Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

The recent focus of companies on saving us from eReaders that do nothing except reading makes me wonder what eReaders can do to improve the value proposition they offer.

Is there a Super eReader?

Something that could save us from the magnanimity of the tech giants that would save us misled souls.

Can Reading on eReaders be made better?

This is an easy question to answer – Yes. A Lot.

1. We can improve the screen contrast. Whiter Backgrounds. Darker eInk. 
2. The screen refresh rate can be improved a lot.
3. Color can be added.
4. We can allow for more font sizes and perhaps a sliding scale.
5. The ability to bold fonts, change anti-aliasing, and change fonts.
6. We can get better resolution with more dots per inch.

It’s interesting to think that despite the rudimentary stage of eInk technology we have still had the rise of ebooks and eReaders.

Can eReaders be improved?

In the last 5-6 months we’ve seen a ton of improvements and price-cuts. However, there are still a lot of improvements that can be done -

1. Price of eInk screens and eReaders themselves can be cut further.
2. We could improve on the whole formats mess.
3. Better retail presence. eReaders are not promoted the way computers and cellphones are.
4. Better Starting Experience i.e. more ebooks loaded, better guides.
5. Better accessibility – read to me menus, etc.

Accessibility is perhaps the most interesting area because it greatly increases the market size for ereaders – making all ebooks available to people who earlier had limited or no access to these titles.

Just Accessibility might increase the eReader market by 25% or more.

Can Reading be expanded?

Here are some of the areas reading can be expanded to -

1. Textbooks.
2. Newspapers.
3. Magazines.  
4. Blogs.
5. Business and Work use. 

By expand I don’t mean simply to start selling content from these sources – No.

Expand means to design eReader features and software and even dedicated eReaders focused on each of these areas.

Magazines perhaps are better suited to color screens. However, all the other areas work well with eInk – They just need devices more tailored to them and their use cases than the current eReaders.

Take the Kindle DX - the current ’textbook and newspaper ereader’.

1. It has no textbook or newspaper specific feature in the software except PDF support and rudimentary accelerometer use.  
2. The big differentiator in hardware is the 9.7″ screen (and to a small extent the accelereometer). There are no other physical hardware changes specific to newspapers. 
3. No using accelerometer to get tilt scrolling or any other effect.
4. No advanced note-taking or study group features.
5. No newspaper specific software that displays articles in a more intelligent way?

Of course, it’s usually the third version of a product that will get all the elements right. 

So we really need to get to the third versions of eReaders that focus on one or two of these areas.

Is it worth it to build an eReader that has hardware and software tailored specifically to newspapers?

Yes. Its a $25 billion a year market so a dedicated device isn’t too much to ask.

Killer features for Reading

There are already a few killer features related to reading that have been introduced i.e.

1. Text to Speech.
2. Audiobooks (something paper books didn’t have). 
3. Wikipedia Access.
4. Search (although it’s not done particularly well).
5. Wireless Downloads.
6. Carrying all your ebooks everywhere with you. 

There are other features that ought to be considered -

1. Speech To Text.
2. Better Annotations.  
3. Collaborative Annotations.
4. Social Reading Features. 
5. A lot more.

Can writing be bundled with reading?

This is another big, big possibility i.e. provide the writing on paper aspect in addition to the reading from paper aspect.

It’s a very logical direction for eReaders to go in – Writing goes hand in hand with reading..

Writing would help a lot -

1. It would have to include handwriting recognition and a keyboard or some other really fast way to write.
2. Schools and Colleges would benefit a lot from eReaders/eNotebooks.
3. Work settings would benefit too.
4. It allows a level of interaction with the device (and with ebooks) that is missing right now.

The user input methods so far are rather primitive i.e. awkward touch based notes and scribbling on the Sony Reader and slow keyboard based input on the Kindle.

The screen refresh rate of eInk also makes writing a bit difficult.

Are there enough features and add-ons to create a much improved eReader?

Yes. Definitely.

Will it be enough to fight off multi-purpose devices? Perhaps.

This really is what Amazon and perhaps even Barnes and Noble and Sony will do – try to improve eReaders to the point that their specialization for reading and writing makes them far superior to any multi-purpose device.

By 2011 we should have a really good idea of who is going to win out.

Filed under: evolution Tagged: | the evolution of books