What's Wrong with the Kindle™?

I'm late to the party commenting on the Kindle, and I don't own one and haven't touched one. The physical layout (e.g. easily mishit next page buttons) is dumb and the UI seems sluggish from videos. I have touched several Sony whatever-they're-calleds: none of them were working properly, but I could see the display well enough to not care for it that much.

Here's my one line summary of what's wrong with the Kindle that no-one I've read seems to have picked up on:

It's yet another damn thing.

Here's a secret to setting the world afire with a new gizmo. It should be better, smaller, more convenient than a market dominating thing at some particular task, e.g. taking photographs, reading books, keeping track of contacts and appointments, browsing and playing music, or making phone calls, or watching videos, or browsing the web. And it should be at least adequate at a bunch of other things you either already do but carry other devices around for, or think you might do but don't because you can't stand carrying around other devices for.

Examples: cell phones didn't really break out of the niche market until they replaced address books and business diaries. There was that moment when hundreds of thousands of business professionals suddenly stopped copying phone numbers from their Filofax (Dayplanner for Americans) and started doing the reverse. Suddenly you got a pocket-sized electronic diary and, oh, look, it's also a cellphone, which is quite handy.

The iPhone is awesome precisely because it's a world-beater at a couple of things you already do (e.g. use an iPod) and it's perfectly adequate at a ton of other things.

I already carry a laptop, a cellphone, a Nintendo DS, a digital camera, and several other gadgets everywhere. I don't want to add a frickin' Kindle. Do I need to take that out of my bag at airport security as well?

Cringely's latest column revives the biggest ongoing unfulfilled rumor in the Apple world (predating the Newton, I believe):

The fact that an iTablet could be a great e-book reader, too, is not a driving reason for such a device, I don't believe. But it's a nice capability. Read the book and watch the movie. Then watch Amazon's new Kindle go up in flames.

My MacBook Pro has a great display and automatically adjusts its screen's brightness to the ambient light level, making it a superb book reader -- if it didn't run so damn hot and had sufficient battery life, it would have everything the Kindle has as a bookreader (except the free Sprint network connection) with the advantage of not being one more damn thing. Rip off the keyboard and add wireless keyboard support, and yeah, where do I buy one?

NBC Universal and the iTunes Movie Store

This little bit of information is probably obvious to some people, but it wasn't to me, and evidently has been missed by a lot of bloggers. Everyone who keeps track of Apple knows that NBC Universal pulled all of its video content from the iTunes Music Store. Depending on your various preconceptions, this is either a sign that Apple is doomed (of course) or that NBC is run by idiots (of course) or some random and elaborate conspiracy theory.

Today, on Sci Fi (which is part of NBC Universal), I saw an ad for Battlestar Galactica Razor, and noticed something interesting: it's on HD-DVD. And suddenly, I realized exactly why NBC Universal pulled its content from iTMS. It's Platform Wars, Episode IV: The Empire Strikes Back.

When you see HD-DVD, think Microsoft. When you see Blu-ray, think Sony, Apple, and most everyone else. That's a little unfair. Some other companies with no specific Microsoft or Apple affiliation have simply been (or felt) forced to pick a side. Others, such as Toshiba, are trying to do to Sony what Sony has done to them. But you know from the existence of MSNBC that NBC has always leaned -- hard -- towards the Microsoft camp.

So it's all about allegiance to the Microsoft DRM-everywhere camp.

I guess the "NBC is run by idiots" theory wasn't too far off the mark.

Just how stupid do you think potential iPhone customers are?

A couple of days ago AT&T's CEO "spilled the beans" about Apple's plans to launch a 3G iPhone in 2008. Apparently, this is terrible for Apple because it will cause potential customers to hold off blowing $400 on an iPhone now and wait for the 3G model.

It seems to me that most potential iPhone customers fall into one of two categories:

First, when I mention to typical Mac or PC users that I recently installed Leopard, the most common response from either group is either: (a) "What's Leopard?" or (b) "Oh, is it out already?" Most people do not keep up with this shit -- they have lives, or at least other interests.

Second, if you're someone who does keep up with this shit, you already knew that Apple was planning to release a 3G iPhone in 2008. How did you know this? Because either (a) Apple is freaking retarded, and yet somehow has managed to release a succession of world-beating products over the last six years or (b) they're developing a 3G iPhone.

So exactly which category of potential iPhone customer will this information give pause to? Well, there are folks in between the two categories of "clued in" and "has better stuff to do with their lives", and that is "idiot fan boys". The question is, just what proportion of iPhone customers fall into that gap?

So going back to the original question -- just how stupid do you (or I) think potential iPhone customers are -- there's one more piece of the puzzle to consider. Who buys someone a cell phone for Christmas?

Oh, and one more thing

Apple does have one trick up its sleeve that its competitors don't. The price it charges for iPhones is not subsidized, so when a new iPhone comes out, folks can just buy it and swap it onto their existing account. This is not the case for the vast majority of cell phones on the (US) market which have totally bogus prices ($99 with a 2 year plan, $299 without it). It follows that Apple can transition users onto new generations of iPhone without waiting for plans to expire, which is, along with a lack of discernable improvements over time, what has killed Motorola's RAZR.