Interesting article in UK Guardian about International Kindle

amjbrown · 12-04-2009, 01:35 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/book...missing-titles

In the UK Waterstones have been giving away The Lost Symbol with Sony readers.

Worth a skim.

amjb

rcuadro · 12-04-2009, 01:43 PM

I think that the article is geared towards our brothers on the other side of the pond since all the books the author talks about, Dan Brown, Stephen King, Sarah Palin, are available on the Kindle here in the US.
I do understand though. I would be rather upset if I was always getting dinged because of where I lived. Hell, I was angry the first time I ran into a book that i could not get because I lived in the US! I didnt even want to read it in all reality but the fact that I could not read it, even if I wanted to, pissed me off.

It sure is a shame that we cant all me one big happy planet.

Hogan · 12-04-2009, 02:11 PM

I think the article is a fair reflection of how a lot of people on this side of the pond feel about Kindle. I know the geographic restrictions arent unique to Amazon, but shipping the product outside of the US with a US charger .. please!! Not to mention, no text to speech or browser! It was a rush job to say the least. Oh and tag on the $2 extra for downloading outside of the US. Yeah, we feel the love Amazon

Crowl · 12-04-2009, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hogan

I think the article is a fair reflection of how a lot of people on this side of the pond feel about Kindle. I know the geographic restrictions arent unique to Amazon, but shipping the product outside of the US with a US charger .. please!! Not to mention, no text to speech or browser! It was a rush job to say the least. Oh and tag on the $2 extra for downloading outside of the US. Yeah, we feel the love Amazon

The sad thing is that it is hardly a rush job either when you look at how long it actually took them to introduce this officially endorsed grey importing scheme.

Hogan · 12-04-2009, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crowl

The sad thing is that it is hardly a rush job either when you look at how long it actually took them to introduce this officially endorsed grey importing scheme.

Yep, that's hard to argue with!

amjbrown · 12-04-2009, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcuadro

I think that the article is geared towards our brothers on the other side of the pond since all the books the author talks about, Dan Brown, Stephen King, Sarah Palin, are available on the Kindle here in the US.

It certainly is aimed at the UK - it is published in the UK Guardian newspaper. Irony is Dan Brown is available in ePub on the UK Waterstones site, although I can't find any Stephen King.

fugazied · 12-04-2009, 05:08 PM

They are really selling 100k Kindles a week?? e-readers are definitely huge in 2010!
My friends in Australia always complain about the lack of selection with international purchases.

It's unfortunate, but hopefully pubishers will realise the huge amount of cash e-readers will bring into their coffers and get behind international licensing of ebooks.

Solicitous · 12-04-2009, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hogan

I think the article is a fair reflection of how a lot of people on this side of the pond feel about Kindle. I know the geographic restrictions arent unique to Amazon, but shipping the product outside of the US with a US charger .. please!! Not to mention, no text to speech or browser! It was a rush job to say the least. Oh and tag on the $2 extra for downloading outside of the US. Yeah, we feel the love Amazon

So no text-to-speech at all on the international version? or is it just an increase in the number of books not allowed to be read via TTS?

twaits · 12-05-2009, 03:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcuadro

I think that the article is geared towards our brothers on the other side of the pond since all the books the author talks about, Dan Brown, Stephen King, Sarah Palin, are available on the Kindle here in the US.
I do understand though. I would be rather upset if I was always getting dinged because of where I lived. Hell, I was angry the first time I ran into a book that i could not get because I lived in the US! I didnt even want to read it in all reality but the fact that I could not read it, even if I wanted to, pissed me off.

It sure is a shame that we cant all me one big happy planet.

Have you read the article?

Quote:

Shame there's no Philip Roth, no Toni Morrison, no Thomas Pynchon.

I searched this week for the new Pynchon and was flabbergast, that I couldn't find a single ebook by him.

