A couple of weeks ago I took delivery of my latest toy – a Kindle Fire
That said, reading is probably still its raison d’etre. Sure, it is being marketed as a tablet, and you can browse the web, play games, and watch videos, but people buy Kindles to read electronic books, and the Kindle Fire should really be treated the same way. Certainly that’s how I’ll be using mine (otherwise I would have bought a -much maligned but similarly-priced – Blackberry PlayBook). True, I haven’t really read much apart from technical references and software user guides in recent years, but I hope to remedy that soon, facilitated by my shiny, new Kindle.
Because the Kindle family of e-readers has been around for some time already, there are plenty of books already available. The complete works of my favorite author Dostoyevsky (although not by my favorite translator, David Magarshack, but I guess you can’t have everything – and if I cared that much I’d learn Russian and read it in the original language, like the poseur I am…), Dickens, and a bunch of others are all available for free – and instantly. I downloaded Crime and Punishment and David Copperfield to get me started, along with a a copy of the Dhammapada, which is also free, and a bunch of other useful books. But I have to confess that I haven’t paid for a book yet (and probably won’t have to for some years, at the rate I read), which no doubt irks Amazon, who are relying on people purchasing content on a machine that is costing them more to make than they are selling it for. I would have bought Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey, as my paperback copy is falling apart as a result of repeated readings. It’s one of my favorite books, and has served me well as a moral compass on more than one occasion, but – inexplicably – the Kindle version costs more than the paperback version, so I refuse to buy it on principle.
But over and above novels and ‘reading for entertainment’, the Kindle provides a convenient way of having my reference library my fingertips – I can download a decent dictionary (it comes with the New Oxford American Dictionary, but the (Shorter) Oxford English Dictionary would be preferable), a thesaurus (although thy Kindle comes with a link to Wikipedia), Strunk and White, the Chicago Manual of Style, and of course my own book, that niche-market classic (currently number 952,152 on the Amazon Bestsellers List) Oracle User Productivity Kit 3.5. Yes! it’s available in Kindle form. Which I bought. Mainly to make sure that I’m getting my due royalties on Kindle versions (as I’d never been asked if i wanted it made available in Kindle form, and I’m pretty sure my agreement didn’t mention Kindle specifically). But then I was appalled to discover that most of the images are missing from the book – and replaced by a kind of ‘missing image’ symbol. Which is REALLY annoying. I called Amazon – as I’m pretty sure it is a ‘Kindleization’ issue – and they said they’d look into it. To be fair, they did offer to give me a full refund, until I pointed out that I was the author of the book, and did not think that my artistic endeavor was being appropriately represented by them. So the Customer Service chappie said he would remove it from availability until the issue was fixed. There, that showed them! Try and earn me royalties for sub-standard work would they??
But what are the odds on it just happening to be only my book that this has happened to? One in 1,090,506, apparently, as that’s how many Kindle eBooks are currently available. My mom always said I was one in a million, but I didn’t believe her then, and I don’t believe this, now. If my book is affected, there must be others similarly affected. Which is a shame, because the eBook format is a pretty good alternative to PDF (much more reader-friendly).
To move to some of the complaints about the Kindle itself, there’s no free 3G / 4g phone network connection like there is with some of the other Kindles and most full tablets, but I don’t really see that as a major issue. For the most part I see myself sitting on the sofa reading the news on it and I have a wireless network at home. A lot of other places have wireless networks too – airports, Starbucks, etc. – so it’s not like you are tethered to your PC in order to load content. Really, I see the Kindle as more of an iPod for book lovers. My iPod doesn’t have 3G access, and I don’t lament that. Besides, e-books are pretty small so I anticipate always having a selection of novels downloaded onto the device, so if I am stuck anywhere without a connection (ER waiting rooms, court…) I will always have something to read available.
Following the iPod (and not iPad) comparisons, just as I have all of my music on my iPod, I would like to have all of my books on my Kindle (or at least available via the Amazon Cloud). But that’s where my complaints creep in. If I want to be able to read a book on my Kindle I have to buy the Kindle version of the book (unless it is more than 99 years old, in which case copyright has expired and it is available for free). But I’ve already bought the book in physical form and , therefore, the author (and the publisher – and as a -ahem – published author myself, I know the publisher gets more than the author) has already been adequately compensated for their efforts. So what am I paying for? To my mind, if you have the physical version of something, you should be given the electronic version for free – or perhaps for the cost of the minimal manufacturing/distribution costs. Obviously there needs to be some way of proving that you own the physical version, but I’m sure cleverer people than I could solve that problem if they put their mind to it.
Unsurprisingly, I have had this same argument (at least with  myself) over music. I still have a reasonable collection of vinyl records. A lot of these I’ve replaced with CDs, over the years, but I would still like the remaining 100 or so on CD as well (I’d even accept MP3). However, I can’t justify buying 20 Hawkwind albums all over again, just for the occasional moment of spaced-out nostalgia. And really, why should I have to? I’ve already purchased the album once – why should I have to pay again, just so I can play the same thing through another medium? Again, I’d be willing to pay the manufacturing/distribution costs, but full price? I don’t think so.
Anyway, these minor gripes aside, back to the Kindle. It’s not a game-changer, but for people who really don’t need the full power of a laptop in tablet form that the iPad gives you (which is probably most iPad owners, if they were honest) it works rather well. And at $200 (less than the price of a decent iPod) you can’t go far wrong. Now if I can only stop the kids playing Angry Birds on it for long enough for me to use it myself…
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