So how about an e-book reader that actually opens like a book? That seems like a good idea, given that the book in its current form has about 2,000 years of popularity behind it, after supplanting scrolls. But appearances can be deceiving.
The $499 Entourage Edge, which comes out this week, looks like a small laptop when folded. Hold it by the spine like a book, and it opens to reveal two screens. On one side is an ”electronic ink” screen for reading. On the other is a full-color touch screen that can be used not just to buy books, but to surf the Web, play music and write e-mail.
Unfortunately, this is less of review and more of a word of warning: The Edge doesn’t do its job. It has a couple of flaws that are enough to make it a failure. Then it has one huge flaw that is enough to make it a failure with no help from other flaws.
The big flaw is atrocious battery life. The Edge doesn’t go into a proper standby mode when closed, so its battery is drained after about 10 hours of inactivity. The only way to make it last longer is to turn it off completely. But when you turn it back on, it takes a minute and a half to boot up. That’s way too long, considering that you can flip open a paper book and start reading in a few seconds. Other e-readers, such as Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle, last longer on standby and turn on faster.
Entourage Systems Inc., the startup behind the product, says it’s working on getting the Edge to consume less power when closed, and hopes to be able to send a software update out in June.
The other problems with the Edge are that it’s heavy, at about 3 pounds. The Kindle weighs two-thirds of a pound. For $499, you’d expect the Edge to have cellular wireless access for book and newspaper downloads, as the $259 Kindle and the $400 Sony Reader Daily Edition do. Instead, it has only Wi-Fi access.
The flaws aside, the Edge is an interesting device. It’s the most capable e-reader yet, but it’s likely to hold that honor for less than two weeks, until Apple Inc.’s iPad tablet comes out April 3.
The Edge’s color touch screen is powered by Android, Google Inc.’s software for cell phones. It can play music and movies in addition to surfing the Web. You can tap out e-mails or notes on the screen. You can plug in USB ”thumb drives” and SD cards to load files. The Edge comes with its own online book store, but it can also show books from other stores, if they’re in the right format (ePub with Adobe DRM). However, to read books from other stores you have to download them to a computer, then transfer them to the Edge through a USB cable or a memory card.
It’s tough to design a good user interface that stretches over two screens with very different characteristics. Barnes & Noble Inc.’s Nook is a prime example. Like the Edge, it pairs an e-ink screen with a color touch screen, albeit a much smaller one. That’s a confusing setup. It constantly forces users to switch their gaze between the screens to figure out what to do. The Edge does better in this regard, because more functions are manipulated from the large touch screen.
It still feels awkward that you can control the color screen by touching it while you need to pull out a stylus to use the e-ink screen. And some functions send you hunting from screen to screen. For instance, to search for a word in a book, you press an icon on the e-ink side with a stylus, then move over to the color side to tap out the word. If the color screen has turned itself off to conserve power, you won’t know that the word-search window is up until you turn on that screen by pressing a button.
This is an attempt to get around a key limitation of e-ink: Although it supposedly is a more natural display for reading, it is very slow to update from image to image, making typing and navigation awkward.
However, I find a high-quality backlit LCD color screen to be more legible than e-ink, not less. And a device with one responsive screen is much easier to use and lighter than one with two. We’ll see. Maybe the iPad will show people that reading on LCDs isn’t so bad, after all.
]]>So, yesterday Apple announced the newest version of their IPhone operating system, which contains several advances including bringing Apple’s IBooks to the IPhone and ITouch.
In theory, that should be good news to the company’s bookstore, which I’m thinking is off to not quite as great a start as they were hoping.
Here’s the thing. In his announcement yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said they had so far sold 450,000 IPads and that 600,000 books had been downloaded from IBooks. Let’s assume that none of those 600,000 are Winnie the Pooh, which comes free with the device.
That’s roughly 1.3 books per device, which I think should probably be higher. And given that IPads can download free books from Project Gutenberg, you sort of have to wonder how really significant that 600,000 number is — or at least wonder if it’s significant in the way Apple wants you to think it is.
