11-16-2017, 10:31 AM | #31 |
Wizard
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11-19-2017, 11:49 AM | #32 | |
Sentient Sauce
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Quote:
If one asks for jalapeños on a pizza and you don't eat spicy food, why try to steer public opinion against offering jalapeños? Last edited by Pizza_Cant_Read; 11-19-2017 at 12:03 PM. |
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11-19-2017, 12:26 PM | #33 | |
Just a Yellow Smiley.
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If only 1% want a new feature, it isn't worth the time and expense to retrain customer service. Jalapeños on a pizza does not require changing ALL pizzas. Opening a platform requires a lot of behind the scenes work. Your idea is interesting. |
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11-19-2017, 01:20 PM | #34 |
Guru
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@Cinisajoy: What is the the percentage of Kindle users that would want/like/appreciate/wouldn't mind having on/off option to have "book-cover-as-screensaver" (and/or "choose my own set of pictures of dogs/cats/children/anime characters/...)? That is something that people have been asking for 10 f-ing years now... and I bet that gaining that particular functionality covers at least 90% jailbreaks.
I agree that Amazon can't be expected to invest time and money for 0.001% Kindle users that want to run VNC, Dropbox, server for XYZ/... on their Kindle, or 1% that want to use external remote (or voice commands) to turn pages (but on the other hand Lab126 should not actively do their best to stop people for doing those exotic use-cases; I really can't imagine that a guy trying to do stuff like that will contact Kindle Support and complain if/when he soft-bricks his Kindle... he well get a serial port connection and fix it). I don't consider as asking to much when people express a desire to have extra level of customization of their reading experience and are not satisfied with Amazon's "optimal defaults" (see font sizes [even now when there are 14 option, new additions begin somewhere around option 7... and I for example am affected by lack of middle-step in options 1 to 4], see margins]... or when people rightfully state that Kindle offers insufficient functionality regarding managing and categorizing his/hers book collection on device . Yes there is Calibre and almost everyone has a computer.. yes Amazon website categorizes its catalog so you could go there and check things like genre. There is currently FONT_RAMP thing (that effect only 1 of the 3 total formats Amazon uses), there are metadata plugboards for trying to make Kindles shortcomings more tolerable. But all of those are clutches, and bad UX. People should't have to cram all that info into Title field. What's stopping Kindle from pre-generating couple types of collection (like genre, author, series) while offering on/off switch for each of those? The needed info already exists on server (Kindle Store uses it) ... Kindle already uses bunch of additional files in ".sdr" directory... it would be simple for servers to pre-generate book categories/collections metadata, to avoid extra battery usage of doing all that on device itself. And document the format used for that metadata so if a "power user" knows how and wants to correct/edit a genre (i "no I don't agree this books is "urban fantasy", it's obviously "paranormal romance" [yuck] ) that user can do just that. On/off switches aren't that much extra work for programmers and having a choice and fine-grained controls makes every user happy. And "defensive programming" against things like malformed data is a must even without leaving a window of opportunity for users to access and play with existing data. Servers can produce mistakes... In summary: having (semi)functional workarounds that result in "now I can live with it" isn't the same a being satisfied with your device. Amazon should strive for the 100% basic functionality (like correctly rendering em units) done right before spending programmers time on stupid things like Word runner. |
11-19-2017, 02:34 PM | #35 | |
Resident Curmudgeon
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It's not just what the users want, it's also what can be added to get more users. That make a a lot more people wanting similar things. Oh and one more thing. Let the Kindle be turned off. Just standby is not good for the battery. The T1 (for example) has a really nice feature I ave not seen elsewhere. Two days with no use, it turns off. Last edited by JSWolf; 11-19-2017 at 02:44 PM. |
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11-19-2017, 03:51 PM | #36 | |
Evangelist
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Could Amazon provide better tools for organizing series, metadata and collections, yeah I think they could, and hope they will. But I'd still expect any such enhanced features will end up being proprietary and cloud based. |
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11-19-2017, 06:01 PM | #37 | |
Just a Yellow Smiley.
