WTF Kindle?

[thespisgeoff]

I was excited about the idea of Kindle for iPhone - but if I'm going to pay $10 for a book...without the book...I'm actually more likely to pay $23 for the book with the book. I'm sorry, I just can't snuggle up with my iPhone and the pups in bed. Not my thing. It's hard to balance the iPhone (while reading) and a mug of tea or cup of coffee.

Comments

[dsmorgan]

i have never and will never understand e-books, let alone the notion that somehow books need to be more portable.

[hardvice]

I used to travel for work with about six or seven hardbacks at a time. Portable would have been nice.

If you're a one-book-at-a-time person, the benefit is hard to see.

[thespisgeoff]

Right; in college or on the road, when weight was an issue, I think I would have enjoyed it. Now? Not so much.

[hardvice]

I still like the Kindle (not the iPhone app, though that looks like it might be kind of nice when used as a supplement), but then I'm always reading at least three or four books at once.

I actually am reading my first dead tree book since the first version of the Kindle came out and I kind of hate it. It feels wrong. It sucks not being able to search, switch books on the fly, look up words, hit Wikipedia, etc.

I'm to the point where lack of a readily-available electronic version is enough to keep me from reading a book.

To be fair, though, I don't really buy very many ebooks (which is all the iPhone app will work with--Amazon's ebooks). Instead, I buy dead tree books and download the corresponding ebooks off torrent sites. The ability to correct typos alone is worth it to me.