I just got it, literally, a day ago. No I didn’t rush out to order one at WWDC after the keynote. I didn’t go wait in line at an Apple store, or any other variation on fan boy-dom. Oh and I could have, because I nver bought a 3G and bought my 2G on ebay, so I’ve been contract free for a while.

No longer.

I wasn’t sold on the 3GS. for one thing, it’s still aesthetically ugly IMO. It’s plastic, which I don’t like. I don’t like it because plastic feels crappy. I don’t like it because when the 2G came out, Apple made a big deal about plastic sucking and the aluminum body being so nice. I agree.

I’m bummed that Apple (in a move very unlike them) didn’t change the outward appearance at all. Typically apple makes new models look a big different (I suspect so that the fanboy, early adopters can feel special, and be visually better/apart from the masses), if you sat a 3G and 3GS next to each other, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference (it’s not impossible).

What sold me, wasn’t the compass, the voice dialing, event the stereo bluetooth. It was the speed.

I read that it was (roughly) 54% faster than the 3G. That’s pretty substantial. It’s also got more system RAM, and more graphics capabilities.

I might have been ok with sticking with 2G and EDGE (or buying a 3G on Ebay), but Apple has made it clear to developers, that supporting iPhone OS 2.2.1 isn’t in the picture, they need to build apps for 3.0, which means apps that will be expecting more system RAM, better graphics, and faster CPUs. Things I didn’t have, and wouldn’t have in the 3G.

Plus as Tom and I do an iPhone developer conference, we figured one of us should be keeping up with the Jone’s, in this case our developer community.

So I own a 3GS, and it’s about what I expected, wicked fast, making the iPhone that much more an actually useful device. I’m sure next summer Apple will roll something out, and I’ll have to skip it or pay through the nose since now I’m back in a 2 year contract, but oh well.

His book ‘Stick it to the Man: How to Skirt the Law, Scam Your Enemies , and Screw Big, Fat, Stupid, Lazy Corporations…for Fun and Profit!‘ launched last week, and the party was at a the Barnes & Noble downtown.

Ron is a great guy, truly interested in meeting people and doing what he can to help them succeed. When I first met Ron, I was blown away by his genuineness, he proposed we meet for coffee and was not just looking for one more person to talk about his book to. We talked about 360|Conferences, my Kindle (which I brought with him and showed him).

At the signing, he asked how the conferences were going, which was nice and further cemented my respect for him, not only did he remember my work, but showed real interest in it.

That reminds me, I need to set up coffee with Ron.

I’ve only skimmed the book a bit so far, but hearing Ron read a few passages from it, and hearing him talk about how he “landed his book deal” it was truly inspiring.

It was great to be there to support him in his (first of many, I suspect) moment in the sun.

It’s available on the Kindle store, which is a huge deal to me, so that not only can I read it where ever I want, but I won’t have to risk my signed copy getting all messed up.

It’s a great topic, and an awesome set of little things to get a leg up on companies and government trying do do the same to you.

If nothing else, buy this book to support a local (if you’re in Denver) author, it’s a good thing to do, and I’m certain Karma will smile upon you.

After thoroughly enjoying ‘Weapons of Choice’ at the gym and while folding clothes in the Kindle’s robot voice, at the car wash, etc. I bought book 2, and added 3 to my Universal Wishlist.

Sunday morning I was getting ready to fold some clothes, so I grabbed my Kindle, went into the menu for ‘Designated Targets’ and what do I see? Start Text to Speach, is grayed out.

WTF?

Sure enough, someone; John or his publisher has decided I’m not allowed to use the book I legitimately purchased in any way I please. The decision was made that I couldn’t listen to the book while I did something else.

I won’t be reading future books in the series, nor will I be finishing ‘Designated Targets’, and I hope no one else does. As a consumer and someone who believes that technology is not a tool for abusing consumers, I can’t support an author that thinks I’m not trustworthy, or thinks he can milk me for more money with an audible.com version of the book or whatever shitty logic is applied to the “Disable text to speach in my books mentallity”

I really hope that publishing wakes up sooner than (have they yet?) the RIAA/MPAA. I can’t stress this enough, this time in history for publishing is the same as the launch of iTunes, napster before it, etc for music and movies. So far publishing seems to be going down a similar path.

