New Kindle with WiFi announced

[pilotbob]

@Jon and others...

I hate to say it but you are pretty off base with non-support of ePub being a problem. The majority of Kindle customers are going to be people that buy many books from Amazon. Everyday they go to amazon to buy books and wait for them to ship. Every day their bookcases fill up and they have no room to store more. Everyday they go to Amazon they see this kindle thing. For $140 they can get a kindle and be able to order books and have them instantly. The books they buy will work on the kindle. The books they buy will be stored on kindles servers and can be re-downloaded. The books they buy can also be read on their PC/Mac/iPad/Phones.

@MoeJoe has it right. It is about providing a convenient product to the mainstream book reader market. It isn't about formats or standards or DRM. It is about selling Kindles to readers and then selling them ebooks.

You can take a look at a very similar eco system in the iPhone/iPad/iTunes. There will be a small fringe of customers that jail break and want more control... but the majority of mainstream customers want to listen to their music on the device they bought without hassles.

I had considered getting my wife a Sony 300 but with the way the Kindle eco system has grown and extended to PCs, Macs and iPads as well gives a very compelling reason to stick with it and continue to build a nice library off kindle ebooks on my Amazon account.

If I want free books I will download them from feedbooks or mobileread or even the Kindle store and really don't need the library. I never used the library before ebooks, I bought what I wanted to read, new. So, this also is a non-issue for me and most if not all Kindle customers.

BOb

[Kumabjorn]

I have to agree with Moejoe on declaring victory for Amazon. While I happen to have very good experiences with the company as a customer, it would certainly worry me if it becomes a de facto monopoly on providing e-books. Yet, for me the overwhelming reason for buying the Kindle is its ability to download a new book into the device from just about any place that has access to 3G. In the short time I've had my Kindle I've bought more books from Amazon than I did in 08 and 09 combined. I would love to be able to lend books from an e-Library but I think I can foresake it for the convenience of buying books directly to the Kindle.

[rahulm]

hi guys

I'm in Canada and I just want to confirm:

The Kindle will not give me access to free 3G internet, right?
Montreal is in the 3g coverage zone but I'm assuming it's only for the Kindle store access.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Borders app should read these, as borders uses adept.

But can you sideload your own content using the Borders app?

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

Moejoe, you're only speaking of that tying part of the world, called the united state of america.

Amazon is only beginning to move toward to UK..... They have a name, true, but if they keep on like that, they are kind of arriving after the battle. Even if amazon decided to open an amazon.fr store, with books in French. Well, too late amazon, I already have a collection in an other format, i'll keep it.

The problem isn't so much the format (ePub is a great format, I love it). The problem for ePub and the book stores that back it, is that Amazon are offering, and continue to offer the least complicated reading experience around their own proprietary format. This year is the tipping point, and it'll tip in Europe with a price as low as £109 and with the Amazon brand behind that price, you'll get a lot of non-technical adopters who'll buy this come Christmas.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

You've identified a problem that can be solved, not a reason why ePub can survive the worldwide assault (and brand recognition) of Amazon. It's all about the path of least resistance when it comes to adoption. If you can sit on the beach and buy the latest best-seller on a whim, worldwide, then the average punter is going to jump at the chance. If you can get your newspaper delivered, then people are going to jump at the chance. The average punter probably has no clue about ePub vs .mobi (AZW) - most didn't have a clue about Betamax vs VHS either. What they do know is that Amazon sells books, they know that Amazon sells an ereader that can access those books, they do not care about DRM or formats or loaning out from a library (again, a problem that can be solved).

Another reason to just throw up our hands and say 'Okay, Amazon, you win', is the absolutely generous treatment that Amazon gives to independent commercial authors. Amazon is creating, little by little, a new mid list where these authors can survive, maybe even make a living with 70% royalties on their books. None of the other companies are doing this (B&N are making baby steps, but not much more).

For nearly two years I've backed ePub, but it and the companies that adopted it as a format have done nothing beyond a few meagre book stores, some limp hardware updates, and adding a few more types of DRM. We need to move forward, and to do that, some of us (the staunchest supporters of ePub even) have to admit that it failed to do what it promised and that the general public have, and are continuing to choose Amazon over everyone else.

When you see an eBook available for sale for say $12.99 or $14.99 and then look at your libraries collection of eBooks and see the ePub version available to read for free, the person with the Kindle will wish he/she had a device that handled library eBooks. This is one area that Amazon is going to lose out on and lose out big time.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This is one area that Amazon is going to lose out on and lose out big time.

It is pretty obvious that the above is not going to happen. People that buy kindles are people that bought everything they read. People that go to the library for most or all of their books won't be buying a kindle, sure. But lose out "big time", not so much cause those people won't buy Sony's either.

BOB

[JSWolf]

One of the reasons my mother got a reader was because of being able to get eBooks out of the library,

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When you see an eBook available for sale for say $12.99 or $14.99 and then look at your libraries collection of eBooks and see the ePub version available to read for free, the person with the Kindle will wish he/she had a device that handled library eBooks. This is one area that Amazon is going to lose out on and lose out big time.

Depends on what you read and which e-books your library stocks. My library has a good number of e-books that I don't want to read. I'd rather buy from Amazon, read what I want, when I want to. For me, library e-books don't matter.

[volwrath]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When you see an eBook available for sale for say $12.99 or $14.99 and then look at your libraries collection of eBooks and see the ePub version available to read for free, the person with the Kindle will wish he/she had a device that handled library eBooks. This is one area that Amazon is going to lose out on and lose out big time.

