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Monday, July 27, 2009

Tech / Books Today in Kindle-News

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 1:24 PM

I highly recommend you read Nicholson Baker's review of the Kindle in the New Yorker. It's a little grumpy-old-man, but that's very Bakerish—"Everybody was saying that the new Kindle was terribly important—that it was an alpenhorn blast of post-Gutenbergian revalorization."

The robo-reader had a polite, halting, Middle European intonation, like Tom Hanks in “The Terminal,” and it was sometimes confused by periods. Once it thought “miss.” was the abbreviation of a state name: “He loved the chase, the hunt, the split-second intersection of luck and skill that allowed him to exercise his perfection, his inability to Mississippi.” I turned the machine off.

He explores the history of e-ink and compares the Kindle to the iPhone. It's a funny, smart article, and the list of titles unavailable on Kindle is an eye-opener, too.

The other big new in the e-reader field is that publishers are approaching Apple about having an e-reader prominently included as part of Apple's alleged upcoming tablet computer.

"It would be a colour, flat-panel TV to the old-fashioned, black and white TV of the Kindle," one publishing executive said.

Comments (9) RSS

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I've read using the Kindle reader on the iPhone and using an actual Kindle, and there's no way in hell I'd want any e-book that wasn't based on e-ink technology. I can read for hours on a Kindle, but about fifteen minutes on the iPhone reader was enough to fatigue me. It would likely be better on a tablet computer, but e-ink really is much better for extended reading. And don't get me started on those idiotic swipe gestures.

Posted by jjb on July 27, 2009 at 2:10 PM

"It would be a colour, flat-panel TV to the old-fashioned, black and white TV of the Kindle," one publishing executive said.

Which is exactly why it will fail. He realizes there is a reason Amazon uses e-ink, right? They have repeatedly said color e-ink is a couple years out still, so I don't know what else he could be referring to.

Posted by vailripper on July 27, 2009 at 2:18 PM

...and if the Apple tablet computer is still using LCD technology it will be just as bad as reading documents on my computers is now. The reason I bought a kindle was the electrophoretic display technology. I fully realized its limitations before buying, and yeah, there are improvements to be made. But it's a young technology, while LCDs are getting to be a mature technology, which means that "electronic ink/paper" have much more room for improvement.

If you've never found yourself reading a long PDF off a computer screen and you don't travel frequently with a bag full of books, then maybe the Kindle isn't for you. Yes, I have reservations about Amazon as a company - that's the main drawback to the Kindle, not its technology - but why declare war on it? I'm not singlehandedly responsible for keeping independent bookstores in business, and despite owning a Kindle I probably spend more than most people at them anyway, since I read 5-10 books a month.

Posted by gember on July 27, 2009 at 2:19 PM

Get a horse, Baker.

The first three commenters sum up my feelings exactly.

Posted by Karla

on July 27, 2009 at 2:30 PM

I like Nicholson Baker, but I just got my Kindle in the mail today. So far? Erm, mixed. E-ink rocks; the page layout blows. Searching (one of the main reasons I got it) is, so far at least, incredibly shitty, the worst I've ever seen (it's as bad as Acrobat Reader search). I bought a reference book for it that I will never ever use (because I can't).

I have this weird feeling that e-readers will in fact have a mildly revolutionary impact on writing, but it will be a negative one. I hope I"m wrong.

Posted by Fnarf

on July 27, 2009 at 3:22 PM

I've probably complained about this before, but why o why does the New Yorker put titles of books and TV shows in quotes rather than italics? Contrary sonsabitches.

Posted by Levislade

on July 27, 2009 at 4:46 PM

An Apple tablet would probably be fine for reading on. (All of this eye-strain nonsense - is the Slog demographic strictly geezers?)

The problem is battery life: E-ink needs zero power to statically display a page; it needs it only to draw a new one. I doubt you could finish a novel on this mythical Apple tablet without a recharge.

Posted by Free Lunch on July 27, 2009 at 5:34 PM

Even children suffer eyestrain, Free Lunch. And it's not about "strain" so much as "work"; your eyes simply have to do more work to resolve laptop screens. This has all been tested out the wazoo; it's not just some geezer saying "dur, I doan like it". There are similar differences between different fonts, for instance CAPITAL LETTERS are harder (and slower) to read because the forms are much less distinctive. Serifs read faster than sans-serifs, for text blocks for the same reason.

Posted by Fnarf

on July 27, 2009 at 6:01 PM

Computer screens (unlike e-ink displays) also emit a certain light spectrum that inhibits sleep. That's why you can be surfing the net well into the wee hours of the night without even realizing it, but fall asleep naturally while reading a book (unless it's a really exciting book).

Might not seem like a huge difference, but e-ink really does have a more natural feel to it than a regular digital display.

Posted by Karla

on July 27, 2009 at 8:26 PM