3 things that would make Kindle Touch better

[TimW]

Originally Posted by route66

...I consider the lack of page display on the page itself a unecessary flaw for something that can be easily remedied.

Perhaps...you're certainly welcome to offer any suggestions in an email to kindle-feedback@amazon.com. If enough people show interest in having the page numbers always visible, they may change it.

To clarify, I don't consider it to be a flaw but everyone has different preferences. The "percentage complete" is usually the only stat I consider while reading.

Originally Posted by route66

I wasn't aware that it was possible to view page numbers by clicking on the menu bar, great to know! Though I don't understand why it doesn't appear by default where Loc is (which is useless to a lot of people) surely thats the most obvious feature for an ereader, to display the page as opposed to Loc.

Anyway I'm happy to have discovered this and to those getting impatient remember that you are under absolutely no obligation to reply to me if you don't want to. Great that it's in the manual but why should such a basic feature require menu tapping, I consider the lack of page display on the page itself a unecessary flaw for something that can be easily remedied.

No offense was intended BTW. Long ago I taught college freshman at Texas A&M University. I still operate in blunt mode all these years after the fact. With college freshman you find yourself repeating EVERYTHING a thousand times over! We get a lot of the same questions on this forum, many, like this one, are well documented in the manual. Plus I spent 25 years writing technical manuals for software applications and got really tire of people complaining they could not figure out a function that was very clearly documented and easy to find within the manual. Actually, our Customer Support staff was even more adamant about reading the manual and almost always qualified their answers to customers by referring them to the proper page in the manual.

BTW, I agree that it would be best to display the page numbers on every page, though it is certainly not a deal breaker for me. I would also prefer a Progress Bar like that used with the K3 Keyboard. The Touch has a progress bar for magazines, but not for books. As stated above, always send your thoughts to Amazon. Occasionally they listen to our complaints and make requested changes.

Enjoy your Kindle! It has a few minor flaws, but all in all it is much better than any of the competition I've tried. And Amazon CS is second to none!

[dbh2ppa]

Except for, maybe, people on reading clubs, or researchers who need to be precise about the pages they are quoting, I don't understand what someone would need page numbers for...
If it's to know how far along in the book you are, %s are considerably better suited than page numbers (though progress bars would, conceivably, be even better... with signals where chapters begin/end... that'd be great).
Could someone please enlighten me, what do you use page numbers for?

I'm 54 and have been reading for over a half century now. I'm very accustomed to having page numbers as I read printed books for all of those years. The Kindles came out and two things made them quite different from the experience of reading a printed book.

One, they used locations rather than page numbers. It is not a big issue, but if you have grown accustomed to half of a century worth of seeing page numbers, then you notice the lack of them. And locations, though logical, still don't easily register in peoples minds the way page numbers do. So let us call this one a question of TRADITION.

Two, a printed book gives you immediate, visual feedback as to where you are within the book. A printed book is of course 3 dimensional whereas a Kindle has only a 2 dimensional reading plane (screen). You can easily see how large the stack of pages is on the left side as opposed to the right side of the center of the open, printed book. You eyes easily gauge approximately how for into the book you currently are. This is because printed books have depth whereas Kindle books do not. Once again this is more TRADITION than anything, but I like having that quick glance gauge. The older Kindles gave us the digital equivalent of depth by providing a progress bar. I'm thinking this progress bar concept was copied from computer interfaces, but regardless it gives you a quick glance gauge to see how far along you are within a book. The older Kindles even showed divisions (as in chapters/section) along the progress bar so you could even see approximately how close you were to the beginning of the next section/chapter. Even printed books rarely have that gauge.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Two, a printed book gives you immediate, visual feedback as to where you are within the book. You can easily see how large the stack of pages is on the left side as opposed to the right side of the center of the open book.

So does the percentage that the Kindle shows. Indeed, it's even easier to judge, because it's right there in front of you as a number.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by route66

Great that it's in the manual but why should such a basic feature require menu tapping, I consider the lack of page display on the page itself a unecessary flaw for something that can be easily remedied.

