2009 Daily Planner for the Amazon Kindle (U.S. Edition) (Kindle Edition)
October 19th, 2009
Product Description
This is a 2009 Daily Planner for the Amazon Kindle. Like the paper version, each of the 365 days of 2009 is represented by a page. When the font size is large enough, a day’s entry covers two pages instead of one. Each day has hourly slots for appointments or reminders from 8 am until 8 pm. This planner takes advantage of the annotation capability of the Kindle so that the user can add, view, modify and delete appointments. Major U.S. holidays are included.
Buy 2009 Daily Planner for the Amazon Kindle (U.S. Edition) (Kindle Edition) at Amazon
It’s wonderful that someone created such an application for the Kindle. Just like a real planner, you can flip through the dates of the year to add/view your appointments and reminders. However, Kindle users cannot edit the text of content directly. Thus, the author had an innovative solution: you add appointments the same way you add your own notes to books, by annotating. Each hour is on its own line; when you add a note, the little note icon appears next to it. Unfortunately, you only see that you have an appointment at that time. You don’t see the contents of the note itself until you click on it to view/edit it. This makes it a little clumsier than the daily planners on Blackberries/PDAs.
The Kindle is, first and foremost, supposed to be an e-reader for e-books. You can’t expect it to act like a PDA. But for those who want some of the functionality of a PDA to help them organize their lives, then this daily planner is a really useful application.
I’d like to address some of the criticisms that some people have about similar Kindle calendars.
For those who complain that you are unable to see an entire month at a time: There are MONTHLY calendars available for the Kindle, such as 2009 Monthly Calendar for the Amazon Kindle (U.S. Edition). Get those instead of a DAILY planner.
For those who complain that the notes you enter don’t actually appear unless you click on the note: This feature would be technically impossible for a book author to implement on the Kindle. The Kindle (at least currently) is not like the iPhone where outside developers can write programs for it. Thus, authors are constrained to write text- or image-based documents that CANNOT be edited by users. I thought it was clever enough to use the Kindle’s annotation feature to act as a note-taker. So don’t blame the author or the product for this minor shortcoming.
For those who complain that there isn’t an alarm or flash or pop up that tells you an appointment is coming up: Again, this would be technically impossible for a book author to implement on the Kindle.
For those who complain that this is easy to implement: Yes, it is. However, the author never claimed that this was something creative or difficult. I can certainly whip my own in HTML in less than an hour, but my time is more valuable that the price I pay for this product. This daily planner is a bargain.
Bottom line: If you already use a daily planner or have one on your Blackberry/PDA, keep using it and don’t get this. If you don’t have those things but have your Kindle on you much of the time, this can be really useful!
I will not purchase this, again. I had hoped for a line item listing on the dates entered. What you get is a box to open with your note enclosed. Not exactly “day at a glance”.
I am hoping that a new and improved planner will be developed soon. Maybe one that will alert before an appointment.