Amazon Kindle in South Africa, don’t bother!!! PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 10 November 2009 16:23 Written by Michael Fletcher

Ok so I was busy updating my Amazon aStore for December and was thinking with the Amazon’s amazing Kindle finally hitting our shores I should go and start stocking up on kindle titles, right. Right, that was an awesome idea until I started searching through the kindle products available in our region. It seems as though we can buy the reader, just not any decent books.

Kindle eBooks reader minus the eBooks

All in all I cannot urge anyone strongly enough to avoid the Kindle. In conjunction with the archaic Apple style rights management this is essentially a useless toy, unless you like reading ten cent romance novels @ US$50 a download on your R2k+ device. This is by far the most disappointing development in the kindle saga yet. If you want an idea of how bad it is, if you want to read Twilight on your Kindle in South Africa you’re out of luck. Pretty much no book worth reading published in the last 30 years is available in Africa. This is apparently due to licensing restrictions and other such legal hassles but surely if the user is willing to purchase a digital copy of a book he should have that option anywhere in the world. My mind truly boggles that Amazon actually had the gall to release the Kindle in Africa with this limited product offering. It’s tantamount to apple releasing the iPod in Africa and only stocking classical music as iTunes.

Kindle or Kindling?

Until they get their act together I suggest give the Kindle a very very very wide berth or at the very least search Amazon and check the titles available for download so you go into the purchase with your eyes wide open. As it stand it sucks 6 months old eggs left in the sun and cracked ever so slightly. After my awesome experience with Google Maps Amazon Congratulations you’ve flown to the top of my hate list. I can’t stand it when inept business decisions impact on my ability to enjoy the simple pleasures of gadgets.

 

Amazon Kindle South Africa #fail

 


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Comments (8)Add Comment
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written by DBS, November 10, 2009
?????
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written by MikeZilla, November 10, 2009
Thanks for the heads up DBS got it working now luckily I always save an offline copy in case mydl eats a post
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written by Dissol, November 10, 2009
Well...that was EXACTLY my beef with Apple. They sold me an iPod (a few years ago...) so I came home all excited & trendy, downloaded iTunes...to find that I could not download a damn thing with a SA credit card! I was furious!! Fortunately, I have credit cards for my overseas accounts, and could download using them... But I felt it was ridiculous to sell iPods without being able to download tunes in a legal fashion...I mean...did they honestly expect that people would not find illegal sources to download pirated music??! smilies/sad.gif
:zzz
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written by DBS, November 11, 2009
I know that publishing law ia a quite complex area with many different stumbling blocks in a lot of countries not just this one. I heard the interview with the kindle chick on 702 and she was very evasive when asked what titles would be available. Great device but I would rather spend the money on books than a genre I don't want just because it is availbale. That's the bitch so now lets turn it around.
What can we do to get South African Authors and publishers, are you listening Jonathan Ball? to be proactive and actively promote your books on Amazon
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written by Dissol, November 11, 2009
In a sense I agree, but I also think that Amazon & Apple (and others in a similar situation) should work out the native copyright issues before releasing the hardware, and not afterwards, many people will get miffed like Mike, if they purchase a Kindle, and then cannot download a wide range of titles. Your Kindle chick sounds like the typical dodging of the issues that companies in this situation do... "well just purchase our very expensive piece of equipment first, and then we may look at sorting out some stuff for you to be able to actually use it how we advertise it..." Which then gives the technology a bad name.

I am aware that the IT market is very competitive, and to stay ahead of the opposition, often companies are encouraged to release products on the market rather too early, before all the wrinkles have been sorted out. We have come to accept as the norm, that version 1.0 is actually an expensive beta programme... And because everyone does it, it is acceptable...

I don't want to slow down the pace pf progress at all (in fact, I am all for speeding it up!), but I wish that IT companies had a little more integrity (a feature sadly lacking in much of nusiness society these days), and delayed release until the wrinkles were all sorted out... :sigh
:zzz
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written by favourkiss, November 11, 2009
Hello,
My name is favour i saw your profile today at mydigitallife.co.za and i love it also became intrested to know you,i will also like to know you more,and i want you to send an email directely to my private_email address so i can give you my picture for you to know whom i am.Here is my email address(favour.mbia@ yahoo .com) i believe we can move from here.my love distance or colour does not matter but love matters alot in life.i waiting to recive your lovely reply soon, Yours Love.
Miss favour.
bill
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written by bill, November 27, 2009
Rubbish:
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Kindle Edition - Mar 22, 2007) - Kindle Book
Buy: $6.25
Auto-delivered wirelessly

My profile is set to South Africa.
MikeZilla
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written by MikeZilla, November 30, 2009
My apologies, Bill I have figured out my mistake and put in a small apology and a mention for you in my latest post. Thanks for taking the time to point the error out.

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