Amazon to charge per megabyte to send personal documents OTA to your Kindle
By Ross Miller 
posted April 30th 2009 3:52AM
posted April 30th 2009 3:52AM
[Via GearDiary]
posted April 30th 2009 3:52AM
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I'm excited about the kindle but I have yet to see one in real life. Maybe I need to leave the house more often.
They are pretty popular on the commute to work via train.
Although I don't get why carrying a physical book and newspaper is all that difficult, and saves you $280ish. It's not like you aren't coming home in 8 hours to swap books...
If the kindle price shown on screen is for real for that book, thats just obnoxious
It was... Someone made a serious goof. But If you look it up, you'll see that they've since corrected the price.
Hehe, the book is more expensive than doing all your studies in that field.
If it was made by Apple, people would buy it...
Ha ha ha OMG Steve is so funny OMG my sides have split OMG that joke was as funny as this Windows BSOD joke I heard the other day ...
Oh wait, that's right, sensible people have all realised that the "Macs are overpriced" and "Windows crashes" lines are so outdated, so inaccurate and so misused that they are indicative of an immature and uninformed person unable to articulate a proper argument due to a obvious lack of understanding of the subject under discussion.
Making jokes about the Apple Tax or Windows BSODs? I'm embarrassed for you. You ought to be embarrassed for yourself. Grow up, and give 2002 its stereotypes back.
yea if its real i want to throw up lol
At first, I was outraged that Amazon would charge for downloading something over wifi. Then I Wikipedia'd and found out that it's over Sprint EVDO. That's a pretty cool feature. $0.15 per meg doesn't sound that unreasonable, either.
This is why I hate service dependant devices.
This only applies to sending your own content. Which as the article points out, you can do for free via USB.
Also this is INSTEAD of having to pay for a data plan.
Yes, but this is becoming basically a pay-as-you-go plan then.
@Syliss
Perhaps. But only if for whatever reason you can't just use the USB. And presumably you would be at the computer to attach and email the documents anyways...
I understand that there is the option to send stuff via USB... But tyeing a device to a service just makes the device that much less useful in the long run.
I have seen digital picture frames that were tied to a web service. The web service was "free" but that was the only way to put pictures on the picture frame. When they went under, the picture frame became totally useless.
Now granted that the Kindle can still have books/docs sent via USB. But it is still tied to a service. And they can change that service at will. So you are totally at Amazon's mercy. And it is not like they are subsidizing the Kindle either.
Maybe Sprint is charging Amazon more for the EVDO access that Amazon has to pass it to the customers?
I'm sure it had more to do with some people abusing the 10 cent per doc charge with massive documents. Amazon probably pays a fee to Sprint related to how much capacity they use.
As everyone else has pointed out it's not like it's hard to get around it using USB, and 15 cents per MB is pretty reasonable especially since most documents aren't going to be more than 1-3MB.
Wow. Amazon found a way to charge you for your own texts. Impressive.
Are you bitching because you actually own a Kindle and this does affect you directly, or are you just bitching to try to sound snarky and look cool to other other Engadget readers? Because if it's the latter, you fail hugely.
Amazon DOES offer a free alternative that's almost as simple to use. When you buy a Kindle you get TWO email addresses to use where you can send documents for conversion - @kindle.com and @free.kindle.com. The first address takes your document, converts it, and sends it over Whispernet to your Kindle. The second address converts your document and emails it back to you (usually within minutes), where you can put it on your Kindle yourself via USB - for free.
jk - Amazon isn't charging you for your own content. That's just a ridiculous assertion. Rather, they're charging you for the use of the data services for sending your own content to a Kindle. Obviously.
Except that you should already be paying for the EVDO though the outrageous cost of the Kindle.
Just use something like Stanza and avoid sending anything to Amazon to begin with. Stanza is free and will convert all your PDFs into Kindle-readable format much faster than sending them to Amazon.
With AMZN acquiring Stanza,how long would be left alone?
Not too late!
Calibre is MUCH better than Stanza, and it's donationware.
Is there a way to send Docs OTA to Kindle for iPhone app ?
