Monday, October 13, 2008

Can You Share a Kindle?

We were pointed today to an interesting blog by Walt Shiel 'A View From the Publishing Trenches'
He raises an issue that we had not heard of and that is that the Kindle is not only one dimensional but that its also a single-user device. Imagine if everyone in the house had to share all their own files because the PC was not capable of identifying different individuals who may share files.

Due to the high cost of the ereader Walt and his wife share their device he writes, ‘The Kindle does allow me to sort the items by “Most recent first.” That’s a good thing. However, if I read those new items first, they will no longer show up as new items at the top of the list when my wife wants to read. She has to scan down through multiple pages to find the new items to read.’

Some would suggest that this is a basic design fault that failed to understand how the reader may be used by multiple users and probably assumed it would only ever have one owner.

No comments: