Why can’t you buy other Amazon products from it?
There’s no reason for it to not have an Amazon shopping app that lets you browse through Amazon and buy products.
Why can’t you chat with other Kindle owners?
Wouldn’t adding a social aspect to reading ebooks be a really good feature? There’s lots Kindle owners have in common. We can get recommendations, share stuff, and in general connect with similar people.
Why isn’t the keyboard better?
Given that the Kindle’s screen is 9 out of 10 for reading its surprising that the keyboard and keyboard related interface is a 5 out of 10 for taking down notes. The real estate is there to have bigger keys and there are lots of ways to make note-taking easier. It makes sense to improve the note-taking abilities.
Why isn’t there an app store yet?
Amazon have said they’ll be adding an App Store at some point of time. There are lots of directions in which developers would take the device and perhaps some of those are bad directions. However, users get to choose whether or not they want to go.
There are lots of features that a subset of Kindle owners really want and that Amazon will never get to that independent developers would probably deliver. Not only do Amazon get lots of people working on adding Kindle features for free, they also make money off of every single purchase.
Why isn’t there better font support?
There are lots and lots and lots of people who would buy the Kindle if it supported Unicode fonts. Additionally, people would not have to use hacks and such to get Unicode font working on their Kindles. Hacks that they have to uninstall and reinstall every time there’s a new Kindle firmware update.
Amazon are losing sales every day because it doesn’t support more languages and its time they addressed it. How big of a fix could it be?
Why is the Kindle DX still at its launch price of $489?
Since it’s launch the Kindle 2 has seen a steady drop in price and an addition in features including rotation support and PDF support - two of the supposed pluses of the Kindle DX. The Kindle DX has also seen most of the features added to the Kindle 2. However, it’s price hasn’t dropped at all. It’s over a year and you have to start wondering when Amazon are going to cut the Kindle DX’s price.
You also have a slew of tablet devices and large screen smartphones coming in that offer a lot of value for money and make a $489 dedicated reading device seem overpriced.
Why is there only one Font?
There is the simplicity argument and it’s a beautiful font – However, one font leaves the user with no choice.
Perhaps someone likes sans-serif. Perhaps someone has a favorite font. Perhaps people are tired of seeing the same font. There might be authors who have a specific font in mind for their book and there might be reasons users want separate fonts for separate types of reading.
Caecilia by herself isn’t enough (even if she is breaking my heart).
Why aren’t there more keyboard shortcuts?
It’s nice to have Alt+B for setting bookmarks and Alt+G for refreshing the screen to remove ghosting. It would have been nice to have a shortcut for changing font size, one for screen rotation, and one for search. There are a lot of keys on that keyboard plus a Shift and an Alt key.
Amazon could and should make things faster by adding in a bunch of keyboard shortcuts.
Why aren’t there Page Numbers?
Yes, we all know the page sizes are dynamic and it would be really difficult to have Page Numbers. Here’s a simple solution – Tag the first and last words on a page and use those tags to list page numbers. If a page on the Kindle is a mix – simply write it as ‘Page 26, 27 of 312′.
Locations are a technically smart solution and they totally throw people off. Isn’t the aim making things simple for users. Everywhere Amazon shines at this and yet with Page Numbers they totally miss it.
Why haven’t Kindle 3 and Kindle DX 2 been released yet?
Amazon are fighting against the latest technology with a Kindle 2 that is 1.5 years old and a Kindle DX that is a year old. Even eInk/PVI should have been able to manage some eInk screen technology advances in that much time.
It’s great to see an awesome Kindle 2.5 release with Folders and supersize fonts and features that the Press can twitter about. However, the hardware is due for an upgrade too. Kindle 3 needs to arrive soon and it needs to make a big impression.
Filed under: kindle Tagged: | kindle 2 thoughts, kindle thoughts
It’s undignified that whoever is writing these posts is making mistakes with it’s and its. Talk about fancy fonts is fine, but essentially the Kindle is all about reading and writing, so let’s get the details right. Somebody proofread, please.
There was one it’s instead of its.
Here’s the process I use –
1) Think through the structure
2) Write
3) Re-read while writing to check flow.
4) Spell-check using the attached spell checker.
5) Publish
6) Re-read and change flow and structure as needed.
There are almost always mistakes the spell checker catches and there are always mistakes when reading the published post. It’s the nature of the beast.
It’s rather cruel of you to point out a single mistake – There are 30+ hours of writing almost every single week on the blog.
My British English background means that you’ll obviously get upset at colour/color and is/are and a few other things. In that case or if one mistake in a 1000+ word post bothers you so much please abstain from reading the blog. It is your free will after all.
Reading IReaderReview.com made me a Kindle and e-book enthusiast; it also made me buy a Kindle and read many more books. Even after I had to sell my Kindle, I still read this blog every day. I think pointing out a single grammar mistake and not recognizing the many hours of work and research is ludicrous. Keep up the great work Switch11!
I think Lisa needs some Xanax. It is entirely possible that switch11′s apostrophe finger had a spasm or something.
I truly care more about what switch11 has to say than his/her typing skills.
These are all excellent points being raised. I thought I was the only one wondering about some of these questions.
It dawned on me this morning that it is quite possible that there was supposed to be a manual with my Kindle. I feel like I have been flapping in the breeze trying to figure out how to access more of my Kindle’s capabilities.
Let’s not confujse the issues. Switch11′s blog is absolutely brilliant–on target and consistently informative. On the other hand, if the grammar were fine and the apostrophe finger free of spasm’s, he’d be perfect.Bless you all.
I was shocked when I wanted to buy a specific book as a gift for my cousin, who has a Kindle. The way I figured it would work, I would pay for the Kindle download, but specify my cousin’s name and email. She would then get an email message with a link she she could download the book.
But no can do. And what makes this so shocking to me is that Amazon is a leader in etailing (that’s number 1) and (number 2) you can do precisely this at the iTunes store. You can buy a song or set of songs for someone else, they get the email, click on the link, and the songs are downloaded to their library.
Jeff Bezos — you’ll fight with Apple over price points and publishers’ msrp, but you won’t let me give someone a book for her Kindle? Not cool, buddy.
Some of those are good questions, but I hope Amazon stays far away from page numbers.
Locations keep it simple and far more easier to cite should e-books become incredibly prevalent or standard in the future, Page numbers are such a short-sighted solution.
Plays have used locations forever. They just call them lines. And no matter what edition of Hamlet anyone has they could easily follow along thanks to those lines.
Pages just don’t make sense in this day and age.
This article seems like a whine to me. I wanted a reader, bought a reader, and love my reader. If I wanted a bunch of bells and whistles, I would buy the I-Pad. I did, however, learn a couple of things….like for instance that Alt+G will refresh the screen. Like Chris, I am now wondering if there is a manual that explains all the little tricks. Is there?
Check out my post on Kindle Tips and its follow-in which have 90+ tips.