Turns out the playa-hatas over at Amazon have launched an e-book reader, named “Kindle.”
Only $399 (the price of an iPhone), high-res (“just like real paper!”), no syncing required, cheaper prices for books ($9.99), no service plans to worry about – the thing seems like a mixed blessing.
The no-syncing part is really interesting, since you don’t need to be at home with your computer to buy a book – kind of like what Apple is doing with the iPod Touch. That’s cool. So is the fact that you don’t have to carry around a shit-ton of books to read them – just this…thing.
So, again, the Newton delivers first. PDAs, portable computers, and now eBooks.
Fake Steve Jobs has an interesting take:
I know what you’re thinking. Wouldn’t it be just kick-ass super duper if, say, Apple came along and finally delivered the ultimate product in this category? Because you just know if we did it the thing would look gorgeous and have a beautiful feature set and would just kick everyone’s ass.
And there’s already a comparison with the iPhone.
But seriously, lots of luck Amazon. You don’t have a beautiful machine, but any way to promote reading is a good thing.