Kindle and ebook reader notes

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Kindle and ebook reader notes

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The basics

Kindle 2

  • The Kindle 2 became available on February 24, 2009--exclusively from Amazon.com for US$359.00. (Outstanding Kindle 1 orders were automatically upgraded to the new device.)
  • Physical changes from Kindle 1: 8"x5.3"x0.36"--slightly taller, same width, about one-quarter thinner. 10.2 ounces--marginally lighter. The back is metal and the corners are rounded.
  • Screen: Same size and resolution as the Kindle 1 (6" diagonal, 600x800 pixel resolution, 167 ppi) but 16-level gray scale instead of 4-level gray scale.
  • Battery life: Asserted to be up to four days with wireless on, up to two weeks with wireless off (presumably considerably less if music and text-to-speech features are used).
  • Control changes: The page-turning buttons are much smaller and should yield fewer accidental page changes, one of the strongest criticisms of the Kindle 1. A new five-way navigation controller may improve navigation.
  • Other changes: Page-turning is claimed to be 20% faster than the Kindle 1. The device has 2GB internal storage of which 1.4GB is available for content, as compared to 180MB in the Kindle 1--but the SD expansion slot has disappeared. Amazon claims more extensive U.S. wireless coverage (but the device continues to provide wireless downloads only in the United States).
  • New features: In addition to back-mounted stereo speakers (and headphone jack), the Kindle 2 now includes text-to-speech capabilities, using a computer voice to read any text out loud. This may be controversial.
  • Unchanged:
Terms of service
DRM--you're not really buying books, you're licensing them
US-only
No sales figures.

Kindle DX

  • The Kindle DX will become available in the summer of 2009, again exclusively from Amazon, but for $489.00. It does not replace the Kindle 2.
  • Physical changes from Kindle 2: 10.4"x7.2"x0.38"--roughly two inches taller, two inches wider, and marginally thicker. 18.9 ounces--not quite twice as heavy.
  • Screen: 9.7" diagonal, 1200x824 pixels at 150ppi--"two and a half times the size of the Kindle display" according to Amazon, with just over twice the resolution (slightly lower pixel density). The display autorotates from portrait to landscape as you turn the reader.
  • Other changes: PDF support is now built in, and capacity increases to 4GB (3.3GB available for content), "holds up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents.

Otherwise similar to Kindle 2.

Comparing the readers

All three readers use E-ink screens and support both DRM-laden proprietary formats and a variety of open formats (too complex for a table).

Characteristic Kindle DX Kindle 2 Sony PRS-700
Dimensions 10.4"x7.2"x0.38" 8"x5.3"x0.36" 6.9"x5.0"x0.38"
Weight 18.9 oz. 10.2 oz. 10 oz.
Screen size 9.7" diagonal 6" diagonal 6" diagonal
Resolution 1200x824 pixels 600x800 pixels 600x800 pixels
Pixels per square inch 150ppi 167ppi 167ppi
Gray scale levels 16 16 8
Price $489 $359 $359
Wireless downloads Yes Yes No
Internal capacity 3.3GB 1.4GB 420MB
Expandable via SD card No No Yes
Keyboard Yes Yes Virtual
Touch screen No No Yes
Text-to-speech Yes Yes No

Other ebook readers

The Kindle DX and Kindle 2 are hardly the only ebook readers. The Sony Reader has been out since late 2006. Several dedicated ebook readers have come and gone over the past decade. We're promised new and better readers in the future.

Foxit, makers of the fast, free Foxit PDF reader, has introduced the eSlick Reader, another reader using a 6" E Ink 600x800 pixel screen (four gray scale levels, like the Kindle 1), in a 7.4x4.7x0.4" package, weighing 6.4oz. The retail price is essentially $260, although there was an introductory price of $220 in early 2009. The device includes MP3 capabilities, has an SD slot (and includes a 2GB card, with support apparently limited to 4GB) and 128MB internal memory.

Assuming it comes to market in significant quantities, the eSlick Reader's clear selling points are purchase price, availability in many nations and avoidance of propriety ebook formats--it reads PDF (with reflow capabilities) and TXT files, and comes with software to convert other printable formats (but not DRM-laden proprietary ebook formats) to PDF. It does not offer the wireless-download or other special features of the Kindle.

