or: Kindle is one step closer to perfection

I’m a big fan of the Kindle and have had one for a very long time. 

I had my first in 2007.

I’m not one of those people who think only a physical book provides a proper reading experience. I think a proper reading experience can be gained from pretty much anything including audiobooks. I had the Adventures of Winnie the Pooh on cassette when I was much, much younger so my willingness to absorb the written word in any format started young.

It started much younger than this, now that I think about it. When learning to read, we had many road trips along the Pacific Highway from Sydney to the Gold Coast and back again. These trips (the car smelling of egg and mayonnaise sandwiches, peanut butter seeped into Vogels multigrain bread and occasionally spew as unfortunately these smells and the movement of the car weren’t a match made in heaven for all my family) saw me practice my new found reading skills on the billboards we passed. “Anyhow, have a Winfield 25”, the Marlborough Man and Camel marked our progress and were interspersed with the occasional Coca Cola ad. 

“Sound it out,” we were told and so I did. Lucky the ads were short and my eyesight was good so I could finish reading them by the time we passed. Perhaps this is also why my reading speed isn’t too shabby.

My writing, on the other hand, is digressing…

One of the billion reasons I like the Kindle is the transportability of it. I’m rarely without mine. When I leave the house, it is usually in whatever bag I happen to have with me. I formerly carried a book like this however the Kindle is much lighter.

It’s great for when I’m waiting for someone, in a queue or just have a quiet moment to myself for whatever reason. I have a book. Not just one book, I have my Kindle To Be Read Collection so I have quite a few more to choose from when I finish the one I’m reading.

It’s also fantastic for traveling. I have been known to take numerous books on holidays and they take up a substantial amount of space and weight. My Kindle takes a library and weighs pretty much nothing in comparison.

The only downside I have with the Kindle is I tend to forget the name of the book I’m reading. When I have a physical book, I see the cover all the time so I can tell you exactly what physical books I have on the go at the moment. On my Kindle however, unless it’s a short title or I have been waiting for the book to be released, chances of me remembering what it is called or who the author is is fairly limited.

And that’s why today I’m very, very happy with the Kindle people.

They have heard my concerns and have now done something about it. 

I have a vision of a Kindle cover (I like to have one to protect my Kindle and that opens up so I feel like I’m holding a book. I’m not one to fold book covers over to the back so only having a back cover isn’t for me. Also I’m a bit clumsy at times so don’t want to risk cracking the screen either) that shows the book cover of what I’m currently reading on the front. Ideally in colour though I’m not picky.

If, for whatever reason, someone is embarrassed to be seen on the bus reading whatever book it is, they can change their cover image to show something else. I’m thinking of the 50 Shades of Grey readers and similar. You can download all sorts of things on the Kindle.

This doesn’t exist yet.

And I am clueless about how to construct one myself. I figure it would charge with the Kindle in a similar way to how an iPad Pro keyboard works with the iPad.

Anyway…

Last night, I finished reading a book and went to my Kindle library to select another. Over the last few days, I’d noticed something new at the bottom of my screen. I hadn’t been able to read it though as this part of the screen can’t be enlarged and I don’t need my glasses to read on the Kindle. 

I had my glasses beside me when I finished reading last night (I’d been reading a physical book prior to switching to my Kindle). I put them on so I could see whatever it was my gadget was trying to tell me.

Happy days!

The Kindle now has the ability to change the screen saver image to your current book cover.

This is awesome.

Thank you Kindle.

One step closer…

 

 

Thanks to George Ezra for this tune. Very impressive!