It really is a shame that my e-reader doesn't have an SD slot

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

Certainly, I'm not the average Kindle owner; and I'm not saying that Amazon should design its hardware to please me.

Elegant? Technologically elegant, I will grant you. But it doesn't appeal to me at all. In what way does your solution benefit the customer? What does it enable the reader to do that isn't possible now?

Better for Amazon, sure. Why should I buy it?

Not better for Amazon, actually -- and for all the reasons that you just enumerated.

Amazon is in business to sell consumers what they want -- and if consumers expressed interest in Rizla's pipe dream, then Amazon would accommodate.

Amazon has a good thing going with the Kindle Fire, similar to Apple's iPads -- they have convinced people they want that specific tablet, and to pay premiums for built-in storage instead of having an SD slot.

But there aren't any consumers who will put up with a device that cannot get extra storage either from the manufacturer OR via an SD card, and is limited to a GB or so for the OS alone.

Even the Chromebook, the ultimate internet-comnectivity-centric device, has enough builtin memory to handle a fair amount of offline storage, user data, etc. -- and has USB ports too.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

I also don't think Amazon can fairly be accused of the strict walled garden approach, when they have allowed sideloading since day one, and support sending personal documents (including DRM free books purchased elsewhere) to be uploaded to the cloud and then downloaded to any Kindle device. A true walled garden would not allow that.

For most Kindle users eBooks, Amazon is a walled garden when you talk about eBooks with DRM. Most don't use Calibre. Most don't strip DRM. Most have no choice but to buy from Amazon or get from the library (if in the US and there's a Kindle version). The thing is, I'm not sure that it would just be DRM making the garden walled. Most people would not know what do to if you handed them a DRM free ePub and asked them how to put it on a Kindle to read.

For that matter, having a Reader that handles ePub can be the same sort of walled garden as a Kindle, DRM or not.

What really makes the walled garden the lack of access to the knowledge to break out of the walled garden. The information is there and it's easy to use once you have it. But you have to know it's there, find it and be able to use it. For a lot, that's not easy or possible.

[JSWolf]

I have some questions for everyone partaking in this thread.

If Amazon was to offer options to have smaller margins and a smaller line height, would you use them or would you stick with the same options you use now? Do you even want such options?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

For most Kindle users eBooks, Amazon is a walled garden when you talk about eBooks with DRM. Most don't use Calibre. Most don't strip DRM. Most have no choice but to buy from Amazon or get from the library (if in the US and there's a Kindle version). The thing is, I'm not sure that it would just be DRM making the garden walled. Most people would not know what do to if you handed them a DRM free ePub and asked them how to put it on a Kindle to read.

For that matter, having a Reader that handles ePub can be the same sort of walled garden as a Kindle, DRM or not.

What really makes the walled garden the lack of access to the knowledge to break out of the walled garden. The information is there and it's easy to use once you have it. But you have to know it's there, find it and be able to use it. For a lot, that's not easy or possible.

Exactly -- and that makes the walled garden something that the user carries around and erects on top of whatever device s/he owns, regardless of brand.

There are some true walled gardens, but they require a much higher level of obstruction to qualify.
For instance, iDevices which only allow official appstore apps to run, unless you want to fight with jailbreaking (and maintaining the jailbreak) which is a tremendous hassle even for the knowledgeable user. And getting data onto an iDevice without using either iTunes to sync, or downloading via the mobile browser/Dropboxing everything.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have some questions for everyone partaking in this thread.

If Amazon was to offer options to have smaller margins and a smaller line height, would you use them or would you stick with the same options you use now? Do you even want such options?

I would use them both, although it isn't really a big deal to me. I would say though that I have only ever used the smallest font size, spacing, and margins, because more than that is just flat-out ridiculous -- at least the margins and spacing. (I might have a different response if my eyes were bad. But the steps between the different font sizes are ludicrous as well, at the higher end.)

At the end of the day... the current settings are good enough for me to read, and I don't feel like I have to turn the page too much.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have some questions for everyone partaking in this thread.

If Amazon was to offer options to have smaller margins and a smaller line height, would you use them or would you stick with the same options you use now? Do you even want such options?

