Whostheboss.net

First of all, I have to hand it to Amazon.  When Sony released its Sony eReader, the first mainstream device using e-Ink, there was nary a whisper from the tech community.  I never even saw one, apart from a display in a Sony Style store in Dallas.  With the Kindle though, the podcast/blogosphere/tech journalist community went nuts.  Not necessarily saying that people should buy the Kindle--just that it was something worth talking about.

So, what's the big deal about the Kindle?  At a first glance, it's just another gadget.  It's also not really that interesting of a gadget.  The Kindle looks like it was taken straight from the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation--a late 80's take on "how people read in the future."  Honestly...it looks just like the Padd device that Captain Picard would use when, um, reading...  So why does a device made by Amazon.com (who has zero experience in making their own products) generate buzz that one of the biggest consumer electronics companies in the world couldn't manage?

The first and most obvious answer is that early-adopting nerds--the kind of people who would own an eBook reader--are the exact kind of people that avoid Sony's products like the plague.  My general rule of thumb is anything that Sony makes that involves installing software to my computer just isn't going to work.  I've seen Sony's applications for transferring music (to MP3 players) and pictures (from digital cameras)--and it's atrocious.  I've seen more stable applications written by college students after an all-night drinking binge.  Okay, maybe not that bad, but they are not a good experience.  And to buy mainstream books for the eReader, you get to buy them at--you guessed it--the Sony eBook store!  What?  You don't have a Sony eBook Store account?  What a surprise!  The Kindle, on the other hand, is able to tap into the huge number of people who already have Amazon.com accounts and enjoy the Amazon.com shopping experience.  If you just browse the books available on Amazon, if the book you are looking at is available for the Kindle, Amazon shows that right on the main page.  Simplicity = Usability.

The big deal about the Kindle though has little to do with the device itself--it's about its integration of an EV-DO cellular radio.  The Kindle is online--always.  (Almost) wherever you are.  Without a subscription fee.  Amazon calls it "Whispernet", but it's just rebranded Sprint EV-DO coverage.

Yes, much has been made about the Kindle's ability to browse the Internet, essentially allowing you to browse the net for free without an access fee.  But what's more important is that because of this subscriptionless-but-always-online feature, the Kindle is able to accomplish what no other device has really been able to do up until this point--sync data without thinking about it.  Up until this point, getting data on devices involved some sort of setup.  My iPod and iPhone need software installed and a proprietary cable.  My old Windows Mobile phone needed a shaman and a full moon to accomplish an initial sync with my Exchange server.  But the Kindle--from the moment you take it out of the box, it's syncing.  Always.  There is zero setup.

Amazon accomplishes some of this magic by syncing your Kindle to your Amazon.com account prior to shipping it to you, but the idea of integrated cellular radios are exciting in other ways.  What if your car stereo had integrated cellular?  Auto-magic syncing with your iTunes library anybody?  Whenever I purchase a song, it's sent to ALL of my devices.  My iPod, car, living room stereo--they all have the song I just bought.  Tablets and Digital textbooks are automatically synced with the teacher's posted homework--along with any clarifications that might need to be made after kids leave the classroom.  Digital cameras never run out of memory card space--they are constantly publishing your photos to Flickr for storage.  Your TiVo sends the newest recording through the air to your iPhone when you're taking the train to work.

We definitely have the technology for this world today, but why doesn't Apple integrate this style of syncing into devices like the iPod (or iPhone, which already has a cellular radio?)  Probably the same reason that Sprint agreed to a flat-rate access pricing with Amazon for Whispernet--it's about bandwidth.  eBooks are not bandwidth intensive.  Even if everyone downloaded a book once a day that had a Kindle, it wouldn't be a huge number of bytes floating through the ether.  It's a bit different with songs--a single song is probably as large as ten eBooks.  And people have thousands of songs.  And hundreds of movies, which are over 100 times larger than songs.

But just like the Internet was originally used for text, then pictures, then songs, and now video, the same will come of the "cellular internet".  And just as the "wired" internet was originally pay-per-KB and pay-per-minute and eventually went to a flat-rate pricing model, the cellular devices will also migrate slowly to a pay-per-use model, and then to a flat-rate "part of the cost of the device" model.  Until then, I'll have to be satisfied that at least we're willing to deliver books to a device without a subscription fee.