19 November 2007

21:57

Amazon debuts Kindle e-book reader

Kindle does not require a PC for synchronization or any software to be installed. "Instead of shopping from your PC, you shop directly from the device. The store is on the device, and then the content is wirelessly and seamlessly delivered to the device."

That’s going nicely against the tide of iPhone and other devices. But it’s also needlessly complicating Amazon’s task when it’ll come to selling the Kindle outside of the American market. (But then, Amazon is already just about as U.S.-centric as Apple.)

 

Each device also provides the user with a personal Kindle e-mail address so that word-processing files such as Microsoft Word documents, as well as image files, could be sent to the e-book reader.

That’s convenient, but frighteningly insecure. It’s not like Office users need any encouragement to share their top-secret documents over e-mail, but still. (According to Gizmodo you’re billed 10 cents per e-mail. Yuk. And PDFs don’t work. And transferring files directly by accessing the Kindle as an external drive doesn’t work either — although hackers will take care of that very soon, obviously.)

 

Kindle connects to its specialized Amazon store via an EV-DO cellular network built atop Sprint’s EV-DO network. No data plan or monthly bill is required. "We pay for all of that behind the scenes so that you can just read," Bezos said.

And that’s an amazingly stupid business model. Apple revolutionized the way telephones are sold to their advantage; Amazon is selling a phone-based device in the most detrimental way for everyone. They could offer the device for free with a subscription (which would also include a couple “free” books per month) and it would be a hit; instead they’re setting the price so high that only a couple people will buy it, and those will be the heavy-duty readers most likely to rack up huge expenses on Amazon’s Sprint tab. (Or as huge as a data bill can be for transporting tiny e-books, anyway.)

Add to this the unsightly design that’s more evocative of a Soviet-era PDA than anything you actually want to hold in your hands — I would never have imagined Amazon setting themselves up so deliberately for failure. I thought they were good at business or something? This looks far worse than the first-generation Zune!