Only books you buy from Amazon. Your own documents won't work with Kindle for iPhone.
I started out with that app, and then got a Kindle 2, and now I barely ever use Kindle for iPhone. The reading experience is just so much better on the Kindle 2, it makes the iPhone/iPod touch seem severely limited.
Good thing I went with the Sony reader. Sony offers so much more freedom! I download all my books from torrents which is nice! And transfer the pdf to the reader via usb. I love that little thing. Not to mention it has touch screen and a backlight.
Sorry, I have both and it is no contest for me between Sony and Kindle. Kindle is everything Sony was and much more (except attractive). Sony's device is ok if you do all of your book discovery on a computer, but the Kindle's anywhere book browsing and sampling feature took it to a whole new level. My Sony Reader has become a dust magnet.
Vincenzo "...transfer the pdf to the reader via usb. "
Glad you like your Sony, but understand that you can do the same thing with the Kindle. The Kindle connects to your computer via USB and appears as a standard storage device. You just copy your files to the documents directory. Those files can be the various formats that Kindle reads directly, others that you converted via Amazon's free email-based conversion, or files that you convert using free software like Calibre, Stanza, or Mobipocket.
The only method for which Amazon is charging is the OTA transfer. It is purely a convenience.
I agree. The Kindle has the wireless which is still free for web browsing, web mail, and buying books-- and that's a huge advantage for something in the same price range. It's also got a much easier, better book store (Amazon versus Sony Store).
And as for transferring a PDF to the Kindle, it's entirely possible There are a few ways to do it. You can convert with a variety of eBook management programs and then transfer via USB (I prefer Calibre. It rocks). You can install a software package on the Kindle itself which converts PDF on the fly. You can also use Amazon's conversion service for free if you want to use USB instead of wireless transfer.
You act as if the Kindle is closed off and couldn't use non-Kindle books, and that's just not true. Kindle users can read any books you can read on the Sony, with the exception of DRM'ed Sony Store books, if they know what they're doing.
However, while the Kindle can do everything the Sony Reader PRS-505 can do (including dealing with PDF and other formats), the Kindle can also do all the Internet-based stuff, play official Audible content, read most books out loud, and play a pretty good game of Minesweeper.
The Kindle is a better deal.
...and If amazon decides you haven't spent enough money at their store (or whatever reason) they may just close your account and lockup all those books you found so easy to buy with your kindle. Enjoy your Kindle but keep sending your $$ to Amazon.
"Sony offers so much more freedom! "
That is such an odd sentence to read isn't it? It's eerie.
This only amounts to a nickel increase for most books. I have yet to encounter a mobi or PDF file that is more than a meg.
I get all my books from Gutenberg.org in mobi format anyway, which the Kindle can read.
So when are the spammers going to start hitting @free.kindle.com addresses?
Amazon only accepts documents for conversion from email addresses that you authorize.
The Kindle is looking less and less appealing each day.
Ok, at first I was like "are they smoking pot" or "What the frack"
then I read the article and not I am like "Who cares"
-
you can still send your documents via usb or email so truly who cares.
the device is over price and in the line of an apple device near propriety.
-
someone is taking a lesson for apple and applying it.
Ehm... no one noticed the ridiculous price of the book in the picture?
Try reading comment #2...
Then maybe you will "get a clue"
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/3/9/
this sums up my feeling on the kindle...
If the cost was low to Amazon, in an effort to gain more public acceptance of Kindle 2, Amazon probably wouldn't have changed the fee structure and charge for it. By all indications, this suggests the fee isn't a minor cost to Amazon.
Anyway, I don't have a Kindle but checked one out from a friend. The screen is very neat and unlike most standard back-lit LCDs. If you get a chance, check it out. It's VERY cool.
On the note about Amazon, I recently came across an interesting table that details the discounts on Amazon (thanks to PC World).
It is at http://www.uberi.com
Maybe someone will find it useful too.
I find it funny that the only people who don't like Kindle are the ones who don't have it. Jealous?
From the details on this device, you can email the device it seems. (pdf files etc) However, can your kindle device reply to emails?
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