I chose the $99 entry-level touch screen model, with WiFi but no 3G. It displays advertising constantly, except when you’re actively reading or interacting with the device. Fortunately, the ads don’t intrude when you’re reading.

The device seems a bit slow, especially when responding to touch for menu selection, page turns, etc. Perhaps the hardware is a wee bit underpowered?

WiFi is a bit feeble, even when sitting in an office just a few strides away from the WiFi router with a strong signal.

Text display is crisp, but can be uneven. (My opinion about the Touch’s readability has improved somewhat after a week of usage.)

The ads themselves are not intrusive; however, navigating away from a full-page ad to whatever you want to read is a bit clunky.

One of the most pleasurable aspects of the Kindle Touch is how it feels in your hand: lightweight, nicely balanced, with a suede-like finish on the back. Friendly and approachable in its feel.

No Romance

Out-of-the-Box Experience

Compared to the experience of unveiling a new Apple product, there’s no magic (except for my cat, who adores all Amazon boxes, no matter what their contents).

Kindle’s packaging is plain and monochromatic: no-nonsense cardboard encases the device, a plastic film protects the screen.

Inside there’s no friendly marketing collateral to welcome the new Kindle owner. Amazon’s Thank You Letter will download when you sync your Kindle. (Four hours later my welcome letter has not yet downloaded.)

When I powered up the Kindle, I was surprised to note there’s no “welcome screen,” just a user tip on how to turn pages. (A missed branding opportunity on Amazon’s part…)

Unlike Apple Amazon makes no attempt to “romance the brand.” It appears that Amazon wants to position Kindle as a utilitarian product, focusing on its concrete functional benefits and practical uses. It’s a curious positioning strategy, especially if they’re aiming Kindle at book lovers, people who like me love the experience of reading, and are willing to invest in building a Kindle compatible library.

Somewhat Confusing Usability Model

Touch or Tap to Use

If you’ve used an iPhone or an iPad, you may find the UI a bit confusing. On the Kindle Touch, you touch an item to select it (you point to it and hold your finger there long enough until it highlights). The response time is a tad sluggish.

You touch anywhere in the left-hand area of the screen to go back a page; you touch the middle of the screen or to the right to advance a page. This is intended as a convenience for one-handed readers. (Over time I’ve discovered the swiping horizontally, to left or right, can flip pages, but on my device it doesn’t always work reliably.)

Swiping on the Kindle Touch is not as universally useful as on an iPad. I don’t think there’s a rich “gesture language” for the Touch. It seems that the swipe gesture is only partially functional; when displaying lists, you can swipe vertically to scroll the book list up or down. When reading you can swipe to change pages.

Displaying Collections: Text-Centric Approach

On an iPad, the Kindle app displays images of the book covers as shown here:

The Kindle Touch takes a less visual approach when displaying collections; it simply lists books by their title or author’s name — a missed opportunity for finesse.

I had expected this latest Kindle generation to be more visual in its UI. Sadly, most of the visuals are reserved for the sponsors’ ads, or illustrations within books or magazines.

Kindle Touch: Better for Reading

Although the iPad displays collections in a more visually pleasing manner, the Kindle Touch is better suited — that is, easier on the eyes — for long-term reading. This new Kindle is also smaller, lighter, and takes less effort to hold. All-in-all better for immersive, multi-hour reading.

I just wish the Amazon device had a better UI. Based on a couple of hours’ use, the design language seems inconsistent, hard to predict (especially the home button). As a result it’s going to take longer to learn than expected.

Confusing Home Button

On a Kindle Touch the home button is a set of 4 parallel lines at the bottom of the device. If you’ve learned “home button behaviors” on an IOS device (iPad, iPhone, etc.), expect to be confused. The Kindle’s home button is under utilized.

When the device is in screensaver mode — displaying full-screen ads — you might expect that pressing the home button will take you to your home screen, or resume reading where you’d left off. But in this case pressing home has no effect. Instead you must press the on/off switch to switch from the full-screen ad to resume reading. I find this confusing.

E-Ink — Text Display

Better, But Not Perfect

Given specs of 167 ppi and 16 shades of grey, I had expected reading legibility to approach that of black-and-white newsprint — or a classic newspaper. Yes, there’s higher contrast and improved legibility compared to the Kindle DX I tried a year ago, but the display still disappoints.

On text-dense pages, lines display unevenly, even when it’s obvious that the characters should be rendered identically. This is distracting, because it draws attention away from the delightfully immersive experience of flow when reading.

