After seeing the screensaver image pictured above on my Kindle’s screen, I just emailed the message below to Amazon with the following suggestions for ways I think they could improve the Kindle 2:
Dear Amazon,
I love my Kindle 2. I think the keyboard and the wireless store connectivity help you get the edge over Sony’s Reader, which was the ebook reader I had before the Kindle 2.
A few things would improve it:
1. Native PDF support. I don’t care if it were experimental and I had to pan and scan. It would be great.
2. You should add a very basic text editor app. Right now I fake this by using the note feature to save to My Clippings.txt, but it seems it would be simple to implement a very basic text editor that could save .txt files to the documents folder and it would be very useful / make the device a nice on the go word processor.
3. Add a cut and paste feature. I can save things to My Clippings.txt but then I have to switch to a computer to do anything with the clippings. If I could copy and paste somehow (maybe ALT + 5-way controller? ) I could quickly email notes to people / myself.
4. Add some way to skip ahead 10 pages. Sony Reader does this by holding down the NEXT PAGE key for longer period of time, and it’s very useful for “skimming ahead” in a book. I read somewhere that ALT+NEXT PAGE used to do this, but it doesn’t for me.
5. Improve the basic web browser. Right now I cannot update my blog via the Kindle 2’s browser because WordPress will not authenticate the login.
6. Time preferences for the screen saver in settings. It could default to what it currently does, but it would be HUGELY useful to me if I could turn off the auto-go into screen saver mode / change the timer on it to not go into effect for a longer period of time (just like the screensaver on a computer), as I often refer to documents on the Kindle while doing something else, and the screensaver goes on and I have to flip the switch, etc etc. A way to put it into sleep mode but still display the current page with no refresh would also be cool (save energy too).
7. A setting to switch the home and prev page keys. I often find myself reading with the device in my right hand and I can move ahead and back sections and to the next page using just the right hand and the 5-way, but the prev page key makes me have to use my left hand.
Cheers,
C.K.
What do you think would improve the Kindle 2? If you read this and happen to know Jeff Bezos or Jay Marine, Amazon’s Director of Project Management for the Kindle, please pass this along to them. Jay, if you happen to read this, I met you at the Kindle DX press event and mentioned the PDF support and my intention to send these ideas then. Cheers.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
totally agree. I sent them similar suggestions about 2 weeks ago (native PDF, wireless, etc). I hope they will take us seriously.
I'm going to send them another suggestion:
have the ability to for add-on features/programs. For example, I would like to add a Spanish dictionary (I'm trying to learn Spanish and it would be useful to have something like that).
What do you think?
DJR
Hey DJR,
You can already add dictionaries to the Kindle. Simply purchase a Kindle-ready dictionary from the Kindle store then navigate to Home—>Menu—>Settings, then press Menu again and use the 5-way to underline “Change Primary Dictionary” press select and then pick the one you want to use. Note: this option will only show up if you have more dictionaries on the device than just the default.
I'm not sure if there is a Spanish dictionary available or not, but if there is, it seems like it would fit your bill perfectly, you'll just have to go through these steps whenever you want to switch back and forth between that dictionary and the default one. Hope this helps.
Cheers,
C.K.