So, did you get this? Did I just tell you that you could buy a mobile computer for $189 with all of the above features, and never pay a dime to connect to the web?
That's right.
Now that Amazon has released a remarkably full-featured Kindle Wi-fi model for just $139, the $50 price differential between that model and the $189 Kindle 3G places an elegant value-proposition accent on the Kindle's wireless connectivity. If you think that either of these Kindles is worth $139 as an ereader, that just leaves this question:
Would you pay $50 one time, with no monthly fees or AT+T contracts, for wireless connectivity that would allow you to check email, scores, stocks, weather and any text-intensive website from just about anywhere for the rest of your life?
Well, I thought so.
Importantly, from the perspective of those of us who might occasionally want to use the Kindle's web browser, the new Kindle 3G model comes with:
• a faster, more navigation-friendly, vastly improved but still absolutely free web browser based on WebKit, the open-source Web browser engine that is also the basis for ... wait for it ... Apple's Safari web browser;
• a new Article Mode feature within the updated web browser that, similar to Instapaper, simplifies many articles and web posts to text-based content reading;
• an automatic toggle between 3G wireless and wi-fi connectivity that makes use of the best, fastest network available once you've synched it up with your home, office, or local coffee shop's wi-fi interface;
The first two of these features, of course, also come on the Kindle Wi-Fi.
The wireless service obviously has significant value. If Amazon made the service a user option with a service charge of, say, $12.95 a month, some users would pay the fee for the opportunity to use the web from nearly anywhere with such a portable, lightweight, easy-to-read device. Many others would opt out to the fallback of using their Kindle strictly for reading and visiting the Kindle Store -- sort of like using a Maserati as a student-driver car.
Will Amazon ever cut back on the Kindle's connectivity or begin charging for it? No.
Indeed, it is far more likely that Amazon will continue to build new lanes to expand the Kindle's internet highway into a much more profitable thoroughfare by introducing an entirely new model as early as February or March of 2011. It may be so new that it is not even called a Kindle -- Bufo Calvin, a very smart colleague of mine at the I Love My Kindle blog, has suggested that a new Kindle-enabled tablet-like device might be called the Amazon Current, and I think that would be a brilliant name for it for about half a dozen reasons.
Such a device -- with wireless connectivity and a color capacitative touch display, of course -- could act, once purchased, as Kindle-enabled delivery system not only for ebooks but for a growing list of other digital products sold by Amazon including audiobooks, music files, streaming movies and television, and a wide range of traditional and enhanced periodicals.
Stay tuned. As is so often true with Amazon, it will be interesting to see what's next.
Between the Chapters, and Just Between Us: Use Your Kindle to Check Your eMail
Don't try this at home. No, it's not that it is dangerous. It's just that it's a little slow and clunky.
But if you are off somewhere with a computer or another internet connection and you need to see if you have received an important email, your Kindle will do just fine.
Some users have had success using mobile-optimized sites for email with their Kindle, but in my experience you will do best if you set up your email via the email provider's main website, and I also recommend using Gmail if at all possible.
If you have a Gmail address, here's a simple set of steps for accessing your Gmail account for the first time on your Kindle.
• Open the Kindle web browser by Googling google. That's right: from anywhere on the Kindle, type the word "google" and when it appears in the entry field at the bottom of your display, press the 5-way to the right 3 times to initiate a Google search for Google.
• When the Google page appears on your screen, you will see a horizontally arranged list of Google services, including Gmail, at the top of the display. Use the 5-way to click on Gmail.
• When the Gmail page appears on your screen, type in your Gmail address and your password in the appropriate fields, check the "Stay signed in" box, and click on "Sign in."
• Your Gmail inbox should slowly populate the display, and you will be able to select and read messages. It is also possible to send a message, but only if you are very succinct and very patient.
• While you are on the Inbox page, use the Menu to add a bookmark for the page.
For other email services, there are no guarantees, but follow a similar process and there's a good chance you will be able to open your email.
Please note that the reason I suggested that you Google "google" rather than "gmail" is that Googling "gmail" is likely to bring you to a mobile Gmail site on which, based on my experience, you probably won't be able to enter text or your password.
Ch 9: Unlock the World Of Free Audio on the Kindle
On the Kindle, "Free" doesn't apply only to visual text.
Your Kindle also makes it easy to listen to several different kinds of content in audio form, and much of this, like almost everything we have discussed in this book, is free. Every Kindle comes with a built-in MP3 player and works seamlessly as a listening device for various kinds of listening files. The stereo speakers mounted on the back of the current generation of Kindles may not impress you, but they are stronger and richer and generally a big improvement over the tinny, barely audible external sound that emitted from the Kindle 1. To go one step better, you can use the audio-jack near the power switch on the top or bottom edge of your Kindle to connect it to a speaker system or headphones. On the bottom edge of the Kindle 3G and Wi-Fi, or the right edge of earlier models, you will find "down" and "up" volume-control buttons. I would go so far as to say that headphones or some other sort of external speaker are a must if you are using a first-generation Kindle, also known as a Kindle 1.