I also hope that Amazon makes it clear on product pages, which Kindle editions have been crippled, so that I can avoid those books. It’s a bummer for sure, but I won’t support such practices.

Beyond the ridiculously obvious “you get nothing physical” there’s a lot of reasons why an eBook shouldn’t cost as much as any printed version of the same book.

Let’s look at what goes into the price of a printed book vs. an eBook.

So given that several important factors in price (setting a price that when discounted due to depreciation is still profitable for example) don’t apply to eBooks, why should we as consumers be expected to pay a price similar to that of a hardback book, for an eBook?

While the cheap consumer part of me wants eBooks to be $.99 i acknowledge that it’s a bit unrealistic, since a great deal goes into writing a book, and while a single song is $.99 an entire book, shouldn’t be. Should a book be over $10 for the eBook version? No.

I feel a certain amount of pity for the publishing industry. While the music and movie industry got their heads kicked in, and alienated customers by the thousands, the book industry (rather than learn) watched from a far (i presume) assuming they were immune. Then Amazon came and fucked it all up for them.

Now they’re doing the same thing those other two industries did (killing speach to text on the Kindle, charging $15 for an eBook, etc), and not surprisingly the same type of backlash is being felt.

Publishing at least seems to have learned a little from their cousins in movies and music, but not enough I think.

From a conference attendee perspective, it’s too big, and seems to be all about Apple making us feel like we don’t matter. I’ll break my thoughts down below.

Keynote line: Tom and I got up early and waited in it. We’d never done it before so wanted to see what it was all about. We didn’t get up crazy early, but still waited outside for I think 2 hours, we were numbers 404 and 405 or something. About an hour before the keynote the line moves inside, where they’ve put out coffee and donuts and stuff. Then the line essentially breaks down into mayhem to get up the 4 escalators then mad rush into the keynote room. Why we waited in line to be ran past I don’t know. Why we waited in line when Apple could have let us get in and get seated earlier, I don’t know. Other than it’s a nice way for Apple to show everyone who’s in control.

Sessions: with 5200 people in attendance and only like 12 or so sessions at a time, do the math, each session was a mini keynote. Complete with having to wait in line to get into the room. Why wait in line? No discernible reason, other than (to me) to further make sure everyone knew it was Apple’s show we waited in line at their leisure.

Each session had at least 400-500 people, some filled to capacity, around 1500. How do you present a topic to 1500 people? just like a keynote, you talk at the crowd. Each session ended with “go see these sessions to get more info” pitches then a little Q&A where you have to go stand at a mic, ask your question, take the answer and sit down.

Content: I’ll admit, a great deal of the content was over my head. I’m still very much a novice iPhone app dev. Be that as it may, it was still very dry and very not deep. A lot of the time, sessions were slides of code, with explanations (i can read the docs myself). Every once in a while a session would get into some live coding,but that wasn’t the norm.

Oh and since each session was a mini keynote, they dimmed the lights, and kept it warm, it was WAY too easy to fall asleep, especially in the more “sales pitch” type sessions.

After Hours: WWDC is like… well I don’t know, I’ve never partied like that before that I recall. THough I barelly recall the partying I did at WWDC, so…

There’s at least 6 or more parties every night. Most are “invite only” or “RSVP and hope you get a ticket” deals, which sucks, and further promotes the crazy superstar nonsense that exists. Sadly most party venues are dive bars around downtown SF, so they’re crowded, noisy, did I mention crowded and noisy? The House of Sheilds is a popular place to end up. Bring a catheter and strap a bag to your calf. The bathroom (used as loosely as possible) is like stepping into the 9th level of hell, which if you’re curious is the sewer for the other 8 levels.

WWDC’s official party is a concert in the Yerba Buena park. We got there just as Cake started their encore (The Distance, w00t!) and as soon as the band finished, the tables were cleared off, the booze stations closed up, and the stage crew went to work. This was all before the folks up front had stopped jumping up and down. Very weird.

As much as I liked the parties, they were completely useless for meeting people. You ended up in a group that migrated place to place and sometimes members would come and go, but meeting new people was tough. If you were in one of the parties the music and voices were so loud, you couldn’t hardly talk.

