I Hate the Kindle Ads. Wanna Know Why?

I like the Kindle. I hate the Kindle ads:

I didn't always feel this way. When the Kindle was bagging on the iPad's glary screen, I chuckled along. You see, I don't have a Kindle device, but I use the Kindle app on my iPad and iPhone, and I absolutely hate the screen glare. (I hate it on my Mac, too, and long for the good ol' days when Macs came with outdoor-appropriate matte screens.) But now the Kindle is bagging on physical books, not to mention bookstores. You shouldn't kick a man when he's down.

Not to mention how selective the conversation in the commercial is! The guy with the Kindle thinks it looks like a printed book's page. I have to wonder what kind of books he's used to reading. The ones I prefer aren't set in bland and awkwardly spaced system fonts like Times Roman. My gripe with the Kindle -- indeed, with all e-books -- is that they don't at all look like printed books in one important way: design and typography. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against e-books. The concept excites me. My books are all available as e-books for purchase. I read e-books and enjoy them. But I don't enjoy them as much as I would if they were capable of typographical precision. A beautifully designed book -- whether physical or digital -- will always be a pleasure to read. I'm just worried that despite a few exceptions, e-books aren't being designed very well. 

The Kindle ad that will get me pumped will go something like this:

    "Hey, I see you're reading a physical book -- but, wow, whoever designed that thing should be hit over the head with a copy of Bringhurst's ELEMENTS OF TYPOGRAPHICAL STYLE!"
    "Yeah, I know, it really sucks. But what can I do?"
    "Well, with my Kindle, I just push a button, and the designer's crappy work is stripped out and re-formatted according to classic typographical principles."
    "Cool. Hand me that beautiful piece of technology." 

 Until then, Kindle, try to tone down the triumphalism!