The Kindle recently celebrated ten years of existence – the first Kindle was announced in November 2007. And while the company marked the occasion by launching a new Kindle (the new Oasis, whose review is coming shortly), we think this is the best time for us to look at ten amazing facts about and features of this device:
1. Princess Fiona? Nah, Kindle!
Do you remember Princess Fiona from the “Shrek” series? Yep, the big, green female ogre. While she has nothing really to do with Kindle itself, while in the development process, the device was codenamed Fiona although there was nothing big, green or ogre-ish about it. Work on the device began in 2004, incidentally. Later the name Kindle was coined by branding consultants Michael Cronan and Karin Hibma who suggested the name because it means, “to light a fire” and that is what Kindle was aimed to do, metaphorically. Wonder whether there would have been a Shrek edition if they had gone along with the Fiona name, though.
2. Kindle with a physical QWERTY keyboard?
3. USD 399? Ouch! Still gone in six hours!
4. SD card support, 3.5 mm audio jack…all there
The first Kindle not only had a proper (if somewhat odd shaped) QWERTY keyboard, but also a list of other features that have been since phased out – it had only 250 MB of storage, so had support for an SD card, had a speaker for listening to audiobooks, and if that was not enough, it also had a 3.5 mm audio jack for those who preferred to listen to their books on headphones. Want more? The first Kindle also had a removable back and a removable battery!
5. Free 3G network
6. Publish that book for free!
7. Get that book “X-Ray”-ed
8. The iPad-like Kindle
9. Buy on one, read on six…and never lose a copy
Yes! You read it right. As long as all your devices are registered under the same account, you can download a book on one to up to six devices at the same time. This sharing range depends on the number of licenses set by the publisher. But even if you reach the limit, you can simply remove the book from one of the devices and download it on another device if you wish. And even when you remove a book from your Kindle, don’t worry about losing it – all your purchases will always be available in the cloud. And book storage there is unlimited, as long as you have purchased books from the Kindle Store.
10. Making the cover of Newsweek