The uneven display appears to be caused by the way E-Ink renders text on screen: sometimes using different shades of grey or different thicknesses when rendering character shapes. (An inconsistent use of pixels for rendering character glyphs.)

I’m not sure if this is an issue with this particular device, or a limitation with this generation of E-Ink on Kindles.

This bugs me, because I was ready to ignore the lack of typographic diversity, in exchange for highly legible text that does a few things superbly well.

Fixed Orientation

Unlike the Kindle app on iPad, you cannot change the display’s orientation from portrait to landscape mode and have text reflow. Kindle Touch offers portrait mode only.

Amazon’s recent announcement of a Kindle beta test with public libraries rekindled my interest (so to speak), so I decided to try again — with the Kindle app for iPad.

Here’s my initial take on borrowing an ebook from the King County Library. It’s convenient, but not without issues for people who love the way books are designed…

A Match Made in Heaven?

My first attempt to borrow a Kindle format book from the public library went nowhere: it was too early — the local library had not yet updated its systems for Kindle. On a second attempt a few days ago, I found the “entry point” in KCLS’ online catalog, and identified a handful of books to borrow for use on the iPad/Kindle. But I’d have to wait; none were available that day.

Today I received an email announcing that my first ebook was available for download, but I’d have to act fast: it would expire within 4 days.

I clicked on the link, discovered that the web page had kept my library card and password credentials from the prior session, and I authorized the “digital book loan” (a process that took several steps).

The lending process takes you to Amazon’s website, where Amazon links the library’s ebook to the authorized Kindle reader (or your “cloud reader”). I imagine that this is part of the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that enforces the DRM policy purchased by KCLS — the limits on how many copies of this ebook may be in circulation at the same time.

So far the process worked smoothly (with a fast broadband connection).

The only glitch occurred with the Kindle app on the iPad — and it was probably just a timing issue with synchronization. That said, the first couple of attempts to download the library’s ebook to the iPad yielded no result.

So I went back to Amazon to ensure the ebook showed up in my authorized Kindle repository, and that this book was properly linked to my iPad. I was pleased to see a clear indication that this was a library copy, versus one that I have purchased…

On my next attempt to download the library’s ebook to the iPad/Kindle, the process was quick and easy.

When the library’s online system is working quickly (which is not always the case), I’d say this whole process would take 5 minutes or less.

Much faster than getting in the car, and driving to and from the nearest library branch.

Which leaves me with my remaining reservation about the current state-of-the-art for books on Kindle (or ePub formats): the lack of typographic sophistication. The current standards may be fine for pulp fiction, but they are a real disappointment for bibliophiles who prefer higher quality “trade fiction” and books with an intrinsic design sensibility.

For the book I borrowed, The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett, the loss of typographic styling makes it difficult in places to comprehend the author’s intent — or even to differentiate literary embellishments from the flow of the narrative.

The Loss of Fidelity Detracts from the Story

To illustrate what I mean, here is a cropped photo of the first page of The Game of Kings, as rendered by the Kindle app on my iPad 2. Except for the chapter head, all the text is styled the same. There’s no additional white space as you would see in the print version.

The Kindle Version (via iPad)

Although it’s not obvious in the photo above, The Game of Kings begins with a poetry excerpt that precedes the first line of narrative. Unfortunately, there’s nothing in the typographic treatment or page layout to signal that this block of text functions differently from the main body of the story.

To make matters worse the poem uses archaic language — and the combination could be off-putting as a first impression.

The Print Version

By way of comparison here is what this page looks like in the print version that’s currently in circulation:

With this layout it’s easy for the reader to understand that the poem sets the theme for the chapter as a whole. It’s clearly set apart from the first line of the narrative.

The loss of typographic and page layout fidelity in the Kindle version is a huge issue for books written by Dorothy Dunnett, an author who liberally embellishes her stories with poems and literary allusions in multiple languages.

Early Days — Or a Battle for Control?

I understand that the digital publishing workflow is still in embryonic state, that it’s difficult for publishers to adapt the print versions to Kindle and ePub format without loss of fidelity.

Among other constraints Apple and Amazon seriously limit the number of typefaces available, a huge obstacle to any designer who wants to preserve artistic intent across all versions and renditions of the book. For the technically adept, there are workarounds with embedded fonts for authors and publishers aiming at Apple’s iBook format, but not for publishers going to Kindle. (At present I suspect we’ll see embedded fonts primarily from the self-publishing community…)

Here’s a wonderful discussion of some of the issues, from my friend Bill Hill, formerly of Aldus and Microsoft, a true pioneer in electronic publishing.

