Micah Sargent (11:57)
I, yeah, I, I think it is nice to have them both in one app if you can help it. Now, the Amazon Kindle app, of course, as we're kind of talking about, does separate between the two. Part of the reason is that Amazon's Audiobook offering is an app that was once a third party company acquired by Amazon and so Audible became an Amazon property and therefore Amazon's Audiobook offerings are part of the Audible app. The Amazon Kindle app is sort of deep within the, the lore and like lexicon experience. I think of every person, it feels like it's an app that everybody downloads to their iPad or their phone. Just to kind of have that experience of what it's like to have a book or a series of books with you wherever you go and, and you of course have the sort of Kindle experience on Kindle devices themselves. But what's great about Kindle is that it does provide that syncing, right, that you can sync between your actual physical Kindle and your iPad and your iPhone and all of that can come together and provide your books wherever you happen to be. I think that that is a delightful experience as part of the, if, you know, if you, if you go with, with Kindle and that is where, you know, some people argue, well, Kindle has what, like a stranglehold on the market. But I do think there's a little bit of that Apple, that Apple sort of benefit where when you kind of live in the garden, the walled garden, and you're using all of the different devices, they all work very well together. I kind of feel like the same applies when it comes to Kindle. I know if I buy a book in the Kindle app store, yes, I'm not going to be able to view it outside of Kindle stuff. But for me, as someone who has Kindle stuff, it works for me. But here's kind of a look of it on the iPhone. So I have this book called Stitch It, Don't Ditch it, which is just a book that teaches you about kind of repairing your clothing. And you can see that it is very similar again to the Apple Books app or the Kobo Books app and has the functionality that you would come to expect. A table of contents, search functionality, setting up bookmarks, changing the way the text displays. Now, one cool thing about the Kindle app is that Amazon has developed some custom typefaces specific for reading. So bookerly is its sort of serif typeface that provides what the typographers would argue is a better reading experience. But there's also Amazon Ember Bold, which was created for this, and then a great option called Open Dyslexic, which is an open source typeface for people with dyslexia supposed to and aims to better help people with dyslexia read what they are, you know, what they're, what they're attempting to read helps kind of the brain and the brain process and the eyes properly latch onto the letters. You can change the size, you can change the spacing, you can change the layout. I like that there's this sort of green option for the page color and you can also set up kind of different themes based on the different reading that you do outside of that. Again, it's kind of what you would expect from a. An. What am I trying to say? An ebook. I kept wanting to say audiobook, but an ebook app. One other thing I'll mention is there is a subscription that Kindle has called the Kindle Unlimited Subscription. If you are subscribed to it, you can get a lot of books just as part of the subscription. So I happen to listen to a lot of fantasy audiobooks and occasionally because of the nature of those audiobooks or those titles, they come out pretty regularly. And that means that there's often a period of time where the audiobook has not yet been recorded or edited or whatever, but the book itself is out and I'm ready for the book. So I will head into the Kindle app and start reading it there to kind of have the latest. This again is just a. I think what you would expect from an ebook app. There's nothing. There's not a whole lot more, and there's certainly nothing less than what is available. The flip side of this, of course, is the Audible app, which is Amazon's audiobook offering. And this is, I would argue, more like a podcasts app. And in fact, Audible did recently add podcast functionality to the app experience. So you've got your homepage, you've got your library of books. I'm currently working my way through the cycle of Galand books, and I had started reading them ages ago, and then something else drew me in, and so I wasn't listening to them for a while and then ended up going back. And so now I'm kind of finishing the books there. The Discover page, which has suggestions based on what you would like, but also what people would like. So you can kind of see your authors that you listen to a lot and look through there. The niche topics that I have, like mythical creatures and techno thrillers, I would argue I don't really read a lot of steampunk, but that's for some reason, one of the suggestions. And you can browse by mood. You can see what people are seemingly excited about that's coming out soon. You can see what titles, of course, are on sale. But ultimately for me, that homepage is the best page because it provides, right there, new books, new titles, I should say, from authors that I regularly read and also offer suggestions based on the stuff that I have read through. So, you know, if you are, if you liked this title, you'll probably like this title. Now, one thing to bear in mind is that these titles are specifically part of a credit system. And so with it, you, you can buy these books outright, but you can also, I keep saying books, but they're titles. You can buy these titles outright, or you can buy these titles with credits. And so this is an example. If I tap on this book called, this title called Katabasis, if I were to buy it outright, it'd be $17.63. If I wait until I get a credit, then it is for the cost of a credit, which is $14.95 a month. That's my subscription. So typically it's a little bit cheaper to use your credits than it. Or actually, most of the time it's cheaper to use your credits than it is to buy a title. But occasionally there'll be a title that's available for like seven bucks, and I'll get that instead that way. So that's a look at kind of the Amazon offerings, anything about that, and then I'd love to hear too. Rosemary, your thoughts on Libby.
