Today there are typically two ways of publishing and reading ebooks on mobile devices. You either use a reader app, often from a device maker (e.g., Kindle, iBooks) or you use a dedicated app written on that platform for that particular work (e.g., The Elements or Solar System for iPad). Some of those dedicated book apps are terrific but I think they’re a symptom of one of the more significant problems in the world of ebook evolution.
I love it that there’s so much experimentation going on now with apps, but oftentimes they’re one-off’s that require a reinvention of the wheel for each new product. I also hate the fact that we’re creating a bunch of book apps that don’t talk to each another. One of the simple features I’ve been asking for in reader apps is the ability to search across a library. It’s far more likely we’ll see that implemented in the Kindle reader, for example, before we’ll ever see all these individual apps communicating with each other.
What really needs to happen, IMHO, is for the reader apps to evolve much faster than they are today. Apple just added the ability to separate your ebooks into different shelves in the iBooks app. What a concept. The Kindle app has been around much longer than iBooks and it still doesn’t support something as simple as this.
Awhile back I suggested that Amazon ought to get out of the hardware business and focus all their efforts on making their reader app the finest on the planet. Even though they’re not taking that advice, I’ve got a new idea for them to consider: Turn the Kindle apps into open source projects and enlist the help of the community to enhance and improve them. Imagine how many great new features would be implemented in this model. Rather than being limited by the fixed (and apparently small) number of developers assigned to the internal Kindle apps dev team they’d suddently have access to as many developers as they could recruit to the open source project. They could create a world class set of apps and quickly distance themselves from the competition.
Certainly being able to search for things between the cover of individual books is now a basic expectation but what about being able to search across multiple volumes? Book apps and DRM’s ePubs disallow this to the detriment of scholarship.
“Awhile back I suggested that Amazon ought to get out of the hardware business ”
Mr Wikert, before you give new advice to Amazon, what do you think now about the old one ?
I may be missing something but I really don’t get what the point of this article is, other than some disconnected comments.
The issue of Book Apps was well discussed a couple of weeks back. There’s not much else to say, for now.
As regards the speed of development I would disagree – the speed of development has been staggering over the last 18 months or so. These are cutting edge, high risk products with huge amounts of development work behind them. I think we are incredibly lucky to see changes and improvements and new functionality coming every few months. If there is any criticism I would make it is simply that the quality of the developer-reader consultation seems less than it should be.
As far as Amazon is concerned, I think Mr Wilkert needs to remember that Amazon are in business to make money. That is what businesses do. They clearly feel is not going to help them make more if they go open source. Their device is a steady targeted source of business guided to their eBook selling site. If they go open source it is logical that their eBook site will be only one of many that are incorporated into the software and on a more flat playing field than it is now.
Open sourcing their DRM code? I don’t think that’s going to happen. That’d be like taping a key for your house to the front door.
It’d certainly help if Amazon would open up more of their services to non-Amazon uses. With its paper-like appearance, the Kindle is an excellent way to proof books before publication. But you can’t get the full benefit of note-taking sharing between Kindle apps with your own Kindle transfers. Full sharing works only if a book was purchased from Amazon itself.
Amazon could expand their Amazon Connect program, adding author-friendly features that’d make proofing a book destined for the Kindle much easier. Authors would get benefits. Amazon would get more Kindle titles. Win, win.
And while they’re making user-friendly changes, why not benefit everyone who takes detailed notes in the books they read by adding Kindle support for a Bluetooth keyboard? It’d eliminate the Kindle 3’s greatest deficiency, that tiny, dinky keyboard without going to a touch screen. And if they use one of the many WiFi chips that also supports Bluetooth , the cost would be almost nothing.
Yes, Open Source developers are great at adding features.
But those features are rarely coherent or polished, nor are they typically well-integrated with the rest of the system.
The mass-market needs well-designed, well-thought out enhancements to the platform. Not just features.
I also hate it that every shop has its own app. I can understand why the vendors want to have their own app to lure the customer to their shop but when reading all my books should be in one place. No seperate reading apps for Amazon, Kobo, Apple, B&N. Now when you want to read a book you first have to remember where you bought it so that you can open the proper app. Who has ever heard of a user sorting his books on shop bought? Putting the books on a seperate shelve for each bookshop? Even worse, on a bookcase where you have to close each bookshelve before you can open another one. This is crazy.
And to the Teleread operators.
I hate it that the captchas are so hard to decipher. But for the rest I love this blog.
“Awhile back I suggested that Amazon ought to get out of the hardware business and focus all their efforts on making their reader app the finest on the planet.”
I wouldn’t be so sure they aren’t taking your advice. The last two Kindle commercials produced were specifically for the apps, and didn’t even mention the hardware.
Of course, they can’t just going to suddenly stop making Kindles altogether- loyal customers would take it as an insult. But it does appear that they are shifting focus.
The main thing (emphasis on ‘main’ not ‘only’) that consumers want is ease of use. They want an eBook experience that mirrors walking into a bookstore and buying a paper book, or at least to come as close to that nostalgic simplicity as current technology allows. Having multiple platforms and multiple formats on multiple devices does little but fragment the market to the point of confusion.
My two cents.