All this mucking through Kindle 2 reviews and previews, and reading the Kindle 2 User Guide has given me a pretty good idea of what I’d like to see in Kindle 3. Here’s a Kindle 3 Feature WishList while these thoughts are still fresh in my head. Leave your own suggestions and I’ll work them in -
- Folders.
- Screen Improvements via one out of – Colour eInk or TouchScreen.
- Kindle App Store.
- Bigger Screen – at least 8″, and ideally 9″.
- Kindle Mobile working flawlessly between Kindle, Kindle 2, Kindle 3, cell phones, and netbooks.
- A section of the Kindle Store devoted to Self Published authors.
- $9.99 Price Point preserved.
- New Content Types – Podcasts, Radio, MicroNews and MicroRadio.
- Kindle 3 in various colours. Definitely Red + Pink for the ladies, and Black for me. Also, Blue would be nice.
- A design that is – well, pretty or sexy.
- Get back the SD card slot or some other memory extension slot or mechanism.
- A price point less than $300, and ideally $250. $350 is OK if its a colour screen.
- PDF Support.
- An in-built social network. Including book reviews and book clubs.
- Screen Improvements such as faster refreshes.
Overall, the single biggest thing I’m looking for is a feature or an application that makes Kindle 3 a JUMP, and not just an incremental update. Towards that end, a combination of any 2 or more of these features would constitute such a jump for me -
- Colour eInk.
- Kindle App Store, with a lot of flexibility.
- Some major advances in Kindle Mobile.
- An in-built Social Network.
- A sub $250 price.
- Something really cool that I haven’t thought of.
And, of course, there is the borderline chance that there is a single sufficiently cool feature or a huge technological advance that would all by itself make Kindle 3 absolutely amazing – At the moment, I can’t think what that could be.
Filed under: kindle 3
How about some sort of “all you can read” subscription service from Amazon, where you pay a flat rate per month, and can check out (to your Kindle) any book they have in their digital library? I’d be very interested in such a feature. I guess the question is whether this would make business sense to Amazon.
…and as previously noted, the return of the split keyboard.
SD slot and user-servicable battery, thats all i care about. i dont care if the kindle 3 can read my books to me, cook me dinner, and fellate me all at the same time for the low low price of 10 dollars, if it hasnt got expandable memory and a user-servicable battery, im not buying one.
My suggestion is more about the Kindle store…although I like being able to “request a Kindle version of this book” to the publisher, I wish that I could add that requested book to a wish list and be notified when the Kindle version is available. That way, I don’t have to keep all those emails and sticky notes of books that have been recommended by friends! FYI, I’m sticking with Kindle 1 for now.
Cut and paste of selected text, and the ability to plug it into emails, etc.
And the ability to more easily modify those crummy screen-savers. How about if Amazon included nice pictures of the authors you’re actually reading, so they’d be automatically set to appear on your screen saver.
I know this is not strictly a hardware issue, but support for Kindle outside the US should be their first priority.
The PDF support and USB or SD memory slot are critical. As long as Amazon wants to keep this proprietary it will not be adopted broadly (think Betamax.) As soon as they add that PDF support and connectivity it will become the true E-Book reader they dream it can be. And Amazon’s ordering system will be native on every one. Isn’t that enough for them?
Hello,
I just got my Kindle II. Love it!
I’m 66 and my wife bought it for me because I love to read but book type sizes are hard for me to focus on. The Kindle’s large font feature sold it to us.
For Kindle III I’d like to see ….
1. Optional owner’s contact information on first screen after wake-up. (Name, address, telephone #, etc.)
2. Optional Password protection on first screen after wake-up so a “found” Kindle can’t be used by the “finder”.
3. A larger screen. (There’s plenty of room.)
4. Larger buttons for us old folks with tired eyes..
I made a .jpg image of what I’d like to see and will be happy to email it to you.
Thanks for the forum.
Frank Del Monte
info@AzBritBikes.com
[...] post details Kindle design issues – you can also check out a Kindle 3 Feature WishList. Do leave your [...]
I’d love a backlighting feature that can be turned on & off for reading in the dark.
Read in the dark? Why? Do you normally read books in the dark? The kindle is supposed to be a replacement for a paper book, not a computer screen.
Okay… kidding aside, what I’d want is not an electronic book reader at all, but a document reader that has a *FULL* letter-sized display (ie, 14″ diagonal), and can view documents supplied by the user (in pdf format). I read several hundred pages or so, sometimes as much as a thousand pages, of material every month that has been formatted for that size and go through like amounts of paper because a computer screen, even an lcd screen, I find to be straining on the eyes, where epaper displays are as comfortable to read as regular paper. Sure, I recycle all of it, but I’d really rather not have to print it up at all. I think that the reason a computer screen is hard on my eyes is because it emits more light than what the eye pupils are actually dilated to accommodate (because the eyes tend to dilate to a size amenable to ambient lighting, since they are more accustomed to observing reflected light than emitted). A 6″ and even a 10″ display are simply too small.
The Kindle 1 screen size is just fine with me, I don’t want to carry around a larger device. But I would like it to be able to display the text sideways so the lines run in the long direction.
I just got my Kindle 2 and love it. The only thing I can think of would be some kind of side light for reading at night in the car or in bed so as not to disturb the husband. Yes, I read in the dark.
I liked Frank Del Monte’s ideas, esp. the optional password and owner info ideas.
[...] end of the post) that has a To Do list for Kindle 3 and ebook designers and combining that with my Kindle 3 Wishlist and looking at [...]
Backlighting option is mandatory for me. Why on earth should an add on light device be needed for an electronic device? Backlight it or build in a lamp (which goes into sleep mode after I do.
and the Kindle will be on its way to my house. (And, yes, I like reading in the dark on my iPod touch Kindle app.)
Also, build in a skin so a folio cover isn’t needed…I would probably buy one anyway, but I like the safety of a skin.