I find it interesting that Joshua Topolsky (the Verge) also reviewed this device[1], but was much more impressed than John Gruber. I don't think this results from a preference difference, but rather a perspective difference:
Where Topolsky reviewed the Kindle Paperwhite as an electronic device, comparing it to other tablet and e-reader devices, Gruber weighed the Kindle as a book, comparing its characteristics to the print medium.
Considered together, I find the two reviews complementary. The Kindle Paperwhite beats other electronic reading media, but is still lacks some of the characteristics of print. It's certainly a step in that direction, though.
>Amazon’s goal should be for Kindle typography to equal print typography. They’re not even close. They get a pass on this only because all their competitors are just as bad or worse. Amazon should hire a world-class book designer to serve as product manager for the Kindle.
I thought that was really insightful. It'd be really interesting to make the kindle the best reading experience period - not just the best e-reading experience.
Apparently Gruber never had to suffer through an offline/static designer struggling to make sense of designing something interactive (i.e. the 90s and early 2000s). And the better they are the former, the more difficulty they seem to have with the latter, so a "world class book designer" would be unbearable.
I think you're missing the point. That was his suggested tactic, the success of which might be debatable, but his overall goal is a great way to orient the future kindle product direction.
I think I got the point, what I'm saying is that the kindle is not a book, and should not try to be. It should be a kindle/e-reader. Bringing in a book designer would likely make it more like a book, which it would fail at, and a great designer would also try to make it a beautiful book, which it would fail even worse at.
Great books design is a factor of not just picking a good font, but the right font. The right margins and font size, the right paper weight and finish, the right line height, cover, putting blank pages and linebreaks in the right spot even when it's not consistent. These are the tools of the book designer.
But e-books take all of those tools away. Sure e-books could handle all of that, you could make a reader capable of displaying LaTeX files pixel-perfectly, but it would be a terrible experience. I bought my mom a kindle because she can make the font size gigantic, it would be unbearable for me to read like that. I have my kindle set to use a different font, size, line spacing, and margin than my girlfriend, and the fact that we can make it just right for ourselves is one of the reasons I've read exactly 1 hardcopy book out of 50 in the past ~2 years and she's read maybe 2.
I'm not saying the kindle can't be improved, but you need someone who wants to make a better kindle, not a more book-like kindle. In my experience, great leaps in design need to come from a distance. The best early website/Director designs were not made by the best print designers, or the best programmers. They were made by people with backgrounds in music and dance and animation, those that grasped the actual beauty of interaction, in that it is dynamic and ephemeral, not "just so". You can't get much more uncompromising than a book designer. Look at Edward Tufte, he was unable to find a publisher who would make exactly the book he wanted, so he started his own publishing company.
That review was pure cotton candy -- published the day before the device was released, with a few other similar embargoed pieces [1]. I was convinced that he just wanted to keep getting scoops.
I pre-ordered it and got it ASAP, and like it except for the extreme sparsity of settings. The wifi is on either for browsing or page syncing; it should be smart enough to turn off if you're not interested in either. The light can't be turned completely off [although, I admit I can't think of a use case for this]. I was excited at how quickly it transfers files -- the specs say USB 2.0, but it's pretty much instantaneous, even for 100 MB bootlegs. The uneven lighting makes me feel resentful, but of course they're just saving that for v2.0
The Kindle Store is useless at selling me new content -- I have a wishlist of books I'd like to read/buy someday. You'd think offering me a Kindle Version of one of them would be a first choice.
And of course, the paperwhite is rooted, so if Gruber wants he can just add new fonts soon [2].
Interesting. Would you say Topolsky's praise of the snappiness of the OS, the keyboard's usefulness, and the browser's handiness are overstated?
If the Paperwhite had some of that tablet-like functionality, that'd be great.
I initially dismissed the Paperwhite, but those three features made me pause. They could give the Paperwhite the edge over the Nook's hardware pageturn buttons and cheaper adlessness.
Top of mind because I just spent an eternity (3 seconds ;] ) searching for a new book just loaded onto my Keyboard.
