

Amazon shows off Kindle app for iPad - pinstriped_dude
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/amazon-shows-off-kindle-for-ipad/

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AndrewWarner
Looks great. I bought a lot of books on the Kindle for iPhone so I'm happy to
see that they platform is alive and growing.

But I'd also like to see Amazon create apps for other devices. I can't change
phones easily because too few of them have a Kindle app.

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awolf
Doesn't this "duplicate functionality of one of Apple's apps"?

I smell a storm coming.

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glhaynes
Not a built-in app: iBooks is an App Store app.

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MikeCapone
Looks good. Makes me wish even more that Amazon had been able to keep the
$9.99 pricing on ebooks. At that price, I'd probably buy many ebooks. But for
50% more, the public library will still be my #1 choice.

~~~
roc
I don't mind the higher prices, but they do need to add features to
compensate.

$10 was a hard-sell because it was only available on platforms Amazon feels
like supporting, only has the features Amazon feels like supporting (no
search? no annotation?) can't be lent, can't be resold/gifted/donated, etc.

FairPlay is (slightly) more consumer-friendly as a DRM package, but I'm still
bound to the 'blessed' apps of the service, the features and platforms they
feel like supporting, still can't resell/gift/donate, etc.

Again, it's not price that keeps me away from most ebooks. It's
price/performance. I still buy a few. Here and there. But I'm not building a
library of the things the way I have with mp3 and h264.

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pilif
Let's see... I'm willing to bet that Apple will not approve the app for the
iPad. After all, they now provide their own ebook reader and we all know their
stance about third-party apps duplicating functionality that's already
available on the device.

Maybe they'll even remove the existing iPhone app because that would run on
the iPad too.

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glhaynes
The stance about third-party apps duplicating functionality has always
referred to functionality of the device's built-in software. iBooks is a
(free) App Store app and does not come preloaded on the iPad.

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zandorg
The Kindle software is absolutely awful. It's slow - you can list 4 bookmarks
and it takes 20 seconds, and the same goes for substring search (buggy AND
slow). Also, the system has a 534MHZ CPU but because it's Java running on top
of Linux, it's a dog. I only got one for the screen and because it lets you
upload a book in open formats (unlike the Sony and Nook devices).

As a point of interest, I wrote a text ebook reader for my Psion 3/5 which was
written in OPL and reformatted text automatically. Interesting, because it ran
faster than the Kindle can on a 8 or 12 MHZ CPU with very little memory.

Kindle also extremely lacks options, like different fonts, text that goes to
the edge (no border), no justify on/off (on by default), and so on.

My point is that _I_ can write a better ebook reader than Amazon, on a device
with a tiny amount of CPU and memory, and it's shameful that the Kindle
software is SO awful.

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stashdot
I think it's more to do with eInk than anything else.

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ghshephard
I've been waiting for _precisely_ this application for about 12+ months (I'm a
K1, K2, and Kindle-on-iPhone User).

The Kindle E-Ink is _the_ platform to read books outdoors, by the beach,
anywhere it's really sunny - you just can't do better (it outperforms paper -
less glare).

But, for anywhere you need backlighting (Bed, Dark Trains) - The Kindle is a
less than exciting performer. Even my little book lights are problematic - the
sun works fine, but the little LED lights tend to put point glare on the
Kindle screen. I always end up reading books on my iPhone, which is _almost_
acceptable - iPad will blow it all away.

My hope now is that people like Oreilly will start offering their kindle books
at a reasonable price. I _already_ have all their books on paper, paying $30+
dollars for the Kindle Version is painful)

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MichaelGG
I've heard a few people complain about the low-light scenarios and was worried
about it. However when I got a good LED light with a long neck, I found it was
trivial to position it far enough to the side so there'd be no glare.

~~~
ghshephard
Hallelujah - Even though I have my iPad on order (and reserved, just for good
measure) - and will hopefully be in reading bliss in 12 days, I would _kill_
to get a decent book light for my Kindles. I've gone through three of them,
and even with a difuser (which was a hack), I always ended up having to try
and read _around_ that one stupid glare point on the screen. I finally gave up
and switched to my iPhone for dark light reading.

So, share - which LED light are you using, and do you have a diffuser or any
after-market modifications to it?

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MichaelGG
Wierd :\ I just got the first one I found:
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002CMLDT6/ref=oss_product>

The neck is long enough that if I put it off to the left, I get nice solid
illuminiation with no glare spots. (And I'm pretty sensitive to this kind of
stuff.)

Note you do need to move the light far over to the left for it to be OK. In
practise I've never found it to be a hindrance.

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pasbesoin
Whether or not it's approved, it seems this may well "pay" for itself in terms
of PR.

The article notes:

 _You can adjust "paper" color_

I wish that Safari Online offered this feature. Reading extensively from a
transmissive (or strongly lighted reflective) white background is tiring. I'd
welcome the ability to tint the background to something more tolerable
(preferably a user-defined setting).