(A gentle warning about the website: In addition to a surprising number of textual problems, the site uses white and orange text on a black background, which might reasonably give one pause regarding Foxit's aesthetic expertise.)

Kindles in libraries

Moved to Ebook reader problems and issues

Ebook reader market penetration

  • Notably, Amazon does not offer any sales figures--it's not possible to determine whether 1,000, 100,000 or one million have sold.
That's consistent with the Sony Reader (until recently) and, years ago, with the Rocket Ebook and competitors in all generations. It's wholly inconsistent with typical practice for successful and even semi-successful new devices in the retail market, where you normally see sales figures touted at all stages of the game. My own instinct is to assume that, if no figures are available, there's a reason--not a positive one. "Sold out" by itself has no meaning.
Updated April 30, 2008: Amazon now shows Kindle as readily available--and still offers no sales figures, although Amazon customers have posted more than 2,000 reviews of Kindle.
One observer has suggested combined sales for the Kindle and Sony Reader in the six digits, possibly totaling a million by the end of 2008. Amazon refuses to mention even approximate numbers. But note:
Updated August 4, 2008: As reported at Ars Technica and elsewhere, a "source close to Amazon" who claims direct knowledge of the company's sales figures says that Amazon has sold some 240,000 Kindles through the end of July 2008. As usual, Amazon has neither confirmed nor denied the report.
  • Sony has released sales figures for the Reader: 300,000 units between October 2006 and November 2008, with three million ebooks downloaded over that period.
  • Some observers believe the two devices sell at roughly comparable rates. If that's true, then the "million by the end of 2008" estimate is high--but not outrageously high.

Text-to-speech controversy

Moved to Ebook reader problems and issues

Fuzzy fonts on the Kindle 2?

Moved to Ebook reader problems and issues

Is $359 a fair price?

According to reports at Industry Standard and elsewhere, the research firm iSuppli broke down a Kindle 2 to determine how much it actually costs to build. The estimate: $185.49, more than half of which goes to the E-Ink display and the wireless module.

Assuming the estimate is correct, $359 may not be an unreasonable price. The report also estimates that the Apple iPhone 3G costs $174.33 to build--and if you buy an iPhone without a two-year AT&T service contract, you'll pay at least $599.

Notes from Leader's Digest

By Leslie Dillon from Leader's Digest issues as noted.
Pre-2009 material moved to Backnotes:Ebooks and readers

Kindle goes to college

Leader's Digest May 2009

Six universities will partner with Amazon and publishers to supply selected students with Kindles in the fall. But is the current Kindle ready for primetime on campus? It’s too expensive for most students, has a screen that can’t accommodate the diagrams and illustrations found in many textbooks, and book selection is limited because top education publishers have released only a few titles in a Kindle-friendly format.

However, on May 6, Amazon is launching a larger version of the Kindle e-book reader that will supposedly be better suited to academic publishers. Some students at Case Western Reserve University will receive the large-screen Kindles with textbooks for chemistry, computer science and a freshman seminar already downloaded. The other five schools are Pace, Princeton, Reed, Darden School at the University of Virginia, and Arizona State, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal. Additional details weren’t available, and Amazon declined to comment.

BusinessWeek describes the deal as an attempt by Amazon to expand the audience for its Kindle. This would also let Amazon pursue a share of college book sales, valued at $5.4 billion in FY 2007-08.

Is this the iPod moment for the Kindle? Probably not, but it’s one step closer. Lowering the price of the device would help. “Amazon might find a way to produce a larger device at a lower price point,” says NPD Group’s Ross Rubin. “An inexpensive e-book reader that could be used to distribute textbooks would crack open the category.”

Size is another key consideration. It can’t be too large or too small. There’s also conjecture about whether the newest Kindle will be able to be folded or rolled up. Plastic Logic, Hearst, and News Corp. are rumored to be introducing large-format e-book readers in the next year, but Apple may beat them to the punch with an Internet-ready tablet device this summer.

(Douglas MacMillan, Amazon’s Kindle Is Off to College, BusinessWeek, May 4, 2009.)

Editor's note: The larger-screen Kindle DX, available in summer 2009, is discussed already here. Briefly, it's even more expensive than the Kindle2 and it can't be folded or rolled up--but it does have a larger screen and displays PDFs without conversion.

