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Keeping the Kindle focus
I think it’s normal to expect every handheld device to have capability to explore the web with a full featured browser, to keep you entertained with classic games, to keep you connected with every social network there’s is to possibly join and these qualities are the ones a friend expected to get when he tinkered with my Kindle 2.
The concept is nothing different from what an iPhone would do and I found myself agreeing with what he expected for about a two seconds until I retracted my nod and rethought about why I bought the device.
Granted the Kindle does allow you to browser the web but it’s limited to text-based sites and uploading MP3s is openly possible but if that’s all you look forward in doing with the device, my question would be at what point would the reading take place? Obviously he isn’t much of a reader, hence the lack of priority in what the device is intended to do.
The Kindle is an amazing gadget with a first-class purpose to get you to fail to think about anything else but the book that you have in front of you. There is no little alert message telling you about Twitter replies you received, no minuscule envelope icon of new incoming mail or anything distracting that you can think of to get you away from reading. When you look at the screen, everything else really does become meaningless.
With all these rumors about Apple releasing a tablet for 2010, Amazon has little desire in feeling they need to redirect the Kindle to cater towards activities that take precedence while waiting on a crowded line. Any upgrades should only improve on the act of reading and any aesthetic changes wouldn’t be too shabby either.
Abhi over at Kindle Review points out what killer features the Kindle 3 would need to make it special:
- Speech To Text and Journalling.
- TouchScreen and Game Changing usability changes (think Swype for really good text input).
- ePub support and PDF Support.
- 3rd party Kindle App Store, with some solid Apps at launch (calendar, address book, calculator, to-do lists).
- A drastic jump in page turning speeds and screen resolution. This is actually rather unlikely.
It’s very easy to get distracted and the only device I own that does not make me go down that path is the Kindle. It’s the lack of what conventional handheld devices are inherently popular for that make this device special.
