Jeff Bezos posts Kindle apology on Amazon's front page
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted March 20th 2008 11:35AM
posted March 20th 2008 11:35AM
[Thanks, Michael]
posted March 20th 2008 11:35AM
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OMG WOW!??!?
I have an MS in Math ....
That means I got about 1 line into your reply and quickly understood that the rest of the comment would be worthless
HOW DARE YOU HATE ON THE HP CALCULATOR !!!
j/k
GRRR .... webblog bites ..... oh well
Here's an idea:
Stop taking orders until you can ship them. It seems to work with every other electronic device out there.
No Wii = No Order
Just a thought.
Just the thought of this Kirk-worthy device gives me wood, er... kindling!
I bought and returned it 1 day later. It is an unusable piece of crap. Meaning tons of features, but designed so poorly you can't read a book without the poor design infuriating you within 5 minutes. (a Next Page button the entire length of the unit in a wedge shape designed to constantly hit your palm by accident...wtf?!?)
My only disappointment is that I returned the damn thing and 1 week later is when the price went through the roof on eBay. all those morons who have never seen Sony's far superior eBook reader because Amazon refuses to carry the product.
They refuse to carry Sony's eReader? Isn't that just a WEE bit anti-competitive?
"all those morons who have never seen Sony's far superior eBook reader because Amazon refuses to carry the product."
Really? Guess Amazon didn't get the memo.
http://www.amazon.com/E-reader-Portable-Silver-E-book-Approx/dp/B000WPXQ2M/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1206057271&sr=8-1
I saw one of those news shows (60 minutes I think) about Jeff Bezos. I didn't know anything about him before that but after watching the show I actually like him. I like the work ethics he has and his "vision."
What I don't understand is that the Kindle has been advertised promenently on the Amazon home page and still is. If they can't meet demand, take it off until they can. It would be like advertising the Wii and taking you to the Amazon Wii page that says out of stock, or worse, in stock but not really having any stock.
I expect better from Amazon.
Ohhh... THAT's what he was sorry for.
See, I thought they were going to apologize for the actual creation, and subsequent shipping of, that blight on the faces of industrial design and user experience. My bad.
Is the Kindle really that popular or it's just that they haven't made many because they thought it wouldn't sell that well? I never saw any raving reviews about it. Most reviews said the controls weren't that good. It's just a decent e-book reader, but nothing ground-breaking.
I'd always thought e-book readers would be fairly useful for reading current news and stuff. However, not having pictures takes some of the enjoyment away.
Good luck, Amazon. You'll soon probably be facing some stiff competition from an innovative company named after a shiny fruit with a bite taken out of it.
Does anyone else find it amusing that the text of the post essentially repeats what is written in the image of the note?
I'm hoping Kindle 2 will have a nicer design. If it does I could be tempted. I'm getting old enough where I *need* reading glasses to read. I'd love something to read books on where I could bump up the font size.
Well honestly, my PSP does that pretty well. Get an ebook in html format and use the PSP web browser to read it..
i have a kindle - waited 6 weeks but it was worth it
i download pretty much any book i want (and newspapers, magazines and blogs)
the selection cheaper and better than sony, and even though it is not the sleekest device, it is easy to hold and use
I have the Sony and get about 13 newspapers and magazines free each day using libprs500. It's fantastic being able to read the BBC, New York Times, Associated Press, Newsweek, Atlantic, etc. without the clutter of newspapers stacking up each day.
I don't know a single person who has ordered one...Anyone?
The Kindle went on sale when ? Say, November. And its been on back-order almost since Day 1. So why has Bezos waited 3-1/2 months to write this ?!
Of course with a very short production run, and restricted manufacturing, Amazon can claim that they're really popular and hard to make enough of them. Kind of the Wii factor.
No?
That thing is still fugly! I'd take a Sony Reader over this any day. But, who am I kidding, I wouldn't get any use out of either one. I'd rather just have a book.
Fuck! We only built six of them!
Customers can order now and they'll be the first in line?
Isn't there 6 weeks worth of waiting for the other customers to get their Kindle's before yours arrives???
OMG will people who have never owned a Kindle, nor known anyone who does, stop bashing something they know nothing about!
Yeah, you can read the specs and say you hate it (like Sayad Mohammed or whatever) - isn't that the epitome of stupidity? What ignorance!
