Diary of a Network Geek

No, I’m not going to write an article about the guy who saved his own life in Haiti with an iPhone app.

Because, frankly, everyone’s been talking about that already.
No, in this case, what I’m about to ramble about is the news that Amazon is opening the Kindle for developers.  Now, this might not sound like a big deal, but I think it is.  Here’s why…

First, this is a low-power, always-connected computer.  Oh, don’t kid yourself into thinking this is just a “reader”.  What’s under the hood is basically a small computer.   Now, I’m not sure what the operating system is, but I know, for instance, that the Nook is rumored to be based on Android.  Regardless, it’s a basic tablet that can connect to the web.  That, frankly, opens up some real possibilities.
I can see, as an example, a tech like me carrying around a virtual “stack” of manuals in ebook form, while still being able to use the device to troubleshoot problems, like pinging IP interfaces or hitting the web to Google for answers to problems.
But, compare it to, say, the iPhone which has a Kindle app.  And, a Barnes and Noble Reader app.  And, frankly, as my friends are probably tired of hearing me say, an app for everything.  It’s like carrying magic around in your pocket!  (Which does, in fact, sound a little dirty when you say it out loud.)  So, they sort of have to do this, just to keep up.

Secondly, this will definitely up the ante for everyone else’s device.  There were a lot of new ebook readers out at CES this year and I’ve heard a lot of buzz over the past year about how “everyone” is coming out with a new reader.  Again, I reference the Nook, but also the Sony entry and others.  So, now, people will be thinking about all the ways that a tablet will be more useful.
Now, don’t get me wrong, ereaders are great and all, but, honestly, I think there’s more of a market for an easy-to-use device that can do a whole lot more than just display books.  Again, I reference my own experience with the iPhone.  Sure, having a phone that can get your e-mail and handle your schedule is great, but a real smart phone is an animal of an entirely different stripe.  My iPhone enables me to do a whole range of things from check for movie times to checking the weather to checking my checking account to handling my schedule and calendar to, yes, remote access to my servers.  And, it has the ability to read ebooks.  Now, why would I want a single-purpose reader?

And, finally, the biggest, best reason this is important is because Apple has announced their new tablet device, the iPad.  Of course, the iPad is a whole lot more than a simple ebook reader, and not just because it has an after-market for accessories already, either.  So, now, with two app stores for two devices, we will hopefully have competition which will drive improvement in all these devices and give us, the consumer, the best device possible.  At least, in theory.

Personally, after my experience with the iPhone, I’m hoping that the iPad adds some more service and drops in price significantly over the next couple years.  Then, I’ll probably skip the Kindle all together and get an iPad, generation 3.  (Yeah, I’ll probably skip generation 2, as well, due to pricing and budgets.)
Personally, I look forward to our new Apple overlords!  (Not really, but they do design some great products!)

Yeah, more news, because this is a big deal.

So, this new Kindle is a really big deal. First of all, the latest version looks a lot better than the first one. The first Kindle looked like a prototype, but this version looks really slick. And, yes, there is a much nicer case available for it than there was for the first edition, according to Crunch Gear. From the pictures, it looks like they’re going to have an aftermarket booklight, too. Houston’s own Dwight Silverman has gotten his Kindle2 already and done a review, though I suspect he got his faster than the rest of us because, well, he’s a newspaper guy doing a review.

But, with any big deal, there’s always some kind of problem, right?
According to this article on the Wall Street Journal, the Author’s Guild is protesting the Kindle’s ability to read aloud to you. They claim that this violates an “audio copyright” that every written work includes. Naturally, the contention is that a machine-read, machine-stored work read in a machine-generated synthetic voice is not what is intended by that copyright. I tend to agree. If this were a computer reading website text, would there be a copyright violation? I don’t think so.
Still, it will be interesting to see how this works out.

