The size increase will go over well with people who need a big canvas - students using the Kindle to read textbooks are a big target audience for the DX. But I can't help but wonder if the newest Kindle is heading in the wrong direction. Portability, after all, is one of the device's most dazzling charms; Kindles 1 and 2 are about the size of a trade paperback, and smaller than most hardcovers.

More Noise to Signal

Textbooks

As we predicted earlier this week, Amazon is aiming this device at the educational market and has reached deals with three major textbook publishers: Pearson, Wiley, and Cengage Learning.

Newspapers

Amazon also announced that the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Washington Post have signed deals with Amazon and that these papers will begin trials with reduced prices for Kindle DX users who agree to long-term subscription commitments later this summer. It looks like these discounts will only be available to users who live in areas where printed versions of these papers are not readily available.

During today's event, the New York Times' chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., argued that the new Kindle finally offers "the same satisfying experience as the reading of a printed newspaper." It remains to be seen, though, if newspaper readers are indeed clamoring for a device that simply copies the experience of reading a traditional, dead-tree newspaper. It is also important to note that Sulzberger called the new deal with Amazon an "experiment," and the success of this experiment will surely also depend on how much of a discount on the Kindle the papers are willing to give to their readers.

Not a Game-Changer

Judging from what we have seen so far, we don't think that the Kindle DX will be a major game-changer in the eTextbook market or for the newspaper business. Besides the bigger screen, there is nothing really new in the Kindle DX, though having a native PDF reader will surely be useful to a lot of users.

The newspapers' discount offer seems a bit timid, to say the least (though we still don't have all the details yet). And we still have serious doubts that the Kindle is the ideal device for reading textbooks (though we have to admit that some of our readers are more enthusiastic about a large-screen Kindle for eTextbooks than we are).

All the Features You Expect, But No Built-In Store

After you have installed the app, a new option to send books (or free sample chapters) to your iPhone will appear in the Kindle store. Sadly, you can't browse the Kindle store through the iPhone app itself, which is really a shame, but we wouldn't be surprised if Amazon made this an option in a later version. For now, you have to use Amazon's website to buy books and that, of course, only works if you are in the U.S.

The actual app features most of the options you would expect from an eBook reader. You can change the font size, bookmark pages, and jump directly to different chapters. One major feature that is missing from this app, however, is the ability to add notes to your books.

If you own a Kindle 1 or 2, then the app will also sync your bookmarks and notes between your Kindle and iPhone/iPod touch.

The Authors Guild, by the way, has nothing to fear from the Kindle iPhone app, as Amazon did not add any text-to-speech functionality to the program.

There is nothing revolutionary about the application itself, but overall, it works well and, maybe most importantly, the text is highly legible. Of course, a lot of iPhone eBook applications already exist - and some of them, like Bookworm, Readdle, or Stanza are very good (and, unlike Amazon's app support open standards), but none of these can match the selection of texts available in Amazon's Kindle store - and this is where Amazon's app really shines.

In the past, we wondered if the iPhone might just turn out to be the ultimate eBook reader (even though Steve Jobs famously proclaimed that Apple isn't interested in the eBook market because nobody reads anymore). While Amazon is adamant that this app is only a complement to the Kindle, we can't help but think that Amazon is hedging its bets with this app. After all, it's still very early in the development cycle of both eBook readers and smartphones, and for now, it is anything but clear which devices users will prefer in the end.

The Author's Guild argued that Kindle had only licensed display rights for content on the kindle, not audio or performance rights. The feature will now be neutered and put under the control of publishers on a title by title basis.

Last week our own Frederic Lardinois wrote a post titled "Don't Be Silly; the Kindle 2 is no Threat to Audiobooks." He argued that the speech to text was more likely to persuade customers to purchase professionally (human) read audio books than it was to whisk them into a pirate world of cuddling up with annoying robot voices for extended listening sessions.

It is pretty interesting that the book publishing world remains able to flex its muscles and make the mighty Amazon budge though - is it not? I bet they are pretty pleased with themselves about that.

Image from CNet UK.

Blount argues that the Kindle is sold and marketed as a "new, improved, multimedia version of books." That is a strange statement, given that Amazon barely mentions the text-to-speech functionality on its own site (though, granted, Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos does mention it whenever he talks about the Kindle 2 in public).

Bout also argues that the voices of the Kindle 2 are "quite listenable." And indeed, the text-to-speech function of the Kindle 2 represents the current state-of-the-art when it comes to commercially available screen readers. But nobody would want to listen to these voices for a long period of time. They still can't replace the work of experienced voice talent and can become rather annoying if you have to listen to them for too long.

As Henry Blodget points out, authors are already getting paid for the sale of the book on the Kindle, and now they (or the Guild members that represent them) also want to get paid for the audio rights on top of this. Maybe more importantly, it should also be acknowledged that most users might never make use of the text-to-speech feature in the Kindle, so Amazon would have to charge users extra for a right they might never make use of.

Sadly, instead of lauding Amazon for bringing the book into a new era (or at least trying to do so), the Authors Guild has decided to focus its efforts on arguing about what is essentially a non-issue.