I’ll tell you what I do. I take a one-gallon Ziploc bag, and I put my Kindle in my one-gallon Ziploc bag, and it works beautifully. It’s much better than a physical book, because obviously if you put your physical book in a Ziploc bag you can’t turn the pages. But with Kindle, you can just push the buttons.
—
Jeff Bezos in response to a question about why a Kindle is better than a book in the bathtub.
Jeff Bezos in response to a question about why a Kindle is better than a book in the bathtub.
Dylan Bennett
on 06 Dec 09Mind. Blown. I never thought of this.
Ian Watts
on 06 Dec 09The “ruggedized” Kindle – but I’m guessing the ad for it (in a bath tub) wouldn’t be using the construction worker.
Samuel Sawyer
on 06 Dec 09I read the entire interview. They said they edited. Bezos seems a little bit rude. Probably it’s because the interview was edited by a newspaper editor.
Phil McThomas
on 06 Dec 09Eh? With a book, you don’t need the bad, and you can turn the pages.
Obviously this only works with trashy paperbacks that you don’t want to keep looking nice, but that’s exactly what I’d want to read in the bath (not a glossy book on photography, or a programming reference manual).
ansgri
on 06 Dec 09Amazingly useful and nontrivial idea :)
Pat
on 06 Dec 09@Phil McThomas: I read trashy programming reference books in the bath ALL the time!
Anonymous
on 07 Dec 09At least when you buy a physical book, you own it.
You can highlight it, scan it, rip out pages and make them into a collage or even burn it if you want to, and nobody can take it away from you.
Not so with a “book” you’re leasing from the cloud.
JF
on 07 Dec 09Anonymous: Like everything in this world, every option comes with its tradeoffs. We all have to decide which ones matter to us.
John
on 07 Dec 09Where is the disclaimer saying that Bezos is one of your investors?
Rachel
on 07 Dec 09Why would I want a Kindle? So Amazon can delete books and charge me AGAIN for them? Forget it. I use an old Palm. Cost me 35 bucks on ebay. When it breaks (and everything electronic does occasionally), I send it to a guy in Minnesota who repairs it for a few bucks. I buy only e-books that are pdf’s and only DRM free. There are enough freeware programs out there to convert e-books into text or Word; there are plenty of free programs to read text or Word files on the Palm.
Anonymous Coward
on 07 Dec 09So Amazon can delete books and charge me AGAIN for them?
Huh?
Blue Sail Creative
on 07 Dec 09Very witty and clever.
I love my kindle and get so much usage out of it. The amount of money that i’ve saved on books has paid for the kindle 5 x over.
Never Takes a Bath
on 07 Dec 0937 Signals just jumped the shark.
EH
on 07 Dec 09it only takes a little water to ruin a kindle. books can take quite a bit.
Chris Kampmeier
on 07 Dec 09Reminds me of that quote from Steve Jobs about the Zune’s sharing features:
Brade
on 07 Dec 09Thanks for that amazing insight from a completely unbiased source!
Anonymous Coward
on 07 Dec 09“Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought…”
Kim Siever
on 07 Dec 09If a book falls in the tub, just dry it out and everything is as usable as before. I would be interested in seeing if Kindle has the same functionality.
Paul Lyons
on 08 Dec 09This argument kind of reminds me of the quote:
Chris Whamond
on 12 Dec 09“This one goes to 11”
This discussion is closed.