The kindle feels like a prototype
It's probably just my gut instinct. I feel the Amazon Kindle is still looking like a prototype. It wants to be too many things, which can impress the early-adopter geek crowd; but, to be practical to needs to be revolutionary to get the mainstream behind its price point. With netbooks costing lower than the Kindle, it makes no sense to give the Kindle features that make it act like a netbook. Toss out the keyboard. What's the purpose? Oh gosh, you can browse the web? Who cares.
The Kindle is suppose to be an e-book, period. So, design it for that specific purpose. Make the UI intuitive. How does a read flip the page of a real book? Put that gesturing ability into the screen for easy and quick page flipping with touch sensoring like the iPhone. The rounded edges are a size touch, but make the screen larger. By minimizing what the Kindle does, you can use a larger screen with less components.
Using Amazon's web services, the Kindle OS should simply boot up to a dashboard with a folder that lists your amazon cart and ability to browse e-books. Download straight to the Kindle. Read the book. There is no reason to make it a full-web browser capable e-book reader. Just make it a very fun e-book that promotes natural book reading, than attempting create an e-book reader that functions as an all in one device. It'll fail.
