Amazon’s new ugly e-book reader
November 19th, 2007 | Published in Books & Reading, Technology | 2 Comments
Kindle is Amazon’s attempt to make an e-reader that someone would want to crawl in bed with. It’s a nice try, but it’s incredibly ugly and clunky looking. They should have worked with the Apple designers, because that thing looks straight out of 1985.
When there is a beautiful leather-bound e-book reader that is intuitive, DRM-free, doesn’t have dozens of buttons, lets me underline words, write in the margins, and doesn’t look like a technological dinosaur, let me know.
Update: I like John Gruber’s conclusion:
So the Kindle proposition is this: You pay for downloadable books that can’t be printed, can’t be shared, and can’t be displayed on any device other than Amazon’s own $400 reader — and whether they’re readable at all in the future is solely at Amazon’s discretion. That’s no way to build a library.
November 19th, 2007 at 4:05 pm (#)
Maybe they are going for the “so ugly it’s hip” thing. If that’s the case, the future may actually look like low-budget sci-fi.
November 21st, 2007 at 8:56 am (#)
The technology isn’t what’s scary. The fact that Google wants to keep you from doing what you like with a book once you’ve bought it — now THAT is scary.
Remember, a century ago book publishers wanted to make it illegal for us to sell our used books. If this wretched device catches on, they’ll have finally got their wish.