Kindle for health records? E-chess? Others? Yes. Bring in the third-party devs—the same idea as for the iPhone!
New York Times reporter Brad Stone’s take on sales figures for the e-book version of The Lost Symbol—versus the numbers for the p-book—inspired lots and lots of skepticism from E boosters.
And I’m still waiting for him to write on social DRM and certain nuances of e-book standards that he and the Times have yet to explore, despite some progress in a recent article.
But Stone is right on the mark in highlighting another Kindle issue. And that’s the ticklish little matter of opening up the Kindle to third-party developers. Look at all the apps for the iPhone, such as the one shown here for Facebook.
Even with the the slow refresh rate of the Kindle’s E Ink, notes Stone, “there are still some interesting possibilities. Companies like Facebook or Goodreaders could add social features to the Kindle; game developers like Zynga could create nongraphics-intensive games like poker or chess for the device. There could also be educational games, or programs that take advantage of that rarely used keyboard and Kindle’s ‘experimental’ Web browser.”
“Amazon might also interest businesses in developing their own Kindle apps—sales management tools or health records software—and in that way compete head to head with the upcoming business-focused Plastic Logic reader.”
Exactly. I hope Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and friends are listening to Brad Stone and like-minded people. Yes, I know. A truly multipurpose netbook/tablet could do many and perhaps most of the above apps better, and the Kindle lacks the color that iPhone apps can display. But as long as people own Kindles, why not help them make the very best use of their hardware?
What non-reading, nonaudiobook apps would you like to see on the Kindle?
September 27th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Health records? Sure! In fact a couple of years ago I went over my old calenders and collected the dates of doctors’ appointments for the past ten years, plus *very* short descriptions of the reasons for those appointments. I continue to update it, and carry a text-file copy on my Kindle and my iPod, both of which I always take to the doctor, to while away the inevitable waits (one doctor even has wi-fi!). No, it’s not a complete record, which I’d definitely prefer. But at least I can quickly look up facts, like when I had my last colonoscopy, or what drugs various docs have prescribed, which has been very useful.