After the Kindle 2.0′s release Monday, there was relatively little controversy about it (except for the kerfuffle (and the backlash) over the text-to-speech feature).
Several reviews have praised the 2.0 for being, essentially, not worse than Kindle 1. Mark Hendrickson, for example, says this at TechCrunch:
It downloads content just as fast. Amazon is touting 60 second downloads for books, etc. — the same rate it gave for the first Kindle
Well, I should hope it’s not worse. At GOOD, Joel Johnson praises the idea of the wireless ereader moreso than the Kindle 2.0 unto itself.
But BooksOnBoard, an ebook retailer, lashed into the Kindle today with a press release calling the Kindle 2.0 a “disappointment” and containing these remarks from their CEO:
“This is, unfortunately, not technological progress from a customer standpoint,” said LiVolsi, ”Content remains proprietary and key features like built-in lighting remain missing. All the changes are superficial. The same major issues remain. People who focus on the Kindle will miss the fact that there are better alternatives out there already.”
The Kindle 2.0 can’t read any new formats, which means that no third-party retailer can sell an ebook to a Kindler. While we’ve got to take LiVolsi’s remarks with a grain of salt because of that, it’s not a good situation.
Hopefully, the softball reviews we’ve seen so far will get the general excitement over dedicated ereader devices out of the press’s system. The next device that comes along–especially the next Kindle–I want to see these guys analyze for its actual parts, not just the ideas it represents.
