Earth's Biggest Book Selection

Kindle 2.0 has been out for a week now, but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about what I want to see in the next generation Kindle. Kindle 2.0 is a great e-book reader and is certainly improved upon the first Kindle. But it’s not a perfect gadget. In fact, there are a lot of areas that I want Amazon to work on (without jacking up the price). If Amazon wants Kindle to become the next iPhone, it needs to go beyond the hardware and innovate outside the box. With that in mind, here are a few things I want to see on Kindle 3.0:

  • Color Screen: this will definitely put Kindle over the top. Reading books in color is more fun. And while you can see images decently on Kindle 2.0,  you can’t get the best experience out of a comic book on Kindle. I have heard that Amazon has already tested this and is trying to find a way to avoid jacking up the prices on all. Yay!
  • True Web: it’s great that all of us have access to 3G wireless without having to pay a penny. But what you get on Kindle is not the “true web.” I would even pay a small amount to get that on my Kindle, but implementing it won’t be straight forward.
  • Document Support: Amazon does make it easy to convert PDF and other formats to Amazon’s proprietary format. I would like Amazon to improve this area  significantly with Kindle 3.0. The first Kindle was for early adopters. The 2nd Kindle is going to raise some more awareness. Amazon has a tremendous opportunity to go mainstream with Kindle 3.0. It’s too big of an opportunity for Amazon to let get away.
  • Social: the future of reading is social reading. The social web has changed the way we have approached things for decades. You now have social shopping, social networking, social dieting, and … Amazon needs to add features which make it easy for folks to read socially.
  • Application: I want to see an iTunes-like App Store for Kindle. For that to happen, Amazon needs to introduce a software development kit for Kindle. I have been asking for it for 2 years now. What’s another year of waiting…
  • Touchscreen: with Kindle rivals adding touchscreen and using it to differentiate themselves from Kindle, Amazon should certainly consider adding this feature. It’s a no brainer.
  • Voice: Read-To-Me is great, but it can still be improved to make things more natural. Will we see it? I see some legal troubles on the horizon if that happened, but Kindle needs to be improved in this area.
  • Price: It’s time for Amazon to start thinking about dropping the price on Kindle. I am sure they are working on it, but here is hoping to pay only $250 (at most) for Kindle 3.0.
  • Kindle Prime: you know how you get standard free shipping on most of your orders with Amazon Prime? I would like to see a similar feature implemented for Kindle. I am talking about book subscriptions. Due to the digital nature of Kindle books (and the fact that we can’t sell them), why not create a comprehensive subscription program that helps folks read more on their Kindle. Amazon could create subscriptions per category or an all-you-can-read monthly subscription. Amazon sells more, we read more, everyone’s happy.
  • Fashion: I like the white Kindle. I think it’s very attractive. But Amazon should take a page out of Apple’s book and come up with more colors for Kindle. Why not?
  • Accessories: I like to see more accessories for Kindle. I am sure with the success of Kindle 2.0, companies will start to make accessories for Kindle. The more accessories you have available, the better you can “pimp” your Kindle.
  • Solar: I still like to see a backup solar battery on my Kindle. Maybe a solar charger. These things are out there. Amazon needs to go greener!
  • Memory: Amazon did take away the SD slot with Kindle 2.0. Who wouldn’t want to see more connectivity features on Kindle?

Did I miss anything? What do you think? What do you want to see on Kindle 3.0? Please share your thoughts here.


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4 Responses to “My Kindle 3.0 Wishlist”

  1. John Adkins says:
    February 27, 2009 at 6:39 am

    Folders my friend, folders! I really need to be able to arrange the many books I have into folders. It would also be nice to be able to search within only selected folders so if you are looking for something say from the American Civil War you can just search those folders that contain likely items.

    Love my Kindle 1 but would love to see folders added.

    The only other thing I would add would be an 8 1/2 x 11 model. I read a lot of downloaded Google Books and these typically do not work well on the Kindle – due to the page images being re-sized to fit the smaller screen. At this point I am leaning towards buying the new plastic logic machine for reading pdfs but I would prefer a Kindle with a large screen. Cheers.

  2. P. Rad says:
    February 27, 2009 at 7:06 am

    I forgot that. I guess I assumed implementing that would be easier than adding a color screen or a SDK. But we need folder, you are right!

  3. lynn says:
    February 27, 2009 at 11:01 am

    What I don’t want is the Kindle to become an everything device and lose its focus on what it’s for — reading. So I don’t need “true web,” I don’t need color, and I don’t want a touchscreen (unless there’s a designated, separate area gestures — who wants fingerprints smeared all over the screen?)

    I just want Kindle to be the best book reading device. So I want it to implement folders and/or tags, allow the modification of book metadata on the fly, and I want books that are consistently well-formatted. I’d also like to view .pdfs and Word documents without conversion.

  4. Cameron says:
    February 28, 2009 at 2:39 am

    The number one thing amazon needs to work on is price.

    Get the kindle down to $199 and you will have a real winner.

    As far as the device goes, my only complaint is the price.

    What really needs to happen is amazon needs to get out of the consumer electronics business and make the Kindle into a platform for selling books.

    There was good reason to make the kindle so that you could jump start the ebook business, and honestly there is still some work to do on this front. But I should be able to by ebooks that i can read on my eink based reader, my iphone, and my computer.

    To sum up the kindle 3 should be a cheaper kindle. The kindle 4 should be a universal ebook platform.

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