Except for that fact that overdrive's website is abysmal. It is near impossible to locate anything worth reading on there.

Personally I am dumping Sony for K3 for whispersync. It was always such a pain to figure out where I was in my sony reader after I had been reading it using fbreader on my pc or stanza on my ipod touch. Whispersync is awesome. Personally I thought Sony would have some apps out by now for popular devices, but I guess the real battle will be between B&N and Amazon now. Does the nook and kobo readers have whispersync type technology?

As far as the ebook format wars goes, at least in USA, I truly hope one of them wins out soon. I'm old enough to remember the Betamax versus VHS wars. Yes Betamax was superior in most ways, but once VHS won out and Betamax disappeared it was much more convenient to have only on format as all movies were then forced to release on that format. In more recent years, we started going through this same war except with HD DVD versus BluRay. It was another royal pain to find the movie you wanted in the format you owned. As soon as Bluray won out, all the studios starting using that format and the issue went away. Is ePub better than AZW/MOBI? Perhaps. If Amazon eventually wins the day and most publishers choose AZW/MOBI over ePub will I be upset. No! Finally we will have an end to multiple formats used by all the different publishers. I would prefer ePub, but i'll settle for AZW/MOBI if it means I can have most ebooks published in a single, universal format and not have to mess with converting. I was really pulling for Sony, but Sony showed early on and still shows that it is not committed to ebooks as it fails to provide decent software for buying them.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

The problem isn't so much the format (ePub is a great format, I love it). The problem for ePub and the book stores that back it, is that Amazon are offering, and continue to offer the least complicated reading experience around their own proprietary format. This year is the tipping point, and it'll tip in Europe with a price as low as £109 and with the Amazon brand behind that price, you'll get a lot of non-technical adopters who'll buy this come Christmas.

In the UK maybe.
For France, amazon will need to get along with the french publishers firts. Most French don't want to bother with reading English.
In the meantime, Bookeen and Sony have been offering access to the main French stores for a few years...
Amazon will have a hard time convincing people to convert their e-book.

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When you see an eBook available for sale for say $12.99 or $14.99 and then look at your libraries collection of eBooks and see the ePub version available to read for free, the person with the Kindle will wish he/she had a device that handled library eBooks. This is one area that Amazon is going to lose out on and lose out big time.

For now, and again, the Kindle is marketed toward book-buyers not book-lenders. I can't remember the last time I even visited the Library, and with the dearth of freely available content online and at Amazon, I cannot see a point in the future where I'll ever need to visit one again.

Two things tipped me over from ePub today, and for me they outweigh everything else. The first was the price. It's the right price for the device to make me pre-order immediately. The second is that I know I can support independent authors more effectively through Amazon than I can anywhere else. I know that if I buy a book from an indie through Amazon they'll be getting a far better deal than with the traditional publishers (plus I can actually buy content without DRM or restrictions through these very same independents).

Amazon have won, that means .mobi has won, which means we'll probably see lots of devices and deals coming up from different manufacturers that will support the Amazon ecosystem and the Amazon formats. It's not a bad day for e-reading, it's a watershed day that signals a greater adoption in the future.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by SpiderMatt

Just curious: does anyone else not like the "graphite" color? I'm glad Amazon still sells a white version. I just don't see the appeal of a darker colored Kindle, especially since black absorbs more heat. Not to say I think it will over heat. It hardly uses enough power for that, of course. But in Arizona, black items definitely get noticeably hotter when in the sun. Maybe that's just a personal dislike. I know the Kindle has been criticized for its color since it came out, though. I just don't know what the big deal is and I have come to think white makes perfect sense on the Kindle.

pretty much already been addressed, but can you say "skins"?

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

I got my K2i 20 days ago. Does that mean I can return it and order the K33G instead? (same price) If so, does it need to be returned in original packaging? (I threw out the box after a week when I knew I wanted to keep it)

you can return it. fairly certain the box will not be an issue

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

But just try to borrow an ebook from the library.. Bezos says NO!... give Amazon your money, so we can support our "advanced" Mobi format.

No ePub = No sale!

Not catchy enough?

No library lending = No sale!

seriously!? you STILL don't get the library on the Kindle?

Originally Posted by AFK_Matrix

I am very interested in the Kindle now it looks decent and the screen seems to have a great contrast, thats what I love about my Sony PRS-505.

But I have a few reservations about the books available to buy on Amazon as I only really read Sci Fi books. I assume I can take my epub books and use Calibre to convert them for use on the Kindle? But could I also go and buy books from Mobipocket and then read these on the Kindle?

Can I go anywhere else for books that I can use on the Kindle or am I stuck with the Amazone shop?

as has been said... Baen Books, Smashwords, a few others have been mentioned

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When you see an eBook available for sale for say $12.99 or $14.99 and then look at your libraries collection of eBooks and see the ePub version available to read for free, the person with the Kindle will wish he/she had a device that handled library eBooks. This is one area that Amazon is going to lose out on and lose out big time.

why do you folks refuse to understand that you can get library books on your kindle?

[fumanchu314159]

In these declarations of Amazon's victory, don't you think Google is the wildcard? They have announced their entry into the eBook arena with Google Editions, but with no details yet. What will their move be? They certainly won't go proprietary with Amazon...that's against their DNA...but what will they do??