HarryT · 12-05-2009, 04:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hogan

I think the article is a fair reflection of how a lot of people on this side of the pond feel about Kindle. I know the geographic restrictions arent unique to Amazon, but shipping the product outside of the US with a US charger .. please!! Not to mention, no text to speech or browser! It was a rush job to say the least. Oh and tag on the $2 extra for downloading outside of the US. Yeah, we feel the love Amazon

What do you mean "no text to speech"? The international Kindle certainly does have TTS!

HarryT · 12-05-2009, 04:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fugazied

They are really selling 100k Kindles a week??

I seriously doubt it, given that PVI (the company which makes eInk screens for everybody) only has a manufacturing capacity of around 100,000 screens per month - and that's for all the device manufacturers combined.

Hogan · 12-05-2009, 05:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

What do you mean "no text to speech"? The international Kindle certainly does have TTS!

Oops, I stand corrected. I still wont be singing the praises of Amazon though. My relationship with them is strictly wrt pBooks and will remain so until they come out with something which treats non-US customers as equals.

DawnFalcon · 12-05-2009, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

What do you mean "no text to speech"? The international Kindle certainly does have TTS!

...enabled on maybe 1% of its books, yes. Big chunk went off TTS last week, had two friends screaming about it. I lol'ed.

kjk · 12-05-2009, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

...enabled on maybe 1% of its books, yes. Big chunk went off TTS last week, had two friends screaming about it. I lol'ed.

I don't have a Kindle, but I remember that issue, and how Amazon gave in and allowed publishers the choice of deactivating that feature on books if they chose.

So the worst fears are coming true so far? Publishers are deactivating it by default?

HarryT · 12-06-2009, 03:33 AM

Just checked. Every one of my books has TTS enabled. Where do you get your figure of only 1% of books being TTS enabled, DF? If it's true, I must have been astronomically "lucky" to have had none of mine disabled.

12-04-2009, 01:35 PM	#1
amjbrown Addict Posts: 322 Karma: 1231044 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: London, UK Device: Kindle Oasis 3, Kindle app on the iPhone	Interesting article in UK Guardian about International Kindle http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/book...missing-titles In the UK Waterstones have been giving away The Lost Symbol with Sony readers. Worth a skim. amjb

12-04-2009, 02:11 PM	#3
Hogan Zealot Posts: 106 Karma: 5228 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Ireland Device: Motorola Xoom	I think the article is a fair reflection of how a lot of people on this side of the pond feel about Kindle. I know the geographic restrictions arent unique to Amazon, but shipping the product outside of the US with a US charger .. please!! Not to mention, no text to speech or browser! It was a rush job to say the least. Oh and tag on the $2 extra for downloading outside of the US. Yeah, we feel the love Amazon Last edited by Hogan; 12-04-2009 at 02:12 PM. Reason: Missed the $2 thing

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12-04-2009, 01:43 PM	#2
rcuadro Wizard Posts: 1,686 Karma: 874275 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Virginia Beach, VA Device: Kindle DX	I think that the article is geared towards our brothers on the other side of the pond since all the books the author talks about, Dan Brown, Stephen King, Sarah Palin, are available on the Kindle here in the US. I do understand though. I would be rather upset if I was always getting dinged because of where I lived. Hell, I was angry the first time I ran into a book that i could not get because I lived in the US! I didnt even want to read it in all reality but the fact that I could not read it, even if I wanted to, pissed me off. It sure is a shame that we cant all me one big happy planet.

12-04-2009, 05:08 PM	#7
fugazied Wizard Posts: 1,305 Karma: 1958 Join Date: Jan 2009 Device: iPod Touch	They are really selling 100k Kindles a week?? e-readers are definitely huge in 2010! My friends in Australia always complain about the lack of selection with international purchases. It's unfortunate, but hopefully pubishers will realise the huge amount of cash e-readers will bring into their coffers and get behind international licensing of ebooks.

12-06-2009, 03:33 AM	#15
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Just checked. Every one of my books has TTS enabled. Where do you get your figure of only 1% of books being TTS enabled, DF? If it's true, I must have been astronomically "lucky" to have had none of mine disabled.