I already answered on the other thread, but I'll answer again here, more succinctly:


Margins:

The smallest margin setting on the Kindle is basically exactly how much I'd choose, even if I had the option to control it down to the last pixel.

Line spacing:

The widest line spacing on the Kindle is basically exactly what I'd choose.

Font sizes:

The 5th font size is exactly what I read. 4 years ago I was on the 4th size, but vision changes with age. 5th to 6th is a rather large jump, but I'd probably be OK with it when the time comes. The absolute largest seemed absurd to me until I saw my mom reading that way and saying it was perfect for her with no glasses.

Kerning:

I don't want more control over kerning, but I wish that the default was better. Maybe they've improved with the higher resolution Voyage, but I suspect that they haven't updated their rendering engine.

This does appear to be something that Kobo does better by default, but again I don't want adjustments, I just want it to be better out of the box.

The Mac (and to a lesser extent most Linux distributions) is a great example of this with great font rendering, vs Windows w/ crappy font rendering.

[larand]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have some questions for everyone partaking in this thread.

If Amazon was to offer options to have smaller margins and a smaller line height, would you use them or would you stick with the same options you use now? Do you even want such options?

Just to show that we all have different things that are important to us, I'm fine with the current standard margins and line height, but I'd really like to force left-justification. I hate the variability of space between words that full justification causes.

[DiapDealer]

I get a big kick out of how ebooks suddenly turned so many into armchair typographists.

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by Rizla

The ability to side-load is a legacy of the need to physically connect a charger. That will change.

Nonsense. They're simply not going to take that capability away from loyal users who've had it since the first Kindle.

Also this is substantively wrong. They could have had USB charging without ever allowing the device to connect like a flash drive for purposes of file transfer.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have some questions for everyone partaking in this thread.

If Amazon was to offer options to have smaller margins and a smaller line height, would you use them or would you stick with the same options you use now? Do you even want such options?

I hacked (edited) the config file.
The problem is the file is used elsewhere so it can't just be made read only and your edit goes (resets) away if you bump that setting in the menu (my margin is set at 10, not 40, which is the smallest on the K4)

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I get a big kick out of how ebooks suddenly turned so many into armchair typographists.

This!

I mean, sheesh, maybe play with the options that are there to see which is most comfortable for you, I hear that... but to seriously care in the marrow of your bones about the lack of as many options?

As long as they don't force me to use Large Print.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by larand

Just to show that we all have different things that are important to us, I'm fine with the current standard margins and line height, but I'd really like to force left-justification. I hate the variability of space between words that full justification causes.

If you have a DRM free Kindle eBook, you can use the Hyphenate This plugin with Calibre to add soft hyphens to your eBook that the Kindle will respect and only display at the end of a line if needed. It works very well on a Kindle. Then you can have full justification without so many large gaps.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

Nonsense. They're simply not going to take that capability away from loyal users who've had it since the first Kindle.

Also this is substantively wrong. They could have had USB charging without ever allowing the device to connect like a flash drive for purposes of file transfer.

Unlike the epub reader manufacturers, Amazon probably has a good idea of what percentage of Kindle owners are using sideloaded material based on the number of users who are "sideloading via Whispersync". If Amazon decides the average user never sideloads anything, and that it causes more support issues than it's worth, they might discontinue the service. B&N dropped the SD slot and the ability to download books to the PC, and I'm sure they decided that they could do both without a great impact to the bottom line. The SD slot makes it more likely that the customer will buy some books from alternate retailers, and what retailer wants to encourage that? Maybe if you're the only retailer with that feature, it's worth it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

Nonsense. They're simply not going to take that capability away from loyal users who've had it since the first Kindle.

Why not? They've taken away other features like an SD card slot, audio, TTS, computer controllable collections. But to be honest, I doubt side loading will ever go away. If it did, Kindles would tank.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I get a big kick out of how ebooks suddenly turned so many into armchair typographists.

Maybe it is because books that were nicely typeset have been mangled by OCR feeding into a minimalist conversion program.

Or maybe it is because folk starting trying to read on minimalist, postage stamp screens that has no real room for anything.

I can't remember ever having a printed book with a line-height (equivalent) under 1+