Comments on: Kindled http://tomgpalmer.com/2008/01/12/kindled/ Personal website and weblog of the libertarian thinker Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:58 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Jaap http://tomgpalmer.com/2008/01/12/kindled/comment-page-1/#comment-7213 Jaap Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:39:16 +0000 http://tomgpalmer.com/?p=2082#comment-7213 Richard, That's neat! Richard,

That’s neat!

]]> By: Richard http://tomgpalmer.com/2008/01/12/kindled/comment-page-1/#comment-7212 Richard Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:06:27 +0000 http://tomgpalmer.com/?p=2082#comment-7212 Jaap, While I agree that designers going out of their way to make things less usable is distasteful, in this case I don't think that's happening. Kindle normally downloads content over the air, using the digital cell phone network (Amazon pays any usage fees for content you purchase from them). Given this content downloading mechanism, being able to put your own content on your device would require extra work. That said, they do provide such a mechanism, by giving each Kindle a unique email address. And they added a USB connection as well, but using it still requires going through a conversion process they manage. See the "Personal Files" section of the Kindle page Tom linked to in his first sentence (about 2/3rds of the way down the very long page - or search for USB.) So in this case, it seems the engineers went out of their way to provide a feature that has no on-going economic benefit to Amazon. Tom, the Kindle page says: "If you are out of wireless coverage, such as traveling overseas, you can download books to your computer from Your Media Library and transfer via USB to your Kindle." Does that not apply to newspapers? Jaap,

While I agree that designers going out of their way to make things less usable is distasteful, in this case I don’t think that’s happening.

Kindle normally downloads content over the air, using the digital cell phone network (Amazon pays any usage fees for content you purchase from them). Given this content downloading mechanism, being able to put your own content on your device would require extra work.

That said, they do provide such a mechanism, by giving each Kindle a unique email address. And they added a USB connection as well, but using it still requires going through a conversion process they manage. See the “Personal Files” section of the Kindle page Tom linked to in his first sentence (about 2/3rds of the way down the very long page – or search for USB.) So in this case, it seems the engineers went out of their way to provide a feature that has no on-going economic benefit to Amazon.

Tom, the Kindle page says: “If you are out of wireless coverage, such as traveling overseas, you can download books to your computer from Your Media Library and transfer via USB to your Kindle.” Does that not apply to newspapers?

]]> By: Jaap http://tomgpalmer.com/2008/01/12/kindled/comment-page-1/#comment-7211 Jaap Sun, 13 Jan 2008 09:25:39 +0000 http://tomgpalmer.com/?p=2082#comment-7211 Do they let you put on your own eBooks (or rather, any random PDF or HTML file), or only the ones you buy from Amazon? It seems that with your tastes in reading, you could get a long way by just putting the Liberty Fund editions on the thing. If it doesn't let you put on files of your own, I would consider that a major drawback, mostly for a reason that's probably not explicable to non-engineers: I really hate it when devices cannot do something and you know the designers had to go out of their way to make it unable to do that thing. Do they let you put on your own eBooks (or rather, any random PDF or HTML file), or only the ones you buy from Amazon? It seems that with your tastes in reading, you could get a long way by just putting the Liberty Fund editions on the thing. If it doesn’t let you put on files of your own, I would consider that a major drawback, mostly for a reason that’s probably not explicable to non-engineers: I really hate it when devices cannot do something and you know the designers had to go out of their way to make it unable to do that thing.

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