Downloading a new book is now simply a process of hitting ‘download’, telling it to save straight to my ebook reader, and then unplugging it and starting to read. Not quite as easy as the Kindle, I’ll grant you, but not locked into Amazon, or DRMed, and doesn’t depend on being in the US and having cellphone signal.

I have been buying books on my phone/PDA (In the sun, and airports, and hotel lobbies etc etc) for 2+ years now since I got a web capable phone/PDA. I’ve bought from both Fictionwise and Baen, both on the fly. (And Unencrypted to boot!)

Buying the sequel to a book you just finished between flights while stuck in DFW airport standing at your gate is FANTASTIC (Buying after you have already sat down on the plane, but before it pushes back from the gate is Science Fiction made real!), and you are right… Fictionwise and Amazon have figured something out… But Jim Baen figured it out too!

Fail. Apple still exists. Sales up. This is not fanboyism, just cold sales figures. I dropped Mac because I was sick of asking “Is there a Mac version of that?” Now, so much is bundled with a Mac, the question is moot for most functions.

iPhone is a smartphone.
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/07/26/quote-timothy-d-cook-of-apple/

Babelfish: […] time commenting: the search of a good experience of usuary on any other factor. In Tele Read they do a comparative one with respect to other proposals, Kindle wins because to you it puts it easy, you take in […]

The number of perfectly convenient projects who got perfect reviews generate lots og media buzz sells a few millions units and then fade into oblivion becuase someone else sells a few hundred millions of cheap inconvenient crap, it was what happened to the original apple series, the imac, and microsoft zune. and tons of other products.

You have iTunes as the posterchild but iTunes arent the only successfull music store and mp3 players were already a big business a year before the ipod was realeased so it’s probably a bit doubtfull that iTunes actually created the market for online music.

What your going to see is that just like it was with the original macs everyone who saw one wanted one for about 10 minutes and then decided to head for the store that sold IBM clones, people are going to want kindles or iphones and then in the end choose to buy subnotes or smartphones.

When your getting worked up over the prospect of amazon selling 240k kindle remember that it probably amounts to less then a weeks laptops sales at dell.

Points I would add:
1. Until books are available on the same device that people use for phone, navigation (GPS), and music, I don’t think there will be an “explosion” to the electronic book, although if you read about Amazon’s Kindle results, they are certainly good. Garmin is trying to make a phone. Nokia bought all the rights to satellite maps for future phone versions, the iPhone made it out because iPod already paved the way.
2. Books could/should be available on a “card” today. This could simplify the access to any device part. Just put the book on a cheap chip, some nice graphics and cover blurbs on a shrinkwrapped cardboard carrier (please do not create another CD jewelbox nightmare to open) and let consumers buy these anywhere they can buy books today.
3. Digital downloads will become 90% of the book reading market. It is not a question of if, only when. Granted it has to be dead simple (downloading iTunes was never that simple in my opinion either, but the folks who got into music seemed to be a bit more techno-savvy than book readers).

jim
http://www.contentrealtime.com

But yeah, the process sucks.

Now I do agree with Paul that the average consumer prefers convenience without a lot of technical complexity. Kindle may provide this, but it does come with a cost as Rich points out. And it certainly is possible for others to offer the same level of convenience that Kindle does.

P: I’m delighted to see your speaking your mind, especially with good things to say about Amazon. I just wish Amazon itself would show up here, so people would have exposure to a variety of viewpoints. I love to run posts from Kindle fans and myself love the machine’s positives. But long term, they could come at a steep price.

R: Of course I’d side more with you. Stay tuned for a post speculating on what it would mean if Apple in the future shut down its DRM server for iTunes customers. Same concept applies to Amazon and other DRM fans. One detail: You can get eReader for a wide variety of machines—everything from a Vista desktop to my iPod Touch, which I use without paying any subscription fee.

Thanks,
David

More importatnly, in this regard is that should I decide to abandon my Sony 505, I can take those books to my next device — as long as it isn’t a Kindle.

As for Fictionwise’s eReader, I have no doubt that is a good system. But, alas, it means you have to (1) be willing to read books on your cell phone, which I’m not, and (2) be willing to spend the money for an Apple iPhone and an AT&T long-term contract, which, again, I’m not.

The reality is that yes, the process can be made simpler by Sony but the current choices — Amazon Kindle and Apple iPhone — are much too narrow for my taste. And that is without discussing the ergonomics of the devices, just simplicity.

And you have begged yet another question: How much does it really matter? I currently have 152 books on my Sony that I have not yet read. That means there is a long time between having to go throught the process you describe, and when I do go through it, I handle a mass of books at one time, rather than one by one, which seems to be what you do.