I look forward to the day when ebooks are full-fledged alternatives, with additional convenience benefits, rather than artistic compromises that trade off design intent for ease of adaptation. Leaving you with so much less of the original expression of the author’s intent. And a disappointing reading experience.

I hope Bill Hill is wrong, that we won’t have to wait another 10 years before ebooks achieve typographic and design layout fidelity.

Not to mention the immediate gratification of those book downloads… It’s a relief to us, knowing that he lives in hilly snow country (and is not allowed to drive at night), that he can get almost any book he wants, when he wants it.

Now I just hope Dad doesn’t complain about Kindle’s somewhat awkward UI, as he’s a long-time Mac fan and may bring Mac-like expectations to bear on his Kindle experience.

The jury’s out.

Time for confession: I’ve been a book lover all my life. I’m passionate about a well-told tale, and love browsing independent bookstores and the local public library. Relative to most Americans, I spend a fortune on books, both fiction and nonfiction. In any given year I read hundreds of books, thanks to early training in speed reading. But I don’t yet own a Kindle or a Sony e-book device. Their value propositions aren’t sufficiently compelling, at least not yet.

To me the primary benefits of digital books are convenience, portability and searchability – functional, utilitarian benefits. Where’s the joy?

Like most people I read books for a variety of reasons:

• Pleasure: the desire to be captivated by a well-told tale or enthralled by an interesting and complex set of characters (e.g., Possession)
• Curiosity: an interest in learning about people and cultures, places, historical figures or times in history that are way outside my personal experience (e.g., Three Cups of Tea or The Girls of Riyadh)
• Distraction: a way to pass the time on a long flight (e.g., The DaVinci Code)
• Thirst for knowledge: a way to learn new theories, concepts or models that might benefit my personal or professional life (e.g., The Tipping Point, Groundswell, etc.)
• Guidance or self-help: a way to learn new skills or contemplate behavior changes (e.g., Yoga Anatomy or The Not So Big Life)
• Business: reference sources that relate to specific areas of expertise (e.g., Marketing Metrics)

I understand the convenience of digital books for reference purposes, such as travel guidebooks or business books that I might want to consult on a regular basis. In those cases searchability is a real benefit. I can also imagine what might happen if e-book readers had built-in GPS devices, to help find current restaurant or movie reviews that are linked to the device’s current location.

But even so…

Today’s Devices Require Too Many Compromises

For me devices like the Kindle 2 still require too much of a compromise: you lose the tactile and aesthetic experience of a well-designed book. Books distributed via the Kindle 2 must sacrifice the author or editor’s intent for typography, design and page layout in favor of searchability, portability and the requirement to offer scalable font sizes for people with vision challenges.

Given the device’s limit of 16 shades of grey, complex illustrations and typography must be compromised. The screen is still way too small. Yes, you can install documents in PDF format (via conversion), but I find myself wondering whether in doing so, you lose the fidelity of the designed page when you make that conversion.

Will Next Gen Devices Hit the Sweet Spot?

I understand from online gossip that the next Kindle will offer a larger screen (just under 10 inches). I wonder how many shades of grey it will support; whether its screen resolution will be better than today’s 150-167 dpi limitations (whatever the actual details).

Based on my experience 20 years ago with the desktop publishing revolution, I know that the quality of the reading experience will improve enormously once the technology affords 256 shades of grey and improved screen resolutions (closer to 300 dpi). And a page size that approximates a 1:1 ratio with the original page layout.

I can imagine buying digital books when e-book reader devices impose fewer constraints on book design: no sacrifices in page and chapter layout, typography, illustration fidelity, etc. I don’t require color, but I do want high-fidelity grey scale.

It’s possible that the next generation e-books, given larger screen sizes and improved resolution, will hit the sweet spot — when my motivation is business-related or utilitarian, i.e., when seeking information like maps and travel guides, restaurant reviews, newspaper articles, blogs, etc. I can also understand the appeal of e-books for in-the-moment distraction while waiting in line, or passing time on a cross-country flight. For those situations I’d be willing to give up the tactile joys of holding a book and turning pages in favor of the option of carrying lots of books “inside” a device that weighs less than a pound.

It would be nice to have my entire library “at my fingertips” – fully searchable — but it’s hard to imagine that Amazon would ever offer a pricing model that would make that affordably attractive. Not for someone like me who already owns hundreds, if not thousands, of books. Amazon’s pricing model to add digital rights to the cost of a printed book (when purchased one at a time) is still too high a delta to pay for a single book, let alone large numbers of books.

Net net: for someone like me the devices aren’t yet good enough.