I have to agree with this editorial by Michael Gartenberg - two strikes is out for the Kindle.  I have the Kindle App on my iPhone and I was one of the users who had my copy of Orwell’s ‘1984′ deleted from my device without notification.  It was the only book I actually purchased for the app.  All my other content consists of sample chapters for books I was considering for Dead Tree format. I read ‘1984′ on my iPhone as an experiment.  Now the book is gone.

My other strike involved getting my hands on a Kindle DX.  I just wasn’t that impressed.  The Kindle DX is bulky, has a clunky interface, and doesn’t have the color to make many educational graphs and illustrations usable. It was easy on the eyes for reading, but so is paper.

I think that there is a future for ebooks, but that future is multi-platform and doesn’t involve getting your materials deleted without permission or notice. When the world goes into electronic textbooks in a bigger way, we shouldn’t lock anyone into a particular device.

UPDATE: The New Yorker takes on the Kindle and the future of reading in this article.  Nicholson Baker doesn’t like the Kindle either.