The Kindle announcement has been echoed by hundreds of pronouncements about its eventual impact, ranging from the revolutionary “Re-inventing the book” to sneering condemnations that it will have the same negligible impact on ‘real books’ as all the previous e-book readers have to date. Here is a cross-sample of some of the more interesting, each of which carries a different emphasis re: the design, the service, the restrictions, etc.

Pro:

- Andy Ihnatko lauds the Kindle in the Chicago Sun-Times for its role as a new information device, the always-connected browser of the world akin to a first-generation Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He does compare it unfavorably with reading text on the higher-resolution and backlit iPhone screen, and mentions the annoying flash between pages, but otherwise seems well-impressed.

- OnMoneyMaking put together a “10 Lessons in Innovation” feature rather than a straight review, although it mostly skews to the positive. (DaringFireball takes particular exception to #6, “You can be pretty later” and responds by quoting Steve Jobs:

“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

- Tim O’Reilly backs Steven Levy’s uptake from the previously mentioned Newsweek interview (which I saw decried in one instance as being ‘hagiographic‘), while noting that Amazon doesn’t need the Kindle to succeed on its own so long as it advances the industry in the e-book direction while keeping them as a primary gatekeeper - sort of the reverse of the relationship the iTunes Store has with Apple in extending the market for the iPod.

Con:

- DaringFireball questions the merit of buying its DRM content - “You pay for downloadable books that can’t be printed, can’t be shared, and can’t be displayed on any device other than Amazon’s own $400 reader — and whether they’re readable at all in the future is solely at Amazon’s discretion.”

- The Register calls it a folly at first blush, and later examines the implications of Whispernet for delivery (revisions, collaboration, etc.) which are still raising the hackles of any established publisher (check out the prophetic quotation from Ben Bova).

- Thibault Sally (Thsy) takes on the device’s awkward ergonomics and questions its bookishness.

- Craig Hunter also remarks on the ergonomics, particularly the physical keyboard, and wonders why Amazon did not learn from the design lessons of the iPhone.

- Chip Kidd, rock star of book design, comments on the effect the Kindle will have on his trade. In short: “None.”

- Jon Stokes in Ars Technica on books versus documents, and how the ‘e-book’ is an awkward compromise, again trading on the design benefits of the book (facing pages, direct interaction) over a reader device.

The larger question that will have to be answered in time is clearly not whether the Kindle and its equivalent will replace the book, any more than with past media generations (e.g. television did not eliminate radio). Rather, will it develop enough of a niche of its own to sustain itself, accomplishing tasks that the book cannot (self-updating periodicals, interactive crosswords, cross-referencing journals) and maybe supplant some of the role the book currently plays.