[QUOTE=Marinerrr;518061][QUOTE=bsandersen;514999]I've been booting parallels to run Sony's goofy software on my MacBook Pro.
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Calibre!!! That's the best Mac solution. I boot into VM ware to run the tool for firmware updates, but that's it. Everything else is better in Calibre.
IMHO.
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Brevity is good but my post was evidently too brief. Let me try again.
Calibre is great. I have contributed to the author and have used it for both my Sony and Kindle. Kudos to developer. However, one must still use Sony's goofy software to purchase any books from their store or snag those 100 free books bundled with the reader. Calibre is not an alternative for that purpose.
I stand corrected on the "most expensive thumb drive" comment. Whoa. There are some crazy/rich people out there. My point, however, was that one could purchase something from the Amazon store using only a simple browser, download it, and shuffle it to the reader. The necessity of the computer was simply to act as a conduit first from the store and then to the device. If you purchase a book while traveling overseas (as I did when in London) then this model is the alternative to the straightforward Whispernet delivery. Sony's goofy software is always required for the Sony reader; no such goofy software is necessary in the Amazon world.
The Kindle model does not demand that a user even own a computer. I thought that was "an interesting if only marginally useful" concept until I met a gentleman waiting for a flight in Heathrow. He was a doctor who works in the Boston area who gets the daily paper delivered to his Kindle, reads books on it, and, according to him, he has never connected it to a computer in the year he has owned it. It wasn't that he was an unsophisticated user; he just didn't see the need. That's the difference between the Sony user experience model and Amazons: the necessity of goofy proprietary software and a computer, or the lack of need for same.
The question shouldn't be, "why doesn't this work with my Amiga?" (or whatever platform you enjoy). The question should be, "why should it have to work with _any_ computer?" Or, why can't the model be so it works as a storage device available to _any_ computer capable of mounting a USB storage device. [By the way, what is the "Guru Meditation Code" for a bad connection to a Kindle on an Amiga? Only Amiga fans can answer...]
The thing is: I still really like the Sony hardware. I have also collected a bunch of LRFs of things I'd like to read. But, as a matter of practice, the Kindle user model is more satisfying (and the books generally cheaper--a rant for another time). Not treating Macintosh users as second class citizens is a big step forward but I will wait and see the extent of the user experience improvements for Mac users before I again recommend the reader to my Macintosh-using friends.
-- Scott