I've always thought that the Kindle was a bit of a stupid idea. I mean, I can see a future where people get their books and magazines electronically and read them on thin electronic tablets or something, but the economics of the Kindle never made any sense to me. You buy a Kindle DX for $490 but then - at least first glance - the books are priced pretty much the same as the paper versions. So you spend close to $500 to get a pretty nice gizmo, but then when you buy these electronic books, you: can't sell them, you don't "own" anything except some non-transferrable electronic bits, and they charge you more or less the same thing as a physical paper copy that you can lend to friends, and take to a used-book store.
That was my view of the Kindle - neat but I don't see the point. So while you read this you have to picture that I went into this "experiment" in electronic media with an inherent substantial negative bias.
But a friend said "This Kindle iPhone app is the one that I use the most. It's great" and I was bored at an airport and decided to use the WiFi there to download this Kindle app to see why my friend was so pleased with it. I'm in Europe for a month, working and vacationing and I've pretty much exhausted my books. I brought along 3 hardcover books - they weigh a fair bit and I'm done reading them. Prospects for more books in English have been rare where I am - so the idea that I could buy and read books on my iPhone intrigued me.
The app is free in the app store. Installation like all iPhone apps is easy. Once you get it up, you switch to a webpage to buy books. A lot of classics are free, and a lot more books are pretty expensive. In the app itself, you get about 24 lines of text per screen (this is adjustable, but I find that changing the font up or down makes things worse from a too-few-words or too-small-letters perspective). The font is easy to read. You buy books on Amazon and they auto-magically appear on my iPhone ? I set it up when I downloaded the free Kindle app and since then they just appear magically about 5-10 minutes after I buy them.
The main criticism that I have of the whole thing is not that it?s hard to read them ? it?s actually pretty readable, and it?s nice to always have a book to read wherever I am. The font is easy to use, to turn the page you just swipe. You can flip back and forth easily. You can go to a specific page using a slider on the bottom. It all works really well - about as user-friendly as it can be. And it's super convienent. If I?m in a store waiting for my wife, I just whip out my phone and start reading. The whole system works really well and the fact that there?s not a lot of words per ?page? is made up for the convenience of the whole thing. I read at night in the hotel room and the lights were out, my wife was asleep next to me and I sat there in the dark reading on my phone and totally lost myself in a book. But that?s the goal, I guess. If you can totally immerse yourself in a book and forget where you are or what you are doing, then that?s a sign the app works? and it definitely does. Also the books are just electrons and are thus essentially weightless ? a nice win when I?m lugging around three hardcover books in my luggage.
My criticism of the Kindle is still the same though ? the books are too expensive. $6 for an electronic copy of a normally-$7 paperback is just stupid. And worse are the ones that are like $14, or $10. It?s almost insulting. It?s nice to go on a trip and read ?Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold!? by Terry Brooks (free), ?Treasure Island? by Robert Louis Stevenson (free), ?Elric: Stealer of Souls? by M. Moorcock (also free) and not carry 3 paperbacks around, but reading then buying a couple of $6 and $10 books makes me feel like I?m being ripped off. Another negative is that their selection is really odd ? they?ll have the 3rd book in a series (I was looking at Tanya Huff?s ?Smoke and Shadows? series but they only have the 3rd and 4th book and not the first? which is just weird), and their pricing is hit or miss in a series - the first might be free, the second $10, the third $6 and the last one $14.
So, my verdict on Kindle for iPhone is that it?s really good and works really well and if they can get all the books on there for under $5 they have a winner. But at $6+ for a book, I?ll only use it while travelling, but, that said, even for $6 I probably will use more in the future while travelling.
That was my view of the Kindle - neat but I don't see the point. So while you read this you have to picture that I went into this "experiment" in electronic media with an inherent substantial negative bias.
But a friend said "This Kindle iPhone app is the one that I use the most. It's great" and I was bored at an airport and decided to use the WiFi there to download this Kindle app to see why my friend was so pleased with it. I'm in Europe for a month, working and vacationing and I've pretty much exhausted my books. I brought along 3 hardcover books - they weigh a fair bit and I'm done reading them. Prospects for more books in English have been rare where I am - so the idea that I could buy and read books on my iPhone intrigued me.
The app is free in the app store. Installation like all iPhone apps is easy. Once you get it up, you switch to a webpage to buy books. A lot of classics are free, and a lot more books are pretty expensive. In the app itself, you get about 24 lines of text per screen (this is adjustable, but I find that changing the font up or down makes things worse from a too-few-words or too-small-letters perspective). The font is easy to read. You buy books on Amazon and they auto-magically appear on my iPhone ? I set it up when I downloaded the free Kindle app and since then they just appear magically about 5-10 minutes after I buy them.
The main criticism that I have of the whole thing is not that it?s hard to read them ? it?s actually pretty readable, and it?s nice to always have a book to read wherever I am. The font is easy to use, to turn the page you just swipe. You can flip back and forth easily. You can go to a specific page using a slider on the bottom. It all works really well - about as user-friendly as it can be. And it's super convienent. If I?m in a store waiting for my wife, I just whip out my phone and start reading. The whole system works really well and the fact that there?s not a lot of words per ?page? is made up for the convenience of the whole thing. I read at night in the hotel room and the lights were out, my wife was asleep next to me and I sat there in the dark reading on my phone and totally lost myself in a book. But that?s the goal, I guess. If you can totally immerse yourself in a book and forget where you are or what you are doing, then that?s a sign the app works? and it definitely does. Also the books are just electrons and are thus essentially weightless ? a nice win when I?m lugging around three hardcover books in my luggage.
My criticism of the Kindle is still the same though ? the books are too expensive. $6 for an electronic copy of a normally-$7 paperback is just stupid. And worse are the ones that are like $14, or $10. It?s almost insulting. It?s nice to go on a trip and read ?Magic Kingdom for Sale: Sold!? by Terry Brooks (free), ?Treasure Island? by Robert Louis Stevenson (free), ?Elric: Stealer of Souls? by M. Moorcock (also free) and not carry 3 paperbacks around, but reading then buying a couple of $6 and $10 books makes me feel like I?m being ripped off. Another negative is that their selection is really odd ? they?ll have the 3rd book in a series (I was looking at Tanya Huff?s ?Smoke and Shadows? series but they only have the 3rd and 4th book and not the first? which is just weird), and their pricing is hit or miss in a series - the first might be free, the second $10, the third $6 and the last one $14.
So, my verdict on Kindle for iPhone is that it?s really good and works really well and if they can get all the books on there for under $5 they have a winner. But at $6+ for a book, I?ll only use it while travelling, but, that said, even for $6 I probably will use more in the future while travelling.
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