I much prefer the 1 party to rule them all approach that Tom and I do. Sure the people who need their own party to feel special, are denied that, but hey, they can still throw a party elsewhere. Cynergy did it in Seattle. But at least you can meet people, talk, and not be running from place to place trying to catch up to the “in crowd”

Overall: WWDC is just like MAX. It’s the place to go to be seen, it’s the place where you’re assured to be in the presence of people like Wil Shipley and Brent Simmons (though, Brent will be at 360|iDev) and the rest of the luminary Mac/iPhone guys. Oh and of course Gruber, who probly will never be at one of our events.

It’s not the place to get a ton of new knowledge. It’s not the place to try and meet new people, forge new relationships, etc.

It is the place to get new NDA goodies you can’t talk to anyone about, and of course be in the room, when a new laptop is announced.

It’s definitely the place for Apple to assert their dominance over us all, and make sure we know our place in the order of things,which is pretty low.

Luckily the bike, unharmed. Which woulda sucked, since it was Nicole’s replacement bike that we bought at the police auction, and had essentially just finished getting into tip top shape for her to ride.

It’s interesting that the plastic tire strap snapped and the rail itself (pic one) bent until failure, and the grabber arm, that you tighten on to the bike’s frame, actually let go. I presume that’s by design, and I’m very pleased to only have to buy a new bike rack vs a new bike.

The car faired well too, only a slight gouge on teh roof, from the pedal as the bike collapsed on to the roof.

Needless to say, Nicole and I will not be so engrossed in a conversation that close to home after being out with a bike.

There are several reasons people will not buy a dedicated eBook reader, and some of them a very powerful reasons that cannot be argued with via any intelligent reasoning rationality.

First: the new generations are used to screens the size of Nintendo GameBoys, grew up on them.

Not sure what generation he’s talking about. Sure my neice and nephew are both Nintendo DS freaks, but they have a real computer at home. My mom asked me if she should get an iPhone and stop having a computer, my answer was no. There’s no way I would sit for hours playing aroudn on the internet on an iPhone, I know my mom couldn’t. She’d be blind before the next iPhone was released. I don’t own a netbook, and I sold my Nokia N800. my iPod Touch and iPhone are both great, and both run the Kindle app, and I use neither.

Second: the new generations also think screens on cell phones are just fine, and most of those are now even larger.

I’d argue that “just fine” is more along the lines of don’t know any better. I’d also argue that when a kids gets in front of a netbook or laptop with a more usable display, with WAY better resolution, they’d feel the same way I do. iPhones rock for quick look up, waiting room internet goofing around, etc. but I’m not going to sit o my couch, with my iPhone up to my face to work through emails or tweets even.

Third: the new generations have always got the paperback editions as much as the hardbacks, so they don’t have the same nostalgia for Look And Feel of those as do people who stared reading a while before paperbacks became very acceptable.

Fourth, Fifth, etc. the alternatives. . . .

This is completely bunk. I’m one of those paperback generation types. I don’tbuy hardcovers unless I either a. can’t wait for the paperback or b. want to show off a nice hardbound book on my bookshelve and get a few +1 book geek cred points.

I love the feel and smell of books, even paperbacks. I’m sure scribes loved the feel and smell of parchment, and olden day mathameticians loved the feedl of abacas beads, and slide rules. Times change. To bring a more relevant example up. CDs, and DVDs. Many folks love to have them lined up nicely in huge shelves, they like to read the jackets, look at the cover art, absorb every iota of director commentary. Yet iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, et al. are still doing pretty darn good. Times change, and whether we all want to or not, we change with them, it’s kinda silly to think in 20 years books will be common place. They’ll be antiques.

Fourth: most people don’t realize it, but many cell phones also come with WiFi built in so the unit is basically a small Kindle to start with! You don’t even have to have the phone activated to use the WiFi functions, which usually have a pretty normal browser, text reader, and such in them to start with, and also accept any numbers of third party programs most eBook readers have already heard of, no need for me to pitch them.

Clearly Mr. Hart has never tried to exist on WiFi alone. It’s far from ubiquitous. Heck broadband penetration in the US is near the lowest in the world if I recall, what makes anyone think Wifi will be different. Sure Indie coffee shops offer free wifi, sometimes it’s craptastic or doesn’t even work, but ya it’s free. Other times you can prey on people who don’t know any better than to lock their AP down.