I read an article the other day about how news is very soon not going to be free. The article claims that newspapers are losing too much money from the free news on their websites and are going to have to start charging very soon. If that happens, I really think I may just buy a Kindle, one of those fancy covers, and subscribe to a couple of papers that way. I mean, I really see the Kindle as an adjunct to print media, not a replacement for printed material. So, I don’t see myself no buying actual books any more.

Either way, I suspect that I’ll have quite a wait based on how long the delay is in getting one. Even if I were totally ready to buy, which I’m not quite, it’d probably be months before I could actually lay hands on the Kindle2, since I’m not a reporter doing a review. But, I do have to admit, this version is a lot more attractive than the last version!

UPDATE: I totally forgot to add the fact that there is now an iPhone app that lets you read Kindle-format books on your iPhone, too.  It sounds like it’s meant to be an addition to your Kindle, but they claim you can use it instead of a Kindle, so who knows.  I wonder how long it will be before they have a similar application for the Blackberry.  Now that would be something, wouldn’t it?

Right, so I’m sure a couple of my readers are waiting for me to weigh in on the new Kindle.

Yeah, yesterday, Amazon released the new, very much improved Kindle eBook reader. Lot’s of folks were talking about it; Lifehacker, the Houston Chronicle’s TechBlog and, of course, Gizmodo. The most coverage is at Gizmodo, though, as they did a liveblog through the release.
In a nutshell, what they’ve improved is the design itself, the battery life (by 25%), the memory (now two gigabytes, or about 1,500 books), the screen and graphics. So, you know, just about everything on the physical device is better. Also, there’s an experimental feature that reads the books to you, which actually sounds sort of cool. And, now, apparently, you can move books from reader to reader, though they did seem to be only in one place at a time. You know, I’m actually okay with that, if I can transfer the book to someone else’s Kindle, because then it’s no different than a physical book that can only be in one place at a time. If, and that’s a big if at this point, if that’s how it works, I may just have to get me one of these.

The one “downside” to this is that the price is staying the same. Now, I think it may just be worth paying that $359 for this device. I mean, it really seems more worth it to me. Oh, and the cover which came with the older version is now an extra $25, or so. So, that bumps the price up a bit, but, still, I’d probably be looking at a better cover anyway.

The one thing that I haven’t seen any coverage on is adding my own documents to the Kindle. I have a lot of personal documentation of one kind or another that would be really nice to have on a reader like this. PDF files and text files filled with all sorts of custom and personal manuals and instructions and the like. If they made it easier to get that onto the Kindle, then, I may just be sold.

If there aren’t any pages, is it still a book?

Does an eBook’s page turn make a sound if there’s no one there to hear it?
What, I wonder, will it take for these miraculous devices to finally catch on? I’m sure it comes to no surprise to my regular readers, but I love books. I love reading and I love writing and I love the printed word, as I’ve written before. But, my personal library is starting to take up a lot of room. I’m not sure how many books I have, but it’s easily in the low thousands. I live alone, in a fairly good-sized house, without anyone, really to check my acquisition of lovely, lovely books, so, the numbers get away from me. But, I can say this, there are books in every room of my house. Every. Room.
Well, another thing that I’m sure will also not be a big surprise to my loyal readers, is how much I love science-fiction. Digital books, in some form or another, have been a staple of science-fiction for a very, very long time. It’s an idea that I love. I like the idea of a single, small device that’s able to access the entire encyclopedia, several newspapers, my favorite magazines, and whatever couple thousand books I might decide I just can’t live without. In a world, real or imagined, where space is becoming a premium, books that take up virtually no room would be a plus.

That’s why I can’t figure out the lack of market penetration that eBook readers have enjoyed! This article on BusinessWeek talking about the new, as yet mythical, revision of Amazon’s Kindle is what got me thinking about it. And, all the more for the fact that they’re as baffled as I am!
It’s not like the Kindle is the first eBook reader, either. The Sony Reader has been around for some time, in one form or another. And, there are others, too, like the iRex Iliad, to name just one. To me, these all seem pretty close in their execution, but none of them seem to have really caught on. Why?

No, really, I have no answers.  Why do you think?