Which brings me to the point of the headline — while adding IBooks to the IPhone and ITouch will certainly help Apple, every advance that makes their devices a better reader also helps Amazon with their Kindle.
See the thing that makes all those Kindle vs. IPad arguments invalid is the IPad is a device while the Kindle is a machine on its own as well as an app that runs on many machines including the IPad.
Apple’s software, meanwhile, runs on Apple devices — and while there are certainly a lot of them and while people are developing “enhanced” versions of books to run on those devices — the question remains whether it will be enough to steal a significant chunk of Amazon’s market or, actually, help Amazon grow.
On another note, I would like to remind the world that today is Books for NYC Schools Day. If you’re in New York, go. If you’re not, donate online.
As with other Kindle products, the Kindle for Mac app uses Amazon’s Whispersync technology to synchronize your bookmarks and current place in your book across all supported devices. However, Kindle for Mac is in beta, and at the moment it doesn’t support full text search, highlighting, or creating and editing notes (though it will display notes and highlighting you’ve already made in your e-book elsewhere). Amazon promises these features in a future update.
Interestingly, in the official press release, Amazon says people will soon be able to read Kindle books on iPads. Of course Kindle for iPhone should be able to run on the iPad, but it sounds like Amazon’s hinting that an optimized Kindle for iPad is in the works.
]]>E-books purchased from Amazon can be downloaded to the Kindle using its Whispersync wireless technology or to any other device with the Kindle application. E-books purchased on one device can also be accessed by other devices through Amazon.In releasing Kindle applications, Amazon does not tie customers to its own e-reader or hamper the reseller from selling as many e-books as possible. Amazon said it chose to support the BlackBerry because of user demand.
“Since the launch of our popular Kindle for iPhone app last year, customers have been asking us to bring a similar experience to the BlackBerry, and we are thrilled to make it available today,” Ian Freed, VP of Amazon Kindle, said in a statement.
Customers using BlackBerry devices on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and other U.S. carriers will be able to use the Kindle application. Amazon has 420,000 e-books available, including 102 of the 112 New York Times bestsellers. However, because Amazon uses proprietary copyright protection technology, the retailer has fewer than half the e-books available from competitors, such as Sony and Barnes & Noble, which support an open e-book standard in their e-readers, the Reader and Nook, respectively.
Nevertheless, the Kindle leads the e-reader market, with Sony’s Reader a distant second. In releasing fourth-quarter financial results last month, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos said the retailer sells six books for the Kindle for every 10 physical books with the same titles. The total number of Kindle books downloaded would be higher, if Amazon counted free books.
]]>While many women want roses for Valentines, men are attracted to the techno side of life more often. Gadgets may not seem romantic, but he WILL remember you for it, IF you get him the ultimate gadget.
That ultimate gadget gift in this New Year’s Kindle: Amazon’s Wireless Reading Device. This was Amazon’s number one selling item for 2009 Christmas!
The Amazon Kindle has been called “the future of book reading” by many authors. It is truly an amazing device.
For years, the challenge with these portable reading devices has been the screen. A computer-like screen has never been able to adequately substitute for the written page. Until Now! The Kindle provides an industry first electronic paper display that provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.
And since this device is wireless, you can buy a book from literally anywhere and it will be downloaded within 1 minute. Not only can you receive books, but you can also have the top national and international newspapers delivered directly to your Kindle Device.
The Amazon Kindle truly is a revolutionary device and deserves it’s place at the top of your Valentines Day Gift List.
]]>iPhone’s screen is not nearly as big as the Kindle. but it shows the future of Kindle. You KNOW Kindle 3 will have color.
And in the meantime, you can use your iPhone if you want or need to check out anything in color.
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Kindle at University of Alabama
* Currently limited to active faculty, staff, and students
* Available for checkout from the circulation desk of Gorgas Library, Bruno Business Library, and Rodgers Library for Science and Engineering
* 2 week checkout period
* No renewals
Kindle units and the titles they contain are searchable through the Libraries’ Catalog.
Active faculty, staff, and students may request titles to be added to the Kindle units by using the request form linked below. All available titles for the Kindle can be browsed/searched through Amazon.
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