I strongly suspect that Amazon wants to get people accustomed to thinking more in terms of locations. Page numbers are an anachronism when it comes to ebooks. There is no "page", so the number is meaningless. Mapping it to a particular edition of an ebook is good for referencing an area in the book for those who don't have the ebook and for academic use, but otherwise what's the difference? You're at location 4500 out of 6900, or about 65% of the way through the book. How much reading is that? Well, that's what takes getting used to. You learned over many years to associate 150 pages with a particular amount of reading, but even those who very much want page numbers would recognize that 150 pages of dense print isn't the same thing as 150 pages of large print, wide margin, illustrated kids book.

If paper books had, instead, used locations, and that's what you'd learned your entire life you'd be screaming if the Kindle used something as "stupid" as screens, which obviously mean nothing if you change the font/margin/etc... Imagine if paper books had a little number in the margin ever 5 lines or so telling how many "words" into the book you were [defined as the old typing speed calculations were, 5 letters to a word]... it wouldn't matter if you were reading the large print version, the hardback, or the paperback, you could tell somebody: "in the paragraph containing word 65274..." and after a while even page numbers would sound stupid... that's what location numbers are, though Amazon's definition of a location is a bit more opaque than "words", it is in 128 byte chunks, IIRC, which roughly maps to 128 letters, or about 25 words by my above "typing speed" definition.

edit: those who grew up in church might recognize something like locations already...

Let's turn to the book of Psalms, chapter 137, verse 9...

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by jswinden

IThe older Kindles gave us the digital equivalent of depth by providing a progress bar. I'm thinking this progress bar concept was copied from computer interfaces, but regardless it gives you a quick glance gauge to see how far along you are within a book. The older Kindles even showed divisions (as in chapters/section) along the progress bar so you could even see approximately how close you were to the beginning of the next section/chapter. Even printed books rarely have that gauge.

"the older Kindles" ???

Does the touch no longer have the progress bar and chapter markers?

[thomass]

Originally Posted by twowheels

"the older Kindles" ???

Does the touch no longer have the progress bar and chapter markers?

touch has both of them

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by thomass

touch has both of them

Oh, good.... had me worried. :-) Between the post that I quoted and another saying something similar I started to think that I'd best keep my old K3 running on its last legs even longer. ;-)

Originally Posted by HarryT

So does the percentage that the Kindle shows. Indeed, it's even easier to judge, because it's right there in front of you as a number.

I would categorize the % amount as more logical than visual. The brain has to process the % via its math processor, so to speak. The progress bar is more visual. I'm no neurologists, but I think these are processed in different parts of the brain.

Originally Posted by twowheels

"the older Kindles" ???

Does the touch no longer have the progress bar and chapter markers?

Unfortunately no. The K3 had them, but more recent readers do not. The Fire does not have it either.

The Touch displays Location # at bottom left of each eBook page and % read at the bottom right. If you display the Menu, then Page # will display at bottom center of the Menu window, that is if page numbers have been added by the publisher. Also, if you display the TOC it will show Page # to the right of all entries. The TOC use of page numbers is the greatest use of such IMO. Page numbers in a TOC make a lot of sense and add a lot of value, again IMO.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Unfortunately no. The K3 had them, but more recent readers do not. The Fire does not have it either.

OK, I have two answers from people whose profiles both say they own the device, both of which disagree. Who's lying?


Edit: Pictures on Amazon.com seem to indicate no progress bar. That's too bad.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by twowheels

Oh, good.... had me worried. :-) Between the post that I quoted and another saying something similar I started to think that I'd best keep my old K3 running on its last legs even longer. ;-)

The Touch doesn't have a progress bar, other than a miniature one on the library screen. Amazon have gone for a completely "clean screen" look on the touch; all you see while reading are the location number in the bottom left corner, and the percentage in the bottom right. Tapping the top of the screen to display the menu bar shows the page number, but no progress bar.

See the attached screenshots for a typical eBook page, a Menu displayed on the page, and the TOC displayed. This is of course only applicable if page numbers were added to the book by the publisher.

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BTW: When reading a magazine some views show a progress bar. But the magazine/newspaper reader is a different app from the mobi/KF8 reader.

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