Tuesday, at the annual Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN) shareholders meeting, Jeff Bezos made some comments about the state of the Kindle and what we can expect for the future. While it may come as a surprise for some, the goal is consistency and refinement rather than revolution. Many feel that the Kindle should be making every effort to become some sort of eInk iPad in order to survive, but Bezos emphasized the presence of the Kindle as a device for “serious readers” and insisted that this is not meant to be a multipurpose device so much as a specialty tool with a distinct purpose. Future plans for Kindle development may include the color screen that some have been pushing for, but certainly not the next model, to judge from his comments about what a complicated technology it is to get right. While it would, of course, be simple to make a device with a color LCD display, it would run counter to the purpose of the device; namely to create a reading device for those who love reading.
So what can we expect from the new Kindle? It’s pure speculation, but I’d say we can look forward to a more refined UI, faster refresh rates, a lighter form, and a better screen-to-frame ratio. Let’s not dwell on what gimmicks and alternate purposes we might want to add in and focus on what matters. Namely, that the reading experience be as clean, immersive, and enjoyable as possible.
What I’d really like to know is *when* the Kindle 3 (or whatever) is coming out!
I agree with Mr. Bexos statements 110 percent. The Kindle was purchased as a portable READING device NOT a small netbook. Want to play games? Surf the internet? Get email? See color? Get an iPad or a netbook or even a notebook…. that is what they can and should do in addition to many other functions. I cannot remember reading a novel that had color pages (comic books excepted, as a child). Color adds nothing to a good novel; perhaps some text books.
Since we have newspapers available, it would be nice to be able to build an app to do the crossword puzzle or sudoku while reading the paper’s content..
Harlan,
Don’t we all.
Next time I’ll be having coffee with Bezos I’ll be sure to ask.
That would also be the first I’d be having coffee with Bezos :)
Sounds promising – I for one am perfectly happy with it as a reading device. It’s what I got it for!
And there’s more to read now, anyway, since Penguin and Amazon seem to have resolved their differences and the withheld titles are beginning to turn up for the Kindle!
If netbook/tablet/MID devices continue to have LCD/OLED displays then this would allow the ebook market to thrive and grow. However, at some point in the near future high-refresh color epaper fabrication will achieve necessary economies of scale. If the general purpose device makers use this epaper technology then the margins on specialized ebooks would fall precipitously, especially at the high end. If you put a color epaper screen on a $300 netbook, then digital ebooks would have to be below $150 probably to remain competitive. They can coexist because ebooks will be smaller, lighter, cheaper, and have longer battery life.
Erm…so what’s been happening with the development of the kindle apps? I mean, wasn’t the source code released a year and a half ago, and an SDK beta released ~ 6 months ago? While I agree that I love my DX for reading, some applications like a decent webbrowser, a better UI for audio selections, a crossword filler, etc would be very welcome.