New e-paper technology

Leader's Digest January 2009

University of Toronto researchers’ speedy new color-changing material could make possible bright, flexible color for electronic readers. Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader and Plastic Logic’s Reader all use E Ink’s black and white e-paper, which reflects light instead of emitting it, making it less power hungry and easier to read in bright sunlight. Color capability is expected from E Ink in the next few years, but the pixels will be divided and therefore not very bright.

The new technology from the Toronto researchers should be able to emit bright colors more like printed paper. While this new material can now match the speed of E Ink’s display, there are still hurdles to overcome. So color displays for electronic readers are on their way, but still just over the horizon.

Here’s a video of the prototype (following the Microsoft ad).

(Prachi Patel-Predd, “New e-paper technology speeds up,” Technology Review, Jan. 8, 2009.)

What you need to know about Kindle 2

Leader's Digest February 2009 - there may be some overlap with other notes in this article.

There’s been lots of buzz about Amazon’s Kindle 2. Yes, it’s thinner; it holds more books; it displays faster; it’s easier to read and navigate and it’ll even read to you (though the robot stumbles over words here and there). But what do library leaders really need to know now about it? Is it the next iPod? What’s the target market? What are the implications for libraries?

Will Kindle 2 change your life?

No. But Fast Company’s Chris Dannen thinks the next one will. In the meantime though, Kindle 2 is a nice evolutionary move but not likely to drive change. Why?

  1. Books aren’t music. The iPod let users unbundle albums and download single songs quickly and easily, and music was already being pirated. The iPod was cheap, legal and more convenient than the piracy.
  2. The Kindle focuses on the tradition of book reading, not on replacing it. Kindle users are buying the same number of bound books as they did before, so their total book consumption increases 2.6 times.
  3. Amazon is improving the Kindle incrementally. Disruption on the scale of the iPod isn’t likely unless Amazon dramatically lowers Kindle’s price or increases its benefits. But the Kindle is a success, no doubt about it.
  4. Large numbers of Kindle e-book sales could eat into Amazon’s print books sales, where its margins are higher. Right now, e-books comprise 10% of Amazon’s sales and apparently drive customers back for print books.
  5. There are only about 240,000 Kindle titles. And some important titles are missing: Harry Potter books; An Inconvenient Truth; The English Patient';' and The Associate and any other titles by John Grisham.
  6. The Kindle uses a proprietary format. O’Reilly Media’s Tim O’Reilly predicts that unless Amazon embraces open e-book standards, the Kindle will be history in two or three years. (Apparently, Amazon has hinted that its e-books will soon be available for other machines.)
  7. The Kindle isn’t appropriate for non-linear random-access reading, and it doesn’t support tables or monospaced fonts.

Main benefits

  • Convenience. The Kindle replaces books where they’re inconvenient. You don’t have to go to the library or the book store, or wait for your book to arrive in the mail.
  • Wireless. According to The New York Times, wireless was the breakthrough. The Kindle’s always online—none of the cables or clumsy downloads that Sony’s e-reader requires and no monthly wireless charges. Owners can think of a book and download it in less than a minute, thanks to Amazon’s contract with Sprint’s cellular Internet service (not available in many rural areas in the West, by the way).
  • Readability. Kindle owners can read for long periods without eye strain because the screen “imitates real ink and paper,” instead of being backlit.

Sales and revenues

Estimates put Kindle sales somewhere between 500,000 and 700,000, with revenues in the neighborhood of $153 million, less than 1% of Amazon’s total sales, but profitable nonetheless.

Target market

Some of libraries’ best customers are Kindle owners. Kindle appeals to mature dedicated readers, who like its convenience and its free wireless access. Amazon is likely to continue to focus on them, and while they won’t dramatically drive adoption, the Kindle is converting some very dedicated book lovers. Still, the majority of consumers buy fewer than five books a year; why would they want a Kindle?

If not the Kindle, what will be the game changer?

It’s all about mobile phones. Already a disruptive technology, they’re likely to emerge as the preferred e-readers. Stanza, the open standard e-book reader available on iPhones has been downloaded more than 1.3 million times, and over 5 million (mostly public domain) e-books have been downloaded with it. Stanza turns an iPhone into a book reader with one-handed page turning. A backpacker in a dark tent can consult snippets from Rough Guide on her backlit phone. Google Book Search gives owners of iPhones and Android devices access to over 1.5 million public-domain books.