You'll find it easy to transfer MP3 versions of your favorite music, podcasts, and radio shows and listen to them free on your Kindle, and of course you will also find many of the free books and other files that you download from the Kindle Store or from other sources suggested in this book will work nicely with the text-to-speech feature on the Kindle 2, Kindle 3G, Kindle Wi-Fi or Kindle DX.
Before we begin discussing various kinds of free listening that is available on your Kindle, it is important underline two important caveats about the Kindle as an audio device:
• First, audio files take up far more storage space on the Kindle or any other device than text-intensive ebook files, and you could very easily run out of Kindle storage space with multiple audio files unless you manage your space judiciously.
• Second, using the Kindle's audio is, in my experience, the fastest single way to draw down the Kindle's battery charge. If you are going to listen to text-to-speech or any other audio feature on a Kindle for several hours at a time, be sure to have your power adapter and cable nearby.
Kindle Text-to-Speech
How do I love thee, Kindle Text-to-Speech? Let me count the ways. I have named thee, with a little help from an eyebrow-raising Significant Other who may a time or two have looked askance as I rolled over and donned my headphones of an evening. I have named my Kindle's voice Ursula. This imagined creature may or may not be disembodied, but she never seems to tire of reading to me, talking to me, entertaining me. When it's just me, my headphones, and Ursula, of course, it's all about me.
I will admit it: I love listening to newspaper, magazine, and blog articles, including my daily Instapaper dispatch, in the robot-speak of Ursula's Kindle Text-to-Speech. Originally I was resistant to listening to books with Kindle Text-to-Speech, but Ursula aims to please. Her voices and pronunciations have been upgraded over time by Kindle's Text-to-Speech partner, Nuance Communications, and I have g
rown accustomed to listening with comfort, enjoyment, and enrichment as she reads me free and paid books purchased in the Kindle Store, downloaded from the websites mentioned in this book, or sent to me by authors and publishers interested in having their work considered for Kindle Nation Daily sponsorships programs.
With the exception of those Kindle Store books whose publishers have specifically opted out of Kindle Text-to-Speech -- and shame on them! -- Kindle Text-to-Speech will read aloud to you from any book, newspaper, magazine, blog, manuscript, dramatic script, memorandum or other file that you can get onto your Kindle Home screen.
I've even sent recipes to my Kindle so that Ursula could read aloud to me while I was preparing Potage Parmentier in the kitchen.
And please don't tell the Massachusetts state troopers, but I have even sent driving directions to my Kindle so that it could read them aloud to me in my car. I've gotten handy at using the space bar to pause the read-aloud process, but I run into problems if a segment of my trip is longer than 15 minutes, because Ursula does have a tendency to doze off beside me if she goes that long without speaking. Alas, now that we've heard the horror stories of Kindle owners being arrested for having an open Kindle in the car while driving, I must ask you to destroy this page of the Kindle edition of your book immediately after you read it. A Kindle, apparently, is every bit as dangerous to highway safety as an open bottle of beer.
But that's just the beginning. Don't tell Ursula, but there's more, much more. It would be easy to overlook the device's other audio features, but they are still significant and they can add to your enjoyment of any member of the Kindle family.
Free Audiobooks
Amazon's own Audible.com audiobook subsidiary is wonderfully convenient to use, but some may find it a bit expensive.
A nice alternative that offers very polished voice actors' readings of thousands of classics from Shakespeare to Ulysses -- and every one of them free -- is the non-profit Librivox effort, a sister service of Project Gutenberg. The same content found there is also accessible through the Internet Archive, along with thousands of other additional free audio files, and in my experience the Internet Archive is slightly more user-friendly when it comes to finding files in the right MP3 format and downloading them first to your computer and then to your Kindle.
That, of course, is how you'll want to proceed, because audio files are generally too large to send to your Kindle via email, even using a wi-fi connection. To begin, click here to visit the Internet Archive's main audio page (over half a million free files) or here for about 6,000 book and poetry files. Then you can just follow the on-site instructions to search for a title that interests you and download it to your computer's hard drive. Once an audio file is on your hard drive, connect your Kindle to your computer via USB cable and drag and drop the file from your computer into your Kindle's "audible" folder.
Always pay attention to your Kindle's storage capacity and remaining storage space, as audio files require much more storage space than text files. You can always check the remaining space available on your Kindle by pressing the "Menu" button and reading the "xxxx MB free" line to the left of the time on the top line of the display.
When an MP3 audio file is placed in your Kindle's "Audible" folder, it will appear on your Home screen with the word "Audible" next to the title in the left margin, and you will have the convenience of being able to use the same play, pause, and other commands that are present for Audible.com audiobooks. The same applies to music MP3 files that you place in the "Audible" folder, but another option with music -- or for that matter any other MP3 files -- is to place them in your Kindle's "Music" folder so they will be available for background listening while you read on your Kindle display.
How To Use The Kindle's "Play MP3" Feature To Play Background Music As You Read
For uses other than the "Read-to-Me" feature and listening to Audible.com files, the Kindle nomenclature for its audio functionality is "Play MP3," and it will work only with podcasts, music, or other audio files that are in an MP3 format and are not DRM-protected. (Although Kindle users often think of DRM or Digital Rights Management as an ebook issue, much of the world learned of DRM first in connection with music. For a good explanation of what is involved with DRM and music, see this article at Wikipedia.