I actually started out thinking the same thing Mr. Hart does. I bought an iPod Touch, had no music on it, and it was my ‘baby tablet’ or as I called it my iNewton. I carried it everywhere for about a month, then I gave up as most places I went had no wifi.

Fifth: many PDAs are also available that do an awful lot of the same things described above at a much lower cost than a Kindle, Sony, etc.

Sure, very true, and a lot of people will use those devices, prefering the jack of all trades master of none device. If you’re willing to make compromises, a PDA screen (usually no more than 3×2ish) will work, you can read a ‘page’ of text every 4-5 changes of the screen, with anywhere near useful fonts, and come talk to me after a marathon rainy saturday book reading exercise, or a long wait at a doctor’s office.

By that logic, we’d all own motorola razors, because they too have basic internet browsing, messaging, and actually have video and MMS messaging, unlike the iPhone, which contrary to that thought, is doing quite well in the market.

Sixth: if the largest cell phone screens would not do, even the iPhone, Curve, etc., there are all the new netbooks coming out that should get the job done in any number of ways as far as an eBook presentation goes, from reading out loud, dozens of programs to choose from to read or to listen via text to speech, etc.

See above. Sure you can squeeze all kinds of other uses into devices. A netbook also makes an excellent door stop when opened halfway, but why not use a door stop? A newton 2100 can run a basic webserver, costs way less than a rack mount Dell, why not use those to serve websites all over the world? Sure those are extreme examples intended to be silly, but they’re not far off you have to admit.

Seventh: in all the history of electronics the dedicated products, those that do only one good thing, rather than the integrated products, are never known to sell very well.

To quote fake Steve Jobs, “Dude, I invented the friggin iPhone. Have you heard of it?” But way before the iPhone was the iPod, it played music. It didn’t have an FM radio built in, it didn’t record audio notes, it was a music player, and mostly still in, unless you’re one of ‘those’ people who watch movies and TV on a tiny mostly square screen. Sure the multi taskerdevices are nice and 90% of our world is made up of those devices, but the other 10% are uni taskers, that do their single task REALLY well. Oh yeah there’s Zunes, and Rios and whatever else, that have tried the multi tasker route, how’s that worked out for them?

It’s like buying a HiFi that has one box for FM and one for AM, another as a pre-amplifier, and another as an amplifier, another bass or treble controls box, etc., versus one box for all.

Not to be mean, but the examples alone point out to me, that Mr. Hart is simply dated. Funny that some one so attached to ‘old ways of live’ would have invented something so game changing as eBooks, but hey, we all have our moments. I mean really? A HiFi?

Why would someone spend the same amount of cash on a Kindle/Sony as on a netbook or a laptop?

Speaking strictly for myself, here’s why

• I wouldn’t take a netbook/laptop to the gym, my Kindle is on the eliptical with me each day.
• I can’t read my laptop/netbook while taking off and landing. Some say I’m probably not supposed to with a Kindle, but no one has said anything, and since the power output is only in changing the page, and tiny to boot, I’d argue airlines rules have to change (separate post).
• I never carried a book in my laptop bag, except when traveling. Now I cary a few dozen or less all the time.
• I can’t compute on myMacbook in direct sunlight, reading would be out, but I’ve enjoyed my Kindle on my deck more than once.
• I can toss my Kindle around, drop it (just did this morning) and pick it up and never worry it’s harmed, I can’t say the same for my laptop/netbook
• I can read (and have) for hours on my Kindle. My eyes get sore/tired when I read long blog posts on my disply. And it’s a nice display.
  

The Kindle isn’t portable enough to be the more take along kind of item than a netbook/laptop.

I can’t imagine anything more portable. It weighs almost nothing, is the size of a Moleskine.

It would appear that ONLY the person who has an awful time reading would want a Kindle, simply, and truly, just because of the variable fonts & and the new X2 being about to read out loud, or the kind of person who just wants to have a lot of the latest toys and doesn’t care about price to benefits ratios and the like.

