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Originally Posted by prestidigitweeze
Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze View Post
The difference between UIs isn't massive, but I do find it irritating when Amazon flashes ads and/or books I despise, and when it guides me through content like a patriarchal hand gloving the tiny hand of an infant. You want to draw back and say, "Look, I know what I'm doing."
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Originally Posted by HarryT
What are you referring to? Kindles don't have ads unless you make the deliberate decision to buy an "ad-supported" version, and they certainly don't "guide you through content".
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First: 1. Kindles that don't have ads are pricier, which makes the base price less attractive. 2. People have been discussing the pros and cons of the Voyage vs. the H2O and pricing is one of the factors being considered. 3. Therefore complaints about ads on Kindles with ads are valid for people who don't want to spend lots of money to be free of them.
Second: It is certainly true that, on non-Amazon devices, the kindle app does inflict lists of books that Amazon thinks you should buy. And unlike similar lists on the Kobo (which I also dislike), Amazon's can't be dismissed and seem to make depressing determinations as to what might interest the user. I have yet to notice a single book cover inflicted by the Kindle app that belongs to a book I'd ever want to read, whereas Kobo at least manages to show choices that aren't insulting. Seeing those putrid books when I'm searching for a specific one on my smartphone plunges me into an appalling and bromide-leaden universe.
Re your response to the phrase "guides me through content":
I know you don't intend this, and I don't mean to imply that your POV is anything less than valid, but sometimes I feel as though I'm talking to that P.G. Wodehouse character who responds to metaphors by explaining they aren't literally true.
A: "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."
B: "No, it isn't. Both sides are the same color."
"Guide the user through content" doesn't necessarily mean to beat the user to death with a condescendingly child-friendly UI (which Amazon doesn't do). It can also imply
restricting the user from doing various things (such as removing ad tiles or other elements from the e-reader's main page, intricately changing layout to the point of setting the baseline, etc.). Broadly speaking, the phrase can mean many things and my (vaguely stated, I'll grant you) use was hardly intended to be literal.
In my view, the most manipulative thing Kobo does is this: on the device's main page, it makes you search "the library" of their bookstore rather than your own library by default. You have to change the setting manually every time. People with hundreds or thousands of books on their Kobo are far more likely to perform title searches on content they own than to go shopping at the Kobo store every ten minutes. No one who uses their e-reader for intensive research can possibly be pleased with that decision on Kobo's part. One should be able to change the search default in the prefs.
But as stated above, that one instance of user disenfranchisement on the Kobo is matched by several such instances on the Kindle app (and the Kindles I've demo'd since the KK).
It's still quite likely I'll buy a Voyage. But if I do, I'll buy it fully aware of what it can and cannot do; what it will and won't allow.
The distinction is obviously trivial to many informed users; I don't intend to imply that the Kobo's user experience is inherently better than the Kindle's. I'm only telling you what's important to me, and that I find the Kindle's limitations annoying.
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The following rant has nothing to do with your comments. It addresses an aspect of conversations about potential product features that I find dismissive.
Every user's needs are potentially important. One thing I don't particularly care for is the assertion of ad populum to dismiss users' complaints: "Most Kindle users will never care about that feature, so your complaint about its absence is invalid. The Kindle's current set of features are the best it could have because so many people enjoy and use the Kindle as it is."
Nonsense. No one here has conducted an international poll regarding the preferences of millions of Kindle users. Amazon might not want to implement changes for a number of reasons -- some of them practical, some of them proprietary -- but it isn't useful for anyone to speak for Amazon before a consensus on a given feature has even formed.