Quote:
Originally Posted by djgreedo
I think Amazon would be insane to not put touch controls on the next Kindle. So many things work better with touch: footnotes, hyperlinks, menus, word lookup, etc.
But I also think they'd be insane to not keep some buttons, especially to turn pages.
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I would bet against touch on the low end Kindle for a while.
I think that Amazon wants to postition itself with the low cost EBR vis a vis the other large players in the EBR business. Evidently, their costs for the current low end Kindle are low enough for them to do that. So any NEW low end Kindle will have to be priced as low as the present KwSO. I don't see how adding a touch screen will keep costs down.
On the anticipated high end Kindle(s), I have to believe that you are right - these are going to be touch devices. But I don't see the point in adding page turn buttons to a device that is built around touch, unles their focus groups tell them that a significant proportion of potential customers will not buy the new EBRs without page turn buttons. Reason being that the addition of page turn buttons will add some cost, and will also add another potential point of failure on the device, to merely duplicate the funtion that touch can perform.
But what is possible - barely - is "touch buttons" on the bezel portion of the EBR. I can imagine a kind of "margin swipe" up or down on the bezel to turn the page forward or back, using my thumb while holding the EBR. I just tried it out on my Sony 650 & it seems to be a perfectly natural move.