5 Reasons Why Apps on the Kindle Are a Bad Idea

I love my Kindle. But I didn’t always love my Kindle. Before I owned one I felt indifferent. After all, I love paper books the most. Real books are what I am in love with, and I always have been. If I am shipwrecked on an island someday, all I need is a stack of books and Jason Statham at my side. In that order.

So, today Amazon announced they will make apps available on the book-reading device. There’s even an SDK rolling out. Now to be fair, the announcement specifies that these apps will deliver “active” content, which is code for saying it would be tied to text, such as RSS, maps, and anything to do with traditional modes of reading and writing. However, you know how that might go. You will see games and fart apps popping up sooner than you think.

Amazon, don’t do this.

I have strong reasons why I think this will hurt the device’s popularity, and they have a whole lot to do with usability and most of all readibility.

1. The Kindle is a task-specific device. Amazon, you spent a gazillion dollars in R & D on crafting a reading screen that not only has a softness and readibility similar to paper, but one which actually feels different than paper but welcomes one to just keep turning the pages. Kindle users are now trained well on how to read books and newspapers and magazines on that non-reflective gray screen. Asking them to learn new ways to use it will not be an easy goal to accomplish.

2. E-ink is too specific to book reading, which is mostly…slow. E-ink, which is a fancier version of Etch-A-Sketch, uses very little power, but remains sharp and provides a good experience of reading print on a screen. Good contrast and sharpness. However, let’s remember it’s pretty much a black and white experience. And its response time is very long, meaning pages take time to render. Do not try to compete with apps this way, Amazon. E-ink takes precious seconds to render each page, and most of all, it feels static. This is not a good way to transition into apps, which most users nowadays expect to work in color and with seamless animation.

3. The Kindle’s industrial design is not made for apps. It is made for reading. It is boiled down to a few key buttons that navigate pages, and a tiny knob (like a pc) to navigate. This knob is awful, by the way. Before I even begin to make references to IBM Thinkpads, let me say it is one of my least favorite features of the Kindle. It’s slow, and often time imprecise. However, on a Kindle, I am usually working at my leisure between books, so I don’t need a lightning fast controller. I just wish it worked well. If you move to create apps on this device Amazon, the little knob will make users’ blood boil, guaranteed. Imagine playing games with that knob? NO. WAY.

4.Apps invite more distractions into the Kindle’s reading experience. Book lovers mostly want to read uninterrupted. The reason I love my Kindle is that it has just enough connectivity to be able to get new books or read news, but is limited in such a way that I dedicate my use of that white tablet (OOO TABLET IS THE NEW DIRTY WORD OF 2010, I SAID IT) focused on reading my juicy paranormal romances and Bradshaw syndrome chick lit. I hope you read the irony of that last sentence, otherwise my rep is dead.

5. You will screw up the niche market you carved out for yourself. Take a look at a cheese grater. It is a technology that does one thing extremely well. It does not try to be a whisk, a knife or a spatula. WE LOVE A CHEESE GRATER BECAUSE IT BRINGS CHEESY GOODNESS WITH ITS EXCELLENCE IN DESIGN AND EXPERIENCE. So don’t try to make the Kindle something it’s not, Amazon. Otherwise you will lose out to that spectral product from Apple everyone’s buzzing about.