Kindle Printing

The Kindle News blog raises a good question in this post. In short, why is printing content from a Kindle such a clumsy process? My guess is this has to do with content protection and a limited feature set in Kindle Version 1.0.

On the content protection side, perhaps Amazon didn't want to scare off publishers and authors by making the content so easily reproducible. Then again, in this day and age, it's hard to imagine a laser printer being that big a threat. Regardless, I'd like to think this is something Amazon will make more customer friendly down the road.

Speaking of which, they had to draw the line somewhere for this first product. Like any other new gadget, there was probably a lengthy list of additional features they just couldn't get to or couldn't afford to incorporate in the first generation Kindle. Wouldn't it be nice one day though if a future version would let you plug your printer's USB cable into the Kindle's USB port so you can print directly from the Kindle, without the need for a computer in between? (Btw, be careful what you wish for as this would add another layer of complexity to the Kindle: Amazon would have to make sure all the zillions of printer drivers out there will work with their product.)