When is a Kindle not a Kindle? When you buy a Print Replica Kindle Edition!
I've always been a big fan of Amazon, not only have they defined the best of the best in cutting edge, consumer-focused internet commerce, but they've developed marvelously innovative tangential products and services (e.g., mechanical turk, Amazon S3 and Elastic Cloud servers, and their Kindle e-reader. So it is against that legacy of fondness and respect that I discovered my first real beef with Amazon. Last night I discovered that Amazon now sells Kindle Edition books which do not actually work on the Kindle devices they sell. And, as if that weren't infuriating enough, they do almost nothing to disclose this unexpected, monster caveat on their kindle edition product pages. The key phrase to watch for is "Print Replica" which indicates the e-book is merely a page-by-page scan of the original book, which for user experience reasons (not technical reasons) they refuse to let you download to your Amazon Kindle device. The only devices which are compatible with these "Print Replica" Kindle Editions are desktop PCs and an iPad running the Kindle app. It is not that I don't understand the logic behind this decision, I do, but I see it as a dangerously frustrating precident. I can no longer feel all that safe buying a Kindle Edition of any book. If they are willing to sell this incompatible version giving as the reason its incompatible format, what is to stop them from selling another Kindle Edition which is incompatible because of some other feature such as embedded interactivity or video clips? Making matters worse there is no text anywhere which truly discloses this huge issue. The page does indicate the Kindle Edition is compatible with PC, Mac, and iPad but that is a very long way from saying it is NOT compatible with their own Kindle devices, which is our default assumption. Further frustrating the issue, there is no way to get a refund via the "actions" menu of the Manage Your Kindle page, as the help documents states. I contacted support only to have all this confirmed. They have as yet not refunded the item, only telling me to download the PC version of the software. To see an example of an incompatible Kindle Edition, check out Campbell Biology.
^ Quinxy
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February 10th, 2012 - 14:41
I’m puzzled by your lack of love for Apple products yet you love the Kindle. Both product vendors offer proprietary solutions to open source products. I went with a Nook instead of a Kindle because I’m not locked into a single format and thus, your issue with the Kindle doesn’t affect me on my Nook.
I also didn’t place Steve Jobs on a pedestal, but for a different reason than yours. Apple’s products are useful and easy (and fun, in a sort of way) but they didn’t change the world in a way that the light bulb did. I could live without a mp3 player and a tablet, and I don’t have to use an iphone.
February 10th, 2012 - 15:06
Jim
I think there might be a little misunderstanding. The tablet device I use daily is a Nook with CyanogenMod on it. I like it for exactly the reasons you indicate, that I’m free to do with it as I will. I have no plans to buy a Kindle Fire, but if the hardware, cost, and custom ROM options were right I’d buy one. I do own an e-ink based Kindle I bought early last year and one of the first gen ones that came out in 2008. I rarely use the recent Kindle any more, but I did love it, and still have a fondness for it; my gf was trying to use it recently for a textbook.
What I loved about the Kindle was:
a) they were pretty cheap (the last one was $130),
b) the e-ink screen is an absolute joy to read (I don’t enjoy reading on an LCD screen),
c) I can easily read any txt/html/pdf/doc/etc. on it,
d) the battery lasts me a month or more, and
e) I can read anything I buy through Amazon on any platform (iPhone, Android, PC, Mac, etc.).
You’re right that Amazon is proprietary, but my experience of that proprietaryness is so much more pleasant. Using my MP3s collection on iPhone/iPad was always miserable, having to import through iTunes, it not understanding my folder-based layout and missing ID3 tags, having codec issues, etc. I never had such problems with any other MP3 player, PocketPC, WinCE, Android, etc. device; and yes, I know there are some ways around with jailbreaking/thirdparty players/etc. and I did that ultimately, but I resented the whole experience. So I do feel like Amazon plays nicer with others than Apple products do, and where it falls down in that area doesn’t really matter much to me. I should mention that I’ve owned Kindles since 2008 and in all that time I’ve bought maybe 8 or 9 books, most of them being huge programming refer books which are perfect for the format, since I can read them away from the computer on a Kindle or phone or whatever or refer to them as I program in the desktop app, searching and copying/pasting as I need. Everything else I’ve read on it has been free material downloaded from the web, and in that sense it has been a very pleasant experience wherein I did not feel restricted.