In order to get listening material onto your Kindle you must transfer it from your computer, using the Kindle's USB cable, into your Kindle's native "music" file. Just find the file (or files) on your computer using the computer's "Finder" or "My Computer" application, copy it, and paste it into your Kindle's "Music" folder. Such files will often be found in your "My Music" folder, in a downloads folder, or on your computer's desktop. As mentioned earlier, pay attention to your Kindle's storage capacity and remaining storage space, as audio files require much more storage space than text files. As mentioned above, remember, you can always check the remaining space available on your Kindle by pressing the "Menu" button and reading the "xxxx MB free" line to the left of the time on the top line of the display.
Once you have listening files in the "Music" folder on board your Kindle, you may begin or end the use of the Kindle's audio feature by following holding down the "ALT" key on your Kindle keyboard and pressing the spacebar.
While listening to your Kindle's music or podcast files in Play MP3 mode, you'll generally be operating blind, since the Kindle plays whatever in its listening queue either in shuffle or sequential order (based on the order you transferred the files to your Kindle) without any on-screen reference. However, you can press the ALT+F key at anytime to skip to the next track, and pause or resume play by pressing ALT+Spacebar. The Kindle's MP3 player will continue to play if it is playing when you put your Kindle to sleep, but you will not be able to use these keyboard commands with the MP3 player unless you awaken your Kindle again.
I find the best way to manage the music I want to hear on my Kindle is to create several "playlist" folders in the top-level Kindle directory, each representing an appropriate selection for a particular situation. I might listen to jazz while reading a book, or something a bit more lyric-intensive while reading the New York Times. By moving a certain playlist into the Kindle's "Music" folder -- the only folder from which the Kindle will recognize and play music -- I can suit my listening to my situation in a couple of key strokes while the Kindle is connected to my computer. However, it is worth mentioning again that sound files can take up a large percentage of the Kindle's memory, and it may be more prudent to keep some of these files off-Kindle in a Kindle-management folder accessible through your computer's "Finder" or "My Computer" functions.
It is also a simple matter, retracing these same steps, to listen to podcasts on my Kindle once I move them from my computer to the Kindle's "Music" folder.
Podcasts and Other Uses of the Kindle's Audible Folder
How To Use The Kindle's "Audible" Folder And Features To Exercise Greater Control While Listening To Any MP3 Audio File -- Not Just Those You Download From Audible.Com!
Although it is a pretty well-kept secret, you can also use the Kindle's "Audible" folder to play any audio file as long as you aren't going to be reading or making use of other features on your Kindle while you are listening. Two great things about this particular mode of listening are:
• the file will be listed on your Home screen (with the word "audio" to the left of the title); and
• you can use the same full set of features to navigate or replay the audio files that are available to you while listening to an Audible.com file, or for that matter, an iTunes file.
This "Audible" listening mode can be especially useful for a handful of favorite songs, or for listening to a podcast, such as Len Edgerly's weekly The Kindle Chronicles, on your Kindle. The ability to use the Kindle 5-way to go back or forward 30 seconds in a podcast makes this mode a pleasure to use.
Whether you follow your favorite podcasts directly from the web (as with the link to The Kindle Chronicles) or download them through iTunes, it's
easy to transfer them to your Kindle's "Audible" folder. For instance, because I have subscribed to Ira Glass' This American Life podcast on iTunes, iTunes automatically downloads an MP3 file of each week's show to a folder (Music>iTunes>iTunes Music>Downloads>Podcasts>This American Life) on my iMac. Then I just go to that folder, copy the most recent file, paste it my Kindle's "Audible" folder, and I'm good to go. I can do the same with any other DRM-free MP3 audio file that resides on my computer's hard drive, including, for instance, tracks that I have downloaded to my iTunes folders from CDs that I have purchased and music files -- like the Mozart tracks mentioned in the next section -- that I have purchased from Amazon's MP3 Downloads Store.
All you have to do to opt for this "Audible" mode is copy and paste an audio file into your Kindle's "Audible" folder rather than its "Music" folder. Then, once you eject the Kindle from your computer connection, you will find the "Audible" folder's new file(s) toward the end of your Home screen display of titles, with the word "audio" to the left of each title line. Just click on the title and you will see easy-to-use listening controls right on your Kindle display.
Later in this chapter we will also take a look at Audible.com itself since, if you are an audible.com subscriber, you will frequently receive offers of free Audible.com audiobooks that can be downloaded to your Kindle.
Mozart on Your Kindle: Getting the Most out of Kindle Audio
Let's say that, like many Kindle owners, you are a bit more of a reader than a rocker. Or not. But if you have yet to make much use of the Kindle's audio features, let's walk through a simple and inexpensive process that could provide you with hours of delightful Mozart classics as background music while you read your favorite books or periodicals on your Kindle, all for a grand total of $7.99 and very little expenditure of time. What's not to like about that?
Kindle Free For All: How to Get Millions of Free Kindle Books and Other Free Content With or Without an Amazon Kindle Page 5