Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Well, I find Amazon really needs to work on their user interface. It's not that special and finding things you don't know you want is not as good as it should be. When I search for an item and it's available in different departments because that's how it's listed, I want to be able to sort without having to select a specific department. There are other UI fails too that Amazon has. Most eBook stores also have UI fail. That includes Google. So it's not just Amazon, but Amazon is the biggest one to fail.
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Sure.
I've never said Amazon is perfect.
After all, I do 90% of my reading in fbReader and 60% of my buying at BAEN.
But I would point out that Amazon runs a (mostly) unified storefront that sells dry goods, electronics, and digital products.
Feature commonality across the entire storefront is important so a lot of complaints, like this...
http://writerscircle.com/2014/04/aut...s-process.html
...will be ignored. On purpose and for good reason: reviews are for the shoppers not the vendors. (I actually saw a call for a law forbidding product reviews on online stores.)
On the device front, the "failings" of the software may not always be failings in their eyes. Kindles tend to adhere to two overriding design principles: stability above all and K.I.S.S.
Market research and listening to customers doesn't mean either gets the last word. Given the maturity of the Kindle line and the sheer size of Lab126, I'd ssy that if Kindles lack a specific feature it is mostly going to be because they think the added value doesn't justify the cost. (Which might be in the form of a hit to simplicity.)
Now, if I cared enough about Kindle feature sets, what I would recommend is making the onboard reading app modal, with the default app about what it is now and a second mode(or app) hidden under EXPERIMENTAL with features up the wazoo, ala fbReader or Coolreader. One size doesn't fit all but two might.