According to The Economist, it’s “only a matter of time until absolutely all books become available, and properly formatted, for mobile phones.” In fact, The Economist predicts “that, eventually, only books that have value as souvenirs, gifts or artefacts will remain bound in paper.… Newspapers and magazines are on the same trajectory.”

We’re not there yet, though. E-books still account for less than 1% of book publishers’ revenues, and publishers remain wedded to DRM. Many experts believe that not technology, but DRM, is the major barrier to e-book adoption.

And The New York Times reminds us that “nothing ever replaces anything. E-book readers won’t replace books. The iPhone won’t replace e-book readers. Everything just splinters. They will all thrive, serving their respective audiences. [But] … If the Kindle’s popularity keeps growing, then it may be remembered as the spark that finally ignites mainstream e-books.”

Implications for libraries

Kindle owners are some of our best customers. They need to be able to borrow e-books from their libraries, and they need to be able to do it soon—before they abandon us. Early on, Amazon had no services at all for libraries; then they allowed ordering. Now Amazon offers a whole range of library services.

Amazon needs to make a library model available for Kindle e-books and libraries need to develop models in response to this. Ideally, libraries would come forward and strongly request a suitable model from Amazon. The bottom line is that if I want an e-book for my Kindle, I should be able to download it with my library card—either from Amazon using the library budget, or from the library. Libraries need to move past their hard-copy ownership model. A cooperative relationship between libraries and Amazon based on the Kindle would greatly benefit both.

Editor's note: I'll vigorously disagree with the notion that a Kindle owner "should be able to download [ebooks]...from Amazon using the library budget." You can't walk into a bookstore and say "I want to read that book, so charge it to the library." How is this different? Libraries buy resources that serve the community; they're not and shouldn't be free bookstores.

Sources

Other commentaries on ebook readers

notes by Walt Crawford, December 19, 2007, updated since

Kindle 2 notes

Published 2/12/09, at which point the device wasn't yet for sale, so these are not reviews--those will appear later.
  • Some Kindle users are upset that the new model lacks an SD slot--and also that it uses a non-removable battery. Amazon calls these improvements.
  • Amazingly, the Authors Guild is claiming that Kindle 2's text-to-speech feature is copyright infringement: That reading a book out loud is creating a derivative work. Since Macintosh OS X, Windows Vista and Windows XP all come with built-in text-to-speech software that can read any text aloud (and Adobe Reader includes text-to-speech features for PDF documents), this is either an astonishing new claim or Authors Guild has a bunch of bigger lawsuits we don't know about. (Free Linux text-to-speech software is also readily available, while Authors Guild is lining up its suits.)
  • Some of the Kindle 2 software improvements will be ported back to the Kindle 1.
  • Amazon clearly hopes to convince people to upgrade, to kick in another $359 for another reader: The company has said that Kindle 1 owners will get priority in buying Kindle 2.
  • While full reviews will take a few days or weeks, John Timmer offers an early hands-on commentary at ars technica. He finds the unit much more responsive and the user interface generally better.
  • Gizmodo's John Mahoney also offers early hands-on experience. Timmer was delighted to see the "Sparklemotion" scrolling indicator gone; Mahoney misses it. He finds the overall experience "a little more sluggish-feeling."

Early Kindle 2 reviews

  • Engadget reviewed the device in some depth (but without extended use), concluding that most ergonomic issues with the Kindle 1 have been resolved and that the new version is noticeably faster and easier to read.
  • Andy Greenberg at Forbes reviewed it on its release date--and while he finds the device "an impressively sleek piece of gadgetry," he also found this:
    But after a few hours with Amazon's pretty new device, I found something surprising: For all its slender good looks, the new Kindle doesn't feel as natural for reading as its strangely shaped predecessor.

To Greenberg, the new "iPod-like" shape is less comfortable as a paperback replacement. He found the readability and speed "barely distinguishable" from the Kindle 1.

  • Rob Pegoraro at the Washington Post finds the Kindle 2 a "far friendlier machine" than the original Kindle, says the speedup feels notable, finds the new device much better for showing pictures--and focuses on the extent to which DRM makes Kindle ebooks inferior to (often cheaper) paperbacks. In a separate blog piece, he notes some his issues with the device, even while noting that he could easily lose himself in a book read on the Kindle 2. He notes that the page delay is still significant (1.3 seconds by his timing) and that the combination of DRM and a totally Kindle-centric ebook format hasn't gotten any better.