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Yes, I would love more fonts myself. Would there be enough other country readers to make Overdrive available to them? Also oh yes, power off please. |
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11-20-2017, 02:16 AM | #38 |
Going Viral
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and it can be turned off.
use the search bar command to put it in 'shipping mode' Ah, but wait, a person would have to have one to know that. - guess that lets our 'Kindle expert' out of the loop. |
11-20-2017, 02:20 AM | #39 |
eBook Enthusiast
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I have to confess that I can see no benefit whatsoever to Amazon in making the Kindle an open platform. The Kindle is sold first and foremost as an Amazon content consumption device; how would Amazon benefit from making it easy for people to use content purchased elsewhere on it?
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11-20-2017, 04:50 AM | #40 | ||
Wizard
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Quote:
I suspect the reason why they don't implement other features named are usually either that not enough people care, or the features would not fit in with their overall "ecosystem". Certainly epub support is just not going to happen, as Harry's post quoted below makes clear. I also doubt library borrowers outside of the US are of any real concern. If they ever become of concern, which I doubt, they will almost certainly implement by making their own formats accessible for borrowing rather than supporting epub. The fact that this hasn't been done to date, even in a market the size of the UK, together with the fact that Amazon apparently does not provide ebooks of even its own imprints for library borrowing anywhere indicates to me that this is not a priority for them. Quote:
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11-20-2017, 07:33 AM | #41 |
Wizard
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Let me offer a slightly different perspective.
I like the idea of an open platform. I like it as someone who can program and therefore might make use of it personally. However I have two observations: 1) It seems unlikely that Amazon will do this for all the reasons people have already given. 2) There are already ereaders based on Linux where the software stack is mostly open. By which I mean they may have proprietary software for readers etc but there are few or no barriers to loading your own programs. Amazon's market share vastly outnumbers the vendors of the second type. So one might credibly argue that a) the two things are connected and as there already is an "open" option the current market share (more or less) reflects the general interest in it. b) if one wanted to promote the open option, one might be better off encouraging the existing products i.e. buying them, rather than trying to persuade Amazon - who clearly believe in their proprietary strategy - to change. Now the response to a) might be that more people don't choose the open option because they're locked in* to the proprietary one. Which may be true but that's a DRM issue and that being the case it may make more sense to campaign against DRM. I actually think that could change in time but the inertia is such that it'll take a while - just my opinion. (*I'm talking about the perception more than the reality. But I think there's enough 'friction' to stop people casually switching brand of ereader.) |
11-20-2017, 07:55 AM | #42 |
Sentient Sauce
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Eh, 'open' has many connotations. I hate to sound live a sell out as Richard Stallman is a personal hero. Open source would be great, but providing an API to allow us to manage our collection or not intentionally stifling plugins like Kindle Collections or would show a certain benevolence as well. Even just the ability to sort by series would have been enough to avoid me ever bring it up.
To those familiar with the Open Source world - I know the difference between freedom and free beer. But with this application and device I would be satisfied with the free beer. We have all read about the animated cereal boxes...Kindles/Kobos/whatever are just a clunky stepping stone towards that future. Last edited by Pizza_Cant_Read; 11-20-2017 at 08:06 AM. |
11-20-2017, 08:04 AM | #43 |
eBook Enthusiast
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That's essentially a matter of history. Both Kindle and ePub books use what's called the "Dublin Core Metadata" standard for storing a book's metadata, and unfortunately that standard does not include series information in it. I wholeheartedly agree that it would be a very useful addition!
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11-20-2017, 08:19 AM | #44 | |
Sentient Sauce
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Quote:
They *could* allow me to assign 'weight' to certain collections and/or exclude books found in other collections and/or letting me fake it through some other means. It is obvious they don't want to encourage excessive compatibility with Calibre but the UI could compensate. Its not an ideal end game but would be an acceptable workaround. |
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11-20-2017, 11:27 AM | #45 | |
Just a Yellow Smiley.
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Quote:
Most people read one book a month or less. So again not much call to change collections. Then there are US who average 12 books a month or more. |
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cloud collections, digital rights management, kindle, organize ebooks |
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