I've had a Kindle since November - there is a reason they've sold out - people who have played with it, used it, or know someone who has one...just love it.
I read all the time, tons of books. Kindle solved 2 of my biggest headaches - I would always finish a book, and have to wait til I went to the library, ordered online, or whatever - I hated waiting a few days with nothing to read. Kindle gives you the book you want instantly - or the newspaper, or magazine.
I also read a TON of historical fiction, and would constantly stop reading, get out of bed and go downstairs to login and look up more on a fact, or map, or something I wanted to know more about - now I just surf wikipedia instantly on the Kindle for my answer, or click on the word I want defined.
Once you use it for a book - you'll never go back - it becomes extememly comfortable, reading one-handed. Almost impossible to do with other material unless you fold it up.
Go to the Amazon site and read the reviews - the people that love it have tried it. The people, like the idiots here, that hate it have never even seen one; let alone read a book on one.
I own a Kindle and a Sony PRS 500. I prefer the Kindle. The Sony is sleeker, but I find myself using the Kindle a lot more. The main reason being the EVDO connection. I can download a newspaper on the fly or order any book they sell and have it on my device in less than 30 seconds as long as I can connect to the EVDO network, which I have not had a problem with at all.
The button layout is indeed crappy, but as someone else pointed out, you learn very quickly how to hold it without inadvertently pressing a button. I'm hoping a firmware update or a hack will give the ability to disable certain buttons to make accidental page turns a thing of the past.
While the Sony looks nicer than the Kindle, once I started reading on it, I could care less about how it looked. I would rather have an ugly, more useful product than a pretty less useful one.
Jeff Bezos was interviewed in the newspaper a few weeks ago, saying how wonderful the Kindle would make life. I have not seen it--even photographs!--but cannot think of anything which has made My life so much better that I cannot live without it.
The old "These things are so great that we sold a warehouse of them in ten minutes!" is actually a good marketing ploy. Humans love to play Follow the Leader, so this is why "We're the number one car in America!" shows up in ads.
Today, I saw an ad telling Me that My cellphone would be lots better if I put Microsoft in it. If I were stupid then I would believe that. I have read comments from people who did use the Microsoft cellphone product and hated it.
I suspect there are people who will detest the Kindle on sight, while others will think it is the answer to their dreams. The rest of us (What a cool slogan THAT would make!) will be hard pressed to even care about the thing!
As for Myself: I like book books.
Eventually, electronic books will work. But look at how many years of PCs went by before the Macintosh came out. And the years before even that was truly useful.
PCs were a new technology. Electronic books are looking to supplant an already existing technology, one perfected over centuries. For "e-books" to catch on, they need a good shape. They need to put up with hard handling. They need to literally be flexible.
And they need to work without a lot of proprietary brick-wall garbage in them! I refuse to buy an iPod, Zune, or any of that because of their intentionally proprietary anti-customer design!
I design electronic systems. I am very pro-technology. The correct technology for the job, though! I am not anti-"e-books"!
This looks like a marketing stunt. Kindle is not being discussed by people I know who are interested in mobile reading and mobile devices.
"The original release of the device sold out in just 5 1/2 hours says the letter, which might explain why no one is hacking it -- no one has it."
Reminds me of something Yogi Berra said:
"Nobody goes there no more, it's too crowded."
I call BS on this. The Kindle is filling up the page on Amazon every single time I log in, and there's a 6-week backlog? If this was true, or if they really felt bad about it, then I wouldn't have to look at the damn thing, I'm sure they could find something else to plug for awhile.
its funny that they chose to use 5 1/2 hr figure and not how much they actually sold...perhaps they were understocked in the first place so they COULD claim there is such a high demand. i hardly believe the Kindle has such a high demand, its 1. too expensive, 2. not useful enough 3. ugly. and jeff bezos is annoying.
Notice that Bezos doesn't say how many they've actually sold. They built very few and sold very few, and now they scramble from all the people who have bought into the hype of this product. Kindle will die a slow death because Amazon has moved outside it's core competency; and even that is being tarnished because of Kindle.
i read 2-3 novels a week and was buying them and giving them away, as i don't have enough space to store the books. the local library was not an option for me. so the kindle has more than paid for itself--everyone at my job that has seen the kindle wants one. for me, it's the best thing since sliced bread.
It's like people who buy country-western music or still approve of Bush/Cheney. I hear about them, but never met one in my life.