A sampling of Kindle [1] commentary

  • Peter Brantley posted "Kindling ebooks" at O'Reilly radar before the Kindle actually appeared. Thinking about the supposed ease of migration from packaged music to downloadable music, Brantley sees a difference:
    • "When one considers long form narratives, whether fiction or non-fiction, there is less of an impetus to migrate from print use except for the possible advantage of portability and more extensive support for visually handicapped readers; on the flip side, there exist some non-trivial barriers (drm, format wars, etc.) to electronic access. Exceptions to this equation tend to be concentrated in areas where consumption modes are inherently mass-market, and where volume exists in transactions; Harlequin may well be the single most successful ebook publisher in the market today. Replicating their striking success through niche markets, or across smaller-impact imprints, is likely to prove difficult."
  • Tom Peters posted "Kindling" at the ALA TechSource blog on November 19, 2007. It's an early review (based on marketing materials and press coverage) that raises a number of questions. Peters has been a big ebook supporter for years. He closes with these questions:
    • "Will libraries have any truck with Kindle? Will Kindle knockoffs (with names such as Splinter and Tinder) soon hit the market? After the sizzle of the new begins to wane, will Amazon drop Kindle's price to $199, similar to what Apple did with the iPhone? Time will tell."
  • John DuPuis at Confessions of a science librarian posted "Amazon's new Kindle" on November 20, 2007 (updated November 21 and 22), providing quick links to a range of early commentary and asking a few pointed questions of his own.
  • Simon Chamberlain posted "Latest on e-books: Amazon's Kindle" at his blog. He links to somewhat negative reactions at Techdirt and Metafilter and some other discussions, sees some pros and cons and notes that he's probably not the target audience:
    • "I probably prefer reading off paper anyway (it’s not the resolution, so much as being able to flick from page to page and to have several books open at once). In an ideal world, I’d have paper and e-books, one for actually reading, the other available so I can do full-text searching when needed…"
  • Andrew K. Pace has also been a big ebook supporter in the past--which made others wonder why he didn't report on the Kindle as soon as it emerged. He discusses this in a December 3, 2007 Hectic Pace post, "E-book malaise". Briefly, Pace thought that "by now we would have a device that smelled like a paperback, and we still don't have anything that even feels like one." After seeing the early failures in ebook readers, he's discouraged that the "perfect device" still eludes us.
  • One complaint of many commenters is that new books cost $9.95 as Kindle downloads from Amazon--DRM and all. They think that's too high. Tim O'Reilly, who knows something about publishing costs, discusses this issue at O'Reilly radar in a December 5, 2007 post, "Bad math among ebook enthusiasts." It's an interesting read--and don't ignore the lengthy stream of mostly-thoughtful comments, which took the piece to 27 print pages as of December 10, 2007. For years, I've noted in speeches and writing that the "physical costs" of a book being a book--that is, printing, binding, materials and distribution--don't add up to much more than 14% of the book's price (not cost) in most cases; that still appears to be a reasonable estimate--which limits the savings for ebooks.

More commentary on Kindle [1] since December 19, 2007

  • Steve Jobs dismissed suggestions that Apple might enter the ebook reader market and also dissed the Kindle with an odd observation, as quoted in a New York Times article and discussed in this ACRLog post (and many others): "It doesn't matter how good the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore... Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole concept is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore."
  • Paul Courant (University Librarian at the University of Michigan) calls the Kindle "a pretty poor substitute for a book" while noting some purposes for which it's much better than a book, and says ebooks "will really take off" when publishers "admit that on-screen...is not the best medium for serious and sustained reading, and develop and use technical and rights environments that allow cheap and convenient print on demand. It’s wonderful to be able to search and to skim on screen, but when you want to read, there is nothing like a book or a printed article."
  • "Short Kindle supply is keeping e-book fans waiting" (ABC News) focuses on the supposed shortage of Kindles--but, once again, offers no clue whatsoever as to how many have actually sold.
  • Thinking about Kindle and Ebooks - A long roundup of commentary from various sources and Walt Crawford's own conclusions (and his 7-year-old nine-part model of the ebook market), more easily readable in the PDF Cites & Insights 8:4, April 2008.

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