Further Thoughts on Amazon’s Kindle App
I’ve been reading on my iPod touch for a few days now, and following my hands-on article, I have some further thoughts on the iPod reading experience. I’ve finished the first book I bought, and I found that I quickly “forgot” that I was reading on an iPod. The crispness of the type makes it a pleasure to read. The ability to change the type size is a welcome feature for my aging eyes, which need reading glasses anyway. And the lightness of the iPod touch, as compared to most paper books is a big plus (I’m currently reading, in paperback, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, volume VII, a nearly-1000-page paperback, which is not only bulky, but hard to hold open enough to read.) Having books in such a small device is an advantage over some books, especially long, heavy ones.
I would like to see, on the iPod, a choice of fonts. Since the device contains multiple fonts, it would be trivial to do this – in fact, many other reader apps offer choices of font type. I’m not sure that other reading settings need to be user-changeable: one app, called Stanza, lets you change the font size in tiny increments (via a slider), and also lets you change the outside margins and the line spacing. I find that, on the Kindle, these are well balanced, and shouldn’t be changed. In fact, I find that the Kindle’s display settings – even though there are only five font sizes – are more readable than Stanza’s. It might be a good idea to provide access to the iPod’s brightness setting from within the Kindle app; I find that most times when I read, if it’s not during the day, I need to change it.
I’m currently reading a second book: Julian Barnes’ Nothing to be Frightened Of, a short book of Barnes’ philosophical musings on mortality. It’s a different type of book from the first, a thriller, and I had originally thought that it would be “easier” to read less serious books on the iPod. But I’ve found that it makes no difference. I think I’ve made the conceptual leap that allows me to read books on the device – some readers will be more stubborn – and I could read just about anything.
I did mention the issue of price for books in mass market paperback that are sold in Kindle format for the same price as paper. That is something that Amazon should correct. There’s no reason that you should pay the same price for any book as its paper equivalent. Clearly a single-price structure – $9.99 for most hardcovers – is a Good Thing, but not having a drop in price for paperbacks (sold at $7.99) will probably keep voracious readers from using the Kindle or its iPod/iPhone app. When readers have to pay a premium for the ebook – most mass market paperbacks are available at a discount, even if Amazon doesn’t discount them – they won’t choose that route. One thing I won’t have to do, though, is buy books in advance. I currently have a huge pile (well, several piles), of books to read. With the Kindle app, I can get a book in seconds, instead of waiting days or weeks for books to come in the mail. This will mean that not only can I buy books when I need them, but I can choose the exact book I want to read, rather than only choose from my to-be-read pile.
All in all, I’m truly impressed. I initially thought the screen size would be a problem, but it just means I swipe pages more quickly than I would with a larger screen. While I think a device with a larger screen would probably be better, and help with adoption, the small size and limited weight of the iPod are an advantage. However, the Kindle device is expensive ($359), and, while its e-paper is very good, and makes reading outdoors easy, there’s one thing that I saw in Amazon’s presentation video that bothers me: when you switch pages, the screen flashes; it goes to a negative (white text on a black background) before it goes to the next page. This may be something inherent in the technology – maybe the e-paper needs to get zapped to change the text. But it looks very disturbing. On the other hand, the Kindle lets you also read newspapers and magazines, and I would consider buying one for that reason alone. Converting some of my magazine subscriptions to digital would save money, make for quicker delivery, save paper, and be all-around more flexible. However, it would mean that when my wife wants to read, say, Time magazine, she’d need to take my Kindle. I don’t know how it works if you have multiple devices, if you can sync the same content to both (the way iTunes lets you put music on multiple iPods or computers).
In any case, while I won’t be doing all my reading on my iPod, it is now part of my arsenal of tools, and I’ll be regularly buying Kindle books. If any readers have an actual Kindle device, chime in in the comments with your thoughts.
Get books for your Kindle app from Amazon.com
