in the world, which was an awesome feature), and loved it. I
dropped it many, many times, over the years, and finally the screen broke. So,
I replaced it with a Paper White.

It's a better product in most regards, but I find I use it for reading far
less. I tend to almost exclusively read on my Nexus 7. Twilight makes it
possible to dim and turn the screen orange, which isn't something Kindle can
do, so I like it for night time reading. I haven't tried to figure out which
is better for getting to sleep after reading, but I suspect both are
problematic.

Also, the Nexus is faster than the Kindle, in every dimension, so it's just
more fun to browse/buy books. And, as others have noted, the touch screen on
the Paper White is bad. Not a little bad, either. It's annoying as hell. And,
I've also had problems with unintended page turns, and intended turns not
working. The Nexus 7 has a great touch screen.

I also have an Amazon Fire Phone, and that's enough to convince me that Amazon
just can't do hardware well. It's an awful phone; it would have been barely
passable three years ago. Today it's laughable. And, their priorities for
where to expend resources are way out of whack. The 3D stuff and four front-
facing cameras to make it work, is just ridiculous. I'd much rather have one
good camera than five shitty ones.

I recently got some ebooks from O'Reilly, and found that they looked much
better in Google Books than on the Kindle or in the Kindle app. Amazon might
be in trouble. I currently have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, so I still do
most of my reading in Kindle (whether the app or the hardware Kindle), but the
experience of reading in Google Books is better.

~~~
ericd
I absolutely hated my Kindle Touch (1st gen), so I sold it and bought a used
3G. Since then, I've cracked two screens, but fortunately, they're very easy
to get parts for and repair ([http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Amazon-Kindle-
Parts-for-Repair...](http://www.powerbookmedic.com/Amazon-Kindle-Parts-for-
Repair-p-1-c-641.html)).

Amazon still sells used Kindle Keyboard 3Gs for reasonable prices, if you're
ever tempted to go back.

~~~
SwellJoe
Only 15 bucks to fix my old Kindle! Why didn't I think of that? I definitely
miss the old one, and wish I'd thought of doing this to start with. I wasn't
really excited about the new Kindles (the move to touch screens everywhere has
been a thing I've been unenthusiastic about, always...I was hesitant to move
away from the G1 to a touchscreen Android phone, too). I just assumed I had to
"uprade".

Thanks for the link.

~~~
ericd
Yeah, the lack of responsiveness/feedback makes the touchscreen kindles
especially frustrating - my page turning error rate was probably >10%, between
accidental brushes, double turns, and other mishaps. Really got in the way of
getting lost in the book. Plus, I love the tactile feedback of the buttons
they used on the old ones.

If you want an old one, looks like good quality ones are going for ~$60-80 on
Amazon, and it's pretty easy to sell a Kindle via the fulfilled by Amazon
seller program - just set a price slightly below others offering Prime, ship
off your Kindle and other old electronics, and they send you money when your
stuff sells.

------
facepalm
Funny how you can inflate an issue. I have a paperwhite and love it. I guess I
am lucky that I don't know so much about typography.

~~~
Rambunctious
Maybe if you used your Kindle more instead of making snarky posts you would
get a clue.

------
plg
I've been reading books on my iPad and it's fantastic. I recently switched to
buying books from apple rather than from amazon and reading using iBooks.
Again, fantastic. Great typesetting, great UI. Also I can share books with my
family with Family iCloud sharing. I know there's a kindle version of this
sort of thing but it seems like a hassle.

------
vinceyuan
I use Kindle Paperwhite 2 every day in bed. The built-in light is very useful.
I hope they will make Kindle's screen bigger.

------
pinkunicorn
" Since Amazon hasnt updated anything about their typography since 2009 I
wouldn’t hold my breath."

That is actually not true -
[http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2015/01/bookerly_am...](http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2015/01/bookerly_amazons_new_kindle_font.html)

Oh and this - "Speaking of highlights: Amazon has no graceful option to update
books. Updating a book, in Amazon’s world, is the digital equivalent of
handing you a new book, then burning your old one. Hope you didn’t have any
notes or highlights in there." Hey that's actually not true. I beg the author
to please provide examples and scenarios. Amazon goes to great lengths to not
impact the reader by erasing their notes.

~~~
hysan
It could have been true at the time of the post though. You can't tell from
the post, but the article was put up on Dec. 15, 2014 so writing occurred
before then (I have his blog in my rss reader). The Bookerly font, from my
short searching, was released that same month on limited devices and was not
pushed out to the Voyage until January (time of your linked post).

------
capedape
I've had three Kindles and while I like the convenience of them, there is
something about a regular book that absorbs me into the page better. The
strange grey/blue tint and any sort of lighting whether front or back, for me,
is irritating enough that I don't absorb information or get lost in a story as
well.

I like the Voyage alright, but I want the ability to turn the light ALL the
way off, not just to a minimum. I still have one and use it, they just really
need improve on these things so it feels less like just another screen, and
more like a book.

------
heykjo
Right about the Kindle - still like my original with the keyboard best. All
wrong about the Echo - best thing in my kitchen. Not sure where the connection
to typography is. Bit of a whinger?

------
teleological
Amazon, please hire this person and pay them whatever they ask.

