In my Kindle lovefest last night I neglected to mention a couple downsides to the device. The first is immediately apparent when you get your hands on it— the screen begs to be touch sensitive. Unfortunately, it isn't, and you have to do everything with buttons and a crude cursor control. Even knowing that, I find myself with fingers poised to touch words, etc. A quick use also finds one discovering that it isn't really interactive. It's meant to be a one-direction device. That is, info (text) goes from the device to you. There isn't any real flow in the other direction. For instance, you can't pull up a crossword puzzle and solve it on the device.
The remaining downside is by far the worst. I wasn't aware of this during my initial shopping trips, but apparently electronic book prices have been skyrocketing on Amazon. I confirmed this to a certain degree after paying more attention. Of course, I've been buying mostly bargain basement stuff so I haven't been greatly affected. However, when the first Kindle debuted, one of the selling points was that a huge amount of books would be sold for $9.99, including all bestsellers. I no longer see this advertised, and I'm seeing a lot of posts on the forums of people who claim that books that were a couple bucks last year are now fully as much as a paperback. I'm not happy to hear this. In fact, I looked up Ian Fleming, curious to see if there was a tempting James Bond omnibus, but I found all James Bond books priced at $9.99— more than it would cost to get a new paperback of each. Amazon claims that the publishers all decide the costs of the digital versions, but this is clearly wrong. If anything, a digital version should be cheaper than a printed version. It's as if the publishers, right on the verge of an explosion in digital sales, suddenly want to stick their heads in the sand like audio copyright holders and kill the burgeoning industry. It's infuriatingly stupid to me.
I still love my Kindle though, even though it's far from perfect. Like I said last night, it's the first device to come close to what I dreamed of. It's at a stage where I feel comfortable being an early adopter. I do look forward, however, to an iteration of the device about 5 years down the road, when touch sensitivity and interaction are supported. Then it will be an amazing device, and that's when it will cross the DVD threshold and become a must have piece of hardware.
Until next time.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."— Arthur C. Clarke
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