I’d say the converse is true, the only person who doesn’t want a Kindle/Sony is the person who doesn’t read much now, so the cost makes no sense, or the person who wants to crack open a hardback, recline in their lay-z boy and put a 45 on the turn table and enjoy ‘their’ reading experience, enjoying their anacronistic lifestyle.

Eighth: there are simply not enough Kindles to really change the eBook environment.

There weren’t enough iPods for the recording industry to care about when they launched either.

Just think about how many eBooks there are now, millions of eBooks given away in average months just from gutenberg.org.

Nothing against PG, but really? some of us like more modern reads.I mean PG is great, and I’ve got some classics on my Kindle just so I can have them when I want, but really,some of us are reading books published this milennia.

iTunes had its first million selling tune about a year ago, really only ~1 year after getting a shakedown cruise over with.

If every person who has a Kindle or a Sony buys the same book, only by adding their combination of sales will they manage a million seller, and that is not likely to happen anytime soon.

This I can’t argue with, but I think Mr. hart overlooks the underlying truth. Reading isn’t a big deal any more. Literacy is frighteningly low. People are “too busy” to read I’ve had people tell me to my face they wish they had the time to read. To which I typically say if it’s important you make time, same as anything else. Is surfing Digg, more important? It’s not a reflection on the Kindle that there isn’t yet a 1 millionth book sold, it’s a reflection on American literacy.

How long before Amazon or Sony comes out with a new model that won’t read all the previous book entries on the old models?

You mean like when VHS replaced BetaMAX? Sure Amazon/Sony could release a new device that can’t read their old formats, but that’d be kinda retarded. Anything is possible, but I hope they’ve been watching Apple. My Kindle 2 in 5 years may not get any firmware update love, but neither does my 1st Gen iPod color. But it still plays music like a champ.

How long before the first Kindle and first Sony are antique collector items rather than a real, live and well-used eBook reader?

Time will tell, but they’re electronics, so it won’t be long. Same as netbooks of today, will be cute children’s toys in the not too far future. I mean really, does Mr. Hart think that the netbooks and mobile phones he thinks we’ll be using will be around forever, not to be relegated to the antique pile? Where’d I put my Handspring Visor anyway?

This is NOT going to happen with eBooks from an assortment of other sources that have been here for much longer than Kindles or Sonys; the very first Project Gutenberg entry is still readable on any modern machine, the only thing is that a file from that era had only capitals if made on the normally available equipment of 1971 but it still works, and looks just the same now as the files downloaded on the first full day of eBook pioneering, July 5, 1971.

Is anyone even going to pretend that Kindle and Sony will even read their own proprietary files 38 years from 2009?

This is the crux of the issue. To Mr. Hart it’s clear eBook is text file. Sure 100 years from now .txt will likely still be a valid format, much like sheet music is. But who can play an 8 track? Mr. Hart is comparing the eBook as a ‘thing’ to ebook readers. Which is like comparing music to iPods. Sure the Kindle may be gone in a few decades, so will the iPod, but the medium won’t. Books and music will still be here.

And just the same as we can still play wavs, mp3, etc, we’ll be able to read eBooks, because the creative/intelligent companies will offer backwards compatibility or like iTunes, “convert your x format to the new Y format” Sure formats die, happens all the time, and I frankly hope Amazons DRM dies like the iPod’s. But it took time, I’m patient (not really, but can be when I have to be)

Sorry this was so long, but it really irks me when people get traction for their thoughts, by writing such meaningless biased crap. It’s as if chicken little had a blog.

There’s more to Mr.Hart’s ramblings if you’re so inclined, I literally could have put his whole post into mine, and picked each thing apart, but frankly ithink it would have been moot, after debunking his list.

You can get more info here from Kindleboards.
Sounds like the Denver one is going to be the Starbucks on 16th at Blake. Very convenient since that’s the one I work from when I need to get out of the house. So be there at 10am this Saturday.

I haven’t seen too many other Kindles in the wild (and haven’t been showing mine off either mind you) so it’ll be interesting to see how Denver turns out on the Kindle front.

I’m hoping to meet other folks who are doing more than just reading on the Kindle, that could be a cool thing for 360|Whisperings (which by the way has 2 articles up on the Amazon store now! Mate Review and Cairngorm write up.)

If you’re local, hope to see you there!