Published: February 09, 2009 in future » products by Thomas Baekdal
Today, Amazon introduced the much-anticipated Kindle 2, and it is quite good looking. It has a sleek design, its thinner, lighter, supports 16 shades of gray (as if that was something), 25% longer battery life, more storage, 20% faster page turns, and a text-to-speech feature. It's sweet... Or is it?
I am a big fan of ebooks. I read one book every single week (although a large part of them are novels). The best thing about ebooks is that it is so simple to use, it takes up almost no space, and they are much cheaper to buy.
I am using my iPod Touch as my ebook reader (using eReader). And while it is actually pretty good, it is just a bit too small at times. So the Amazon Kindle should be the perfect choice for me.
But here is the thing. While I certainly like the progress that Amazon is making, they are still designing computers - not digital books. Just look at it. It does look rather nice, but what is up with all those buttons and the big keyboard. I don't want a keyboard, I want an eBook.
I want nothing to get in my way of the reading experience. I don't want a computer. I don't want any buttons. I don't want to move a cursor around the screen in order to highlight something. I don't want to be reminded of anything even remotely related to an operating system.
Not to mention that the real Kindle 2 is the size of a normal book, but the screen is half that. So you get a big device, but a huge amount of space is used for something else than the screen. This is like a mobile phone before the iPhone.
The Kindle 2 should look like the "Kindle 3 concept" that you can see below. Just one big screen, with a touch-sensitive surface and nothing else. This would give me the experience that I want. It got 100% focus on the content, instead of the device and its buttons.
You "flip" the pages by making a quick swiping gesture over the screen. And, since the screen fills the entire device, your ebook is also the same size as a normal book.
(via Amazon Kindle, Kindle 3 concept by Baekdal.com)
Writer, Project Manager and Interaction Designer
follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or visit my website
Thanks Robert :)
You may have a point about the power consumption and touch based input. But, you don't need buttons to be able to use a single hand.
The swiping gesture don't require that you swiper from one side to the other. You "just" have to start the swiping gesture and move you finger about an inch for it to activate the page flip.
I do this all the time using a single finger (and one hand) in my iPod Touch. It is actually feels faster than pressing down on a button. And, most importantly, it feels "natural". A button feels computerish...
A friend told me that current touch technologies actually make the e-paper screens look muddy. So, if you were to use one, you'd lose the clarity of the screen. I think the keyboard billboard looks awful as well. Maybe they could create a gesture area at the bottom of the screen. It could display buttons depending on the tasks without covering the entire screen, ruining the image
Writer, Project Manager and Interaction Designer
follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or visit my website
Eliot, I am not an expert on the technical details of touch based surfaces, but I got a multi-touch screen on my iPod Touch, and it looks crystal clear (in fact it is better looking than the screen on most PC laptops).
I definitely like your concept better.
However everyone need to make a decision - do you want Kindle 2.0 for $359 or Kindle 3.0 for $759.
I definitely prefer 2.0 in this case. I believe Amazon worked hard to strip down cost as much as they could and small screen and lack of touchscreen features are result of that.
Offtopic: would be nice to have message somewhere at the top that comment was submitted successfully with link to view it. Otherwise there are no confirmations about it and to get one you need to scroll.
The newest Sony reader has a touchscreen, and it definitely affects the display quality. (Remember, eInk and LCDs are two separate beasts.)
But I'd tend to agree that a touchscreen is overkill for a basic device, given the cost, power, and display quality issues. (I've never had a book with a touchscreen, after all. Using a swipe for a page turn seems like a gimmick.)
Another practical issue is fingerprints. I don't have a Kindle, so I don't know if they have a protective glass layer, but all the eInk devices I've seen appear to be designed so you can hold the edges without getting your fingers on the screen.
I think people are getting boged down by implementation details. It's a concept and as such is perfect. Details come later.
Question: Do you think we will have to wait for apple to make an "iBook" , to get a familar emulated book experience?
My brother and also one of my colleagues use the Bookeen reader.
http://www.bookeen.com/overview/ebook-overview.aspx
My brother is very pleased and uses his all the time... it's a very easy to use device and battery life is exceptional.
If you had a touch screen, you could make it so you could double-tap on a specific word, and a dictionary entry for that word would pop up. That'd be great for when you're reading technical manuals or other advanced materials where you come across words you don't understand.
But as others, I suspect powering a touch screen is probably more of a power hog, and therefore the reason Amazon has chosen not to go with it. After all, you should be able to read a book for hours on end without it... turning off.
Writer, Project Manager and Interaction Designer
follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or visit my website
Maxim, The touch screen, on the iPhone, costs around $33.50 for the screen, and $1.15 for the controller. So I hardly see how it would increase the price to §759. Especially not considering that it wouldn't even be an extra $35 dollars, since it replaces the screen on the kindle (instead of adding to the costs).
It probably would be more expensive to make, but my guess is that it would be around $20 dollars per unit.
I agree with ZDNet comment when they wrote that it is the price of 3G that makes this so expensive: "I think a ton of us would be willing to sacrifice the instant gratification of downloading books over 3G versus downloads when they are in Wi-Fi range, if it meant a $100-$150 price reduction. What does a Wi-Fi chipset really cost these days, 5 bucks?"
http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=9441
Mark, I have no practical experience with epaper vs. fingerprints, but I don't think that is a real problem. If it was then we would se a lot of upset users when they have accidentally put the finger on the screen (instead of the frame).
Ian, Apple did make an iBook :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBook_redjar.jpg
George, Exactly (about the tabpping)
As for the power, then the real power hog problems on the iphone is that the screen is backlit and not passive as with epaper. I do agree that the touch interface might use up more power, but not nearly as much as a LED screen. It only needs power when you touch the screen (+ a low amount of standby power).
What is the keyboard used for anyway!?
Thomas. :) I owned one, but it sadly had little to do with a book.
With the iPhone Apple said lowd and clear that the book as we know it is dead. Maybe they meant to do the same with the iBook but did not work out very well.
Hi Thomas,
first of all: a really nice blog you have their - interesting stuff!
But: why donīt you as a design thinking person enjoy the haptic feeling of paper as much as I do? Besides all obvious economic and functional advantages of ebooks, we should all start to boycott ebooks!!!!
Gathering various books on one desk, comparing them visually while leaning, enjoying the history of a long-time used book given to you by some older family member.... Itīs just too sad that ebooks will become the standard in the future. We should all fight for paper books - they need to remain a (niche) part of every day life!
Cheers
Lukas
Writer, Project Manager and Interaction Designer
follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or visit my website
Lukas, I guess I just don't see it that way :)
Paper to me is just a material, what makes it personal is what is on it - not the material itself. That is at least how I see it.
Apple actually made the Kindle 2.
I think that its good the way it is. The only thing that i'd change is to give it is a bigger screen with color. A touch screen would be nice, but not necessary.
i really want to know what the keyboard is used for
Baekdal.com is (nearly) everywhere. Check out our social profiles:
FaceBook
Twitter
LinkedIn
YouTube
FriendFeed
Delicious
Feb 9
2009
Robert Winters
visit my website
Neat concept thomas, looks better then the real one.
Although I think the big buttons on the side like in the orginal are convenient. It allows you to read and flip pages with just one hand. Besides this, my guess is that interactions through buttons take up much less power then sensing gestures on a big touch screen. But I'm not an expert, so I could be wrong!