Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

Laptop Mag has an excellent review of the Entourage Edge eReader and they add this bit about it missing some features -

A few of the Edge’s hardware features weren’t functional upon initial release, including Bluetooth connectivity and the Webcam.

Future software upgrades will include an app store, Flash Player Lite, and Android 2.0 …

Entourage says that a future model will be sold with 3G built-in.

This ‘missing features to be added via future software upgrades’ thread should sound familiar to owners of the Nook (bug fixes, store offers), the Sony Reader (wireless downloads), and the Kindle (PDF support).

Why do eReaders always have missing features?

 There are lots of reasons, good and bad, for all the missing features -

1. The Kindle is missing some features because Amazon want a closed ecosystem. That’s why PDF support was so late in arriving and why ePub is not supported.
2. The Sony Reader didn’t have wireless downloads for 2 years because Sony couldn’t figure out that users would prefer getting books straight to their eReaders.  
3. The Nook needed multiple upgrades with fixes because it was rushed to market.

This same pattern repeats with the other eReaders available in the market (though they sometimes seem to be missing the last 90% ).

The Last 10% is really difficult to get done

In software development there’s a saying that the last 10% takes up 90% of the time. It’s obviously a bit of an exaggeration – However, it does convey the amount of effort and time taken to polish things up and fix all the bugs and release a great product.

It’s the same with eReaders – getting the last 10% done and done right takes a lot of effort and so far no one’s getting it right. You can take any reading device and there are holes in its value proposition -

1. The iPad doesn’t have eInk or great battery life. 
2. The Kindle isn’t pretty and isn’t open. 
3. The Nook doesn’t have intuitive UI and is still getting its layers of polish.
4. The Sony sacrifices readability for touch.
5. The Que is too expensive.
6. The Entourage Edge (according to Laptop Mag’s review) lacks in battery life, lightness, and misses features.
7. Lots of the cheaper eReaders lack 3G. A few even lack WiFi.
8. The iPhone has a tiny screen and no eInk.

To make things worse eReader technology itself is missing a lot.

The State of eInk makes the last 10% even tougher to get done

Not only is getting the last 10% done difficult it’s almost impossible given the state of eInk. eReaders have to deal with slow page refreshes, lack of color, lack of support for video, and other limitations. It means that a lot of effort goes into working around these drawbacks and that there are hard limits on what eReaders can accomplish.

We might need quite a few improvements in ePaper and eReader technology before companies can hammer out the last 10%. The technology improvements might actually be necessary so it’s good to know that by the end of the year we ought to have color ePaper and other advances.

eReaders that will get everything right seem a fairy tale given the current status quo. However, we are just in the second generation of reading devices.

The Third Generation of eReaders will get the last 10%

In a way every eReader and every eReader feature is just part of a test – to figure out what the ideal eReader is and how to create it.

Take all the feedback from owners of various devices, the data on user behavior, and sales data from various eReaders and eBook stores - It’s all data that can be leveraged to improve eReaders. The third generation of eReaders will not only have this data they will benefit from economies of scale and from the new generation of ePaper technology.

Two plus years of testing and experimenting and it sets the stage for a third generation eReader that blows everyone away.

Which eReader will be the magic one?

Reading the Entourage Edge review is interesting because you realize that it came pretty close to being the surprise winner of the ‘best $500 eReader’ crown.

There’s nothing stopping a completely new eReader from taking the ‘best $250 eReader’ crown?

While the Kindle 3 is the favorite you could have a completely new eReader or a secret Google eReader or the Nook 2 or the next Sony Reader win out. It’s still wide open and that’s perhaps the biggest sign that the current generation of eReaders have a lot of improving to do.

Contrasting Philosophies and a way to bypass the last 10%

It’s worth noting that Amazon with their kaizen philosophy probably don’t think of the last 10% as much as some other companies.

1. The last 10% is more of a Steve Jobs thing to do – to make sure a product is very, very polished and almost perfect at launch. It might still take 3 generations to perfect (like the iPod) – However, the level of polish is very impressive and sometimes the first or second generation gets it right.
2. Amazon follows a Kaizen philosophy which means you get something out that’s merely good (as opposed to excellent) and then keep improving it until it first matches and then exceeds the super polished competitor. That’s how Japanese car companies did it and that’s how Amazon plan on doing it.

This contrast in philosophies is very important – It probably means that the Kindle may lose its position for a bit but it will keep improving and might eventually put a lot of distance between itself and other eReaders. Apple don’t really care about reading but if they did create a dedicated eReader it would be fascinating to see Apple’s obsession with perfection take on Amazon’s obsession with never-ending improvement.

The last 10% – that’s the only thing standing between eReaders and mass adoption.

Filed under: eBook Reader Devices Tagged: | ereader perfection, ideal ereader, lack thereof