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vaporstun
On a Mac you can hit CTRL-OPTION-CMD 8 to invert your screen. I do this often
when I want to read with a darker background. It inverts everything so images
look awful, but it is a really easy way to make some things easier to read.

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pasbesoin
I spend a lot of my day on a Windows machine. There's an AutoHotKey script
("Ghoster") that tints (by default, with a medium gray) all but the focused
window -- as a means of lessening distraction. I haven't tried writing any AHK
scripting, but now that I think of it, it shouldn't be too hard (?) to adapt
it to instead tint (with a lighter shade) the focused window. Since it paints
over everything, it should affect the Safari Flash widget.

I supposed I could instead park the Safari browser window in the background,
but that would be kind of a pain with regard to usability.

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aditya
The app looks amazing. However, I think this will be the Google Voice of the
iPad. Under review ad infinitum, always possible never approved :-)

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rglullis
_Still, the effort Amazon seems to have put in show that it is clearly focused
on selling books, not the hardware the books are read on. That the app is
almost certain to make it into the App store shows that the reverse is true
with Apple: it wants the iPad to be the go-to media device, whatever that
media may be._

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aditya
Yeah - but "almost certain to make it" is not the same as "made it", you know?
Not being cynical, just basing my opinion on previous actions on Apple's part.

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rglullis
It's a completely different scenario from Google Voice. Apple's rejection of
Google Voice has more to do with AT&T than anything. Google Voice was a
substitute product for AT&T call plans, therefore not good for AT&T.

iPads and e-books are complementary products. Amazon doesn't care how many
Kindles are sold, as long as they keep selling books. Apple doesn't care how
many e-books are sold, as long as they keep selling iPads.

Want to take a bet that the Kindle App will be approved?

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aditya
No bet really, don't have enough data to decide ;-)

Apple is building a bookstore, analogous to the iTunes music store. Google
Voice was a poor analogy on my part, a better analogy would be an app that was
rejected for trying to sell music or ape the iPod functionality on the iPhone.
Sure, apple wants to sell more devices (razor/blade analogy) but they're also
very anal about protecting their monopolies.

But anyway, at this point this debate is pure conjecture so we're gonna just
have to hold out till the iPad comes out and the app gets approved :-)

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rimantas

      Apple is building a bookstore, analogous to the iTunes
      music store.
    

Does not matter. Apple has ITMS bet they never did try to stop anyone loading
iPods with the music no matter what source of that music was. Same will be
true for iPad — it does not matter where content comes from, as long as it
helps to sell more hardware.

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zacclark
It's interesting how many articles have quotes like these

    
    
      but it also sends Amazon’s own grayscale-only hardware to the back of the line
    

that lack any consideration for the positives of Amazon's decision to have an
E-ink screen. For many people who bought the Kindle, the insanely good
contrast, even in areas with direct sunlight, is a must have.

Also, I'd like to see an iPad last for a month without charging.

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anonjon
I think that the idea that Amazon is selling hardware is missing the point
entirely. A lot of the time companies _lose_ money selling hardware (ex. the
price to produce a PC is more than the selling price... they make up for it by
being paid to put 'trial' software on the windows install).

So, in parallel, amazon doesn't really give a crap about whether they sell a
ton of kindles. What they care about is that the amazon _kindle store_ makes a
crap-ton of money. If everyone goes out and buys an ipad, and "kindle on ipad"
is a killer app for ipad, amazon ends up making way more money than they would
trying to match their own hardware against Apple's.

I'm an avid reader and I got the DX when it came out (it is freaking sweet).
I'd probably be too distracted/eye-strained reading on a tablet PC for the
number of hours that I do. (I realize that I am an outlier, however).

My one complaint is that there are actually a lot of books that I cannot get
for the kindle, and it is hard to take notes in the margin so I end up reading
certain books on dead trees. (Maybe the ipad touch screen will make it easier
to do margin notes?)

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sliverstorm
Amazon looses if backlit screens beat the kindle and other e-ink screens.
People don't read voluminous quantities on a backlit screen; it's hard on the
eyes. Amazon will sell more books if the main platform has an e-ink screen,
because people will read less if they are using a backlit screen- imho. (this
is if we hold the user base constant across devices)

It's true, it's not a total loss if the iPad dominates yet the kindle app is
popular, but it's not the ideal scenario.

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potatolicious
Isn't this the same philosophy people had about the video games industry for a
long time?

It's proven that "hardcore" gamers buy a lot more games than casual gamers,
and that they are far easier to sell related merchandise and subscription to.

Yet, the success of the Wii has proven that the sheer _size_ of the casual
demographic more than makes up for the fact that they buy fewer of your
products.

There will always be the hardcore, voracious readers, but I'm not convinced
that it's not worthwhile to go after the casual readers who might only read
2-3 books in a whole year.

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sliverstorm
First, I am aware of that and was not discussing that part- the holding user
base equal bit

Second, I suspect even the casual readers would read less.

