So close yet...

RantWoman would like to want Amazon's new Kindle 2.0, she really, really would. She would like to carry around hundreds of books in a device that would also handle email and download publications. RantWoman is even trying to figure out how to put her hands on the new model to test her faint hope that a much-desired feature no one has mentioned in all the hype is indeed there. RantWoman fears the hype does not mention this feature because it indeed is not there. More on which exact feature in a moment.


RantWoman met someone from the development team for the first Kindle one time on Da Bus. We were both riding an express south into downtown and she was playing with this amazing thing that indeed looked like a book. In other words, riding Da Bus and playing with interesting gizmos is PART OF HER JOB. RantWoman peered for a few minutes and when Developer Team person noticed RantWoman was peering, we had a conversation and RantWoman even put her hands on the thing and tried it.


Well, first RantWoman ask Developer Team person to make the print as large as possible which turned out to be, we think, 16 point type. Backlit on that particular screen in the variable daylight on the bus, that was definitely not enough for RantWoman. The display was not terrible at that size, but RantWoman still decided it would not be very comfortable for long bus rides. I think RantWoman may even have asked about a way to read things aloud, as well as some other questions about content and connectivity costs.


RantWoman did think Kindle 1's reasonably tactile, full QWERTY keyboard would be cool and definitely preferable to the things other gizmos make do with. RantWoman was distressed to learn that the first Kindle wasn't really robust enough to handle ordinary household encounters with gravity. On top of the interface problem, this was more than enough reason for RantWoman to move on and look for the next form of temptation.

Months, years pass and along comes Kindle 2.0 now being hawked as a way to read aloud in bed or in the car. But wait: RantWoman does not want someone in the car having to look away from the road and fiddle with the Kindle any more than she wants them looking away to fiddle with anything else. RantWoman's idea of being read to in bed includes having her glasses off and not wanting to have to fumble for them if she perhaps does not want the thing to read her all of War and Peace in one night.

Here we come to the question on RantWoman's mind: can the thing be made to speak the menu items so that RantWoman or another user could move around without having to put her eyes on the thing? Or could there be a nice table of keyboard functions equivalent to the menus so RantWoman would not even have to look at the thing to make it do what she wants? Oh, pretty please. That would ALMOST make RantWoman want to hurry out and buy the thing!

Well, okay RantWoman is resilient and if the menues talked RantWoman could probably come up with yet more cool features on her design wishlist, but start with the talking menus! Try me.