~~~
TheDong
As this user states, these issues are easily googleable and well known
already.

They could read the amazon reviews page for the kindle to learn these specific
gripes.

What they need is not someone now who sees the problems with the product
(believe me, they know the problems), but someone who sees all these problems
as it's being created and people who are able to produce reliable code that
fixes it now.

The cow has left the barn on the point where this person would have been most
useful.

~~~
ikeboy
My biggest problem is that they're actively preventing jailbreaking. If I
could jailbreak my Kindle Touch, most of my problems would go away.

I filled out a 15 minute survey shortly after buying one, and noted that in
the comments issue. The more people who do something like that, the more
likely Amazon will decide to allow user "hacks".

------
ForHackernews
Why doesn't the author consider other, competing eReaders? The Nook Simple
Touch with Glowlight (ironic Amazon link: [http://www.amazon.com/Barnes-Noble-
Touchscreen-Technology-Il...](http://www.amazon.com/Barnes-Noble-Touchscreen-
Technology-Illumination/dp/B00O0G4FNI/)) has a nice, even light and two
physical page-turn buttons on the sides of the screen.

------
sina
I agree about the em dashes are written incorrectly in Kindle. I really hope
that Amazon fixes this.

Just a suggestion about the blog's formatting; please remove the `&nbsp;`s
from the html. These non-breaking white-spaces are messing the left
justification of the text in the blog.

E.g., the word "Search":
[https://imgur.com/HF6lhSH](https://imgur.com/HF6lhSH)

------
jkestner
Question: why does the Voyage exist? After progressively getting the price
down, a very Amazon thing to do, a high-end model seems un-Amazonian.
Especially if it doesn't really meet the needs of serious readers. Did Amazon
just see an unmet market at that price point? Curious as to when companies
move upmarket with a product line - it's usually the other way around.

~~~
worklogin
Hey, everybody, I have an announcement!

I like the Voyage!

I own one, and reading on it is quite pleasant. I can see the rationale for
pressure buttons (you can adjust the sensitivity). The resolution is
fantastic, backlighting is great compared to reading in my particular low-
light environment. The store works for what I need as a casual reader. I had a
Kobo H2O, which was alright, but felt less refined. Also, the Kobo didn't have
any useful newspaper subscriptions.

------
dfc
My biggest complaint with the kindle (post beige / side buttons era) is the
black plastic. If i read in the sun for 20-30 minutes the device begins to get
very hot. After 40 minutes the heat starts to cause performance and display
problems. Using a towel or newspaper helps but it screws with the mechanics of
holding the device and turning pages.

------
stblack
It's about time someone said this so well.

------
beyondcompute
Oh, those seething bureaucracies with faceless collectives and blurred
responsibilities...

Also that's sort of interesting to see how a company which is supposed to take
over the world is unable to deliver even the ordinary products. I hope, this
will prove in the long run that to be successful you need to have a good
product or service.

------
phaed
That was brutal. And 100% on point.

------
Shivetya
having owned both a touch and button kindle I would prefer a marriage of the
two. keep the physical page buttons that many of us want but use the touch
screen for entry, high lighting, and even selection.

If anything I give Amazon credit for making it so easy to read again that I
find myself forgetting to do much else

------
upofadown
Pretty obscure complaints for a reader that doesn't even support EPUB...

------
nether
I really pity the author. He's lost the ability to enjoy a book and throws a
fit when typesetting is flawed. A sure path to disappointment and unhappiness
is to demand only "the best" in everything. He should just learn to read his
books as they are.

~~~
MBCook
Have you used a Kindle? It's not small nitpicking, sometimes they layouts it
makes are laughably bad and hard to read. Basic stuff that anyone who has read
a book would notice at some point and it hasn't been fixed in YEARS.

~~~
peatmoss
Novels on Kindle are bad enough in this regard, but they are head and
shoulders better than anything resembling a textbook--particularly if the
textbook has anything like mathematics or code in it.

I've started seriously contemplating going entirely to scanned, pirated PDFs
and simply mailing the author a check the retail cost of the book. I'd love
for technical books to start rendering PDFs for multiple common ereader screen
sizes. Journal articles are too much to hope for.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I'd love for technical books to start rendering PDFs for multiple common
> ereader screen sizes.

Google Play Books supports having both EPUB and PDF for the same document,
and, I believe, chooses between them based on screen size or other platform
features. I don't think it supports having prerendered pages for different
layouts yet, but certainly the "buy a title, which might have multiple formats
for different devices" thing is already established there, so its not a big
jump to see it being done with more specificity.

~~~
peatmoss
Thank you for this. I know where I'll be buying my next technical e-book from.