When the combo LCD/eInk comes in earnest[1], tablets and ereaders will converge. It'll be interesting to see how device use shifts then. Will we spend most of the time on our phones and tablets looking at eInk, Only turning on the LCD when we need it?
Battery life would be so amazing. And reading emails and other stuff might improve. I heard of a study that showed retention after reading on an LCD was worse than for deadtree.
Maybe I should design my latest browser-based project with "How would this look in greyscale?" in back of mind... at the very least it would solve any colorblind issues.
> The wifi is on either for browsing or page syncing; it should be smart enough to turn off if you're not interested in either.
It's also on for auto-delivery of new books and periodicals. I like the fact that my Kindle is always ready to go with the latest things that I've bought without me needing to think about remembering to sync.
> That review was pure cotton candy -- published the day before the device was released, with a few other similar embargoed pieces [1]. I was convinced that he just wanted to keep getting scoops.
That's a very serious accusation. Do you have any proof to back it up? If anything, The Verge has been quite critical of technology products, and I have no reason to doubt that there's anything untoward influencing their reviews (other than from blatant Apple fanboyism, particularly on the part of Nilay Patel. Take a look at his recent iPod Nano review[0], for example).
(Which I don't agree with, the way it was written) And then you go on to accuse the same website of something else:
> blatant Apple fanboyism
Seriously? - And how is this related to the OP? And from the review you've linked to:
> The new nano might have Apple’s connector of the future, but everything else about it clings tightly to the past — to a world in which iTunes is still the center of the digital media universe, not a bloated relic badly in need of a fresh start and new ideas.
This is so fanboyish that it's worth the side snark?
> Which I don't agree with, the way it was written
The OP's saying that a technology website is allowing itself to be swayed for the sake of scoops. This is one of the most serious accusations you can make of a journalist, because it's basically saying you can't trust anything they write.
> This is so fanboyish that it's worth the side snark?
Nilay gave the device a 7.7 when Apple clearly fucked up with the Nano. There was a TON of potential for smart watch innovation with the previous Nano. Apple even acknowledged it when they added clock faces to the Nano last year. There were very successful Kickstarter projects based on using the Nano as a smart watch. Instead of making that official, Apple fucked it all up by (yet again) completely changing the form factor.
My accusation is very different from the OP's because it's not based on any factual misconduct - it's simply the result of Nilay (like many other people) getting sucked into the RDF and drinking Apple's Kool-Aid far too much. If you watch the Vergecast, you'll understand very quickly that he has a barely concealed raging hardon for all things Apple.
I don't see how they do. Of course he was convinced, otherwise he wouldn't be making that statement in the first place. My question was why he thought that.
Complimentary ("Expressing a compliment; praising or approving.") does makes sense, but I believe you mean complementary ("Combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize each other's qualities.")
Joshua left Engadget?! I just learned this. Wow. I guess I should pay more attention. I look at Engadget almost daily. Their article quality doesn't seem to have suffered.
It's been over a year and a half[0] since Josh and many of the other senior staff (Nilay Patel, Paul Miller, Joanna Stern, Chris Ziegler, Ross Miller) left Engadget. The Verge has been up for almost a year now, and I guarantee you that it's far better than Engadget ever was (and definitely better than it is now). For proof, look no further than their features[1] - there's some real hard-hitting journalism there. Check out these pieces for some examples:
Does that mean you also haven't heard of TheVerge (Joshua's new site)? Because it's probably the best tech news site out there right now (not yet the biggest though).
I've heard of the Verge maybe once, now twice. The video reviews are quite nice. I do still think that the layout of the site is a bit loud. But, anyway, thanks for the comment. I'll check it out a bit more.
Where Topolsky reviewed the Kindle Paperwhite as an electronic device, comparing it to other tablet and e-reader devices, Gruber weighed the Kindle as a book, comparing its characteristics to the print medium.
Considered together, I find the two reviews complementary. The Kindle Paperwhite beats other electronic reading media, but is still lacks some of the characteristics of print. It's certainly a step in that direction, though.
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/30/3433110/amazon-kindle-pape...