“Kindle is 17 years in the making—almost to the day, by the way … At that point, Kindle reinvented reading.” It’s a bold claim, but then Panos Panay has never been someone to play it safe. He’s best known for his time at Microsoft, helping to turn the company’s approach to design on its head and driving forward projects like Surface. Now he’s at Amazon, leading its devices and services department, including brands like Echo, Fire TV, Ring, and of course Kindle. No doubt it’s hoped he can bring some of that aesthetic wizardry to the table here, too.

It’s almost hard to imagine a time when Amazon wasn’t a leading hardware manufacturer, but back in 2004, when Jeff Bezos instructed his company’s employees to build the world’s best e-reader before its competitors could, it was little more than an online bookstore. Making the jump into devices as a way to further Amazon’s profits elsewhere in its business became something of a blueprint for the company—but Kindle did it first.

It succeeded, too, of course, in Bezos’ goal. But in more recent years its competitors have been clawing back the ground it so carefully laid—even overtaking Kindle in key areas. Brands like reMarkable got into e-readers with writing capabilities several years before the Kindle Scribe launched, and earlier this year, Kindle’s major competitor Kobo beat it to color (as well as the likes of Onyx and PocketBook before it).

As Kindle’s Colorsoft readies itself for launch next week, WIRED got the opportunity to ask Panay whether he feels Amazon waited too long to make its move. As it turns out, Amazon has been working on the device for more than two years.

“We didn’t want flashing on the product, we didn’t want slowness on the product. I didn’t want to compromise the reading experience in any way,” says Panay. “Until we got it to perfection, without any of the problems that generally come with E Ink color, we weren’t going to release it.”

Whether Panay is suggesting Kindle’s competitors have these issues, he doesn’t say, but the inference is certainly there. It’s not something that was noted in WIRED’s review of the Kobo Libra Color, but there are comments in a number of Reddit threads that may suggest Panay is onto something. Of course this doesn’t change the fact that waiting for this so-called perfection has allowed Kindle’s competitors to capture a new market before it was able to—something it clearly should have had the jump on some time ago. And surely that has to sting, just a little?

If it does, it’s not clear. Amazon is steadfast in its belief that now was simply the right time, adding that one of the reasons it has taken Amazon so long is that it isn’t using an off-the-shelf panel for the Kindle Colorsoft. Custom hardware doesn’t come quickly or cheaply, it says, even if that means giving up your lead to the competition. But Kevin Keith, vice president of devices and services, thinks the time and investment was worth it.

“The LEDs … completely redoing the light guide and then the oxide backplane, those two things were probably the most important advances we made on display technology that enables [us] to have that color experience [that’s] vibrant but soft on the eyes.”

The TikTok Effect

It’s an interesting time for Kindle and devices like it. Even though there’s been a push for innovation in the industry and data suggests demand for ebooks are remaining high, e-reader adoption has been slowing, and market saturation could have something to do with that. Those who want one generally have one, and with a lack of real change in the technology for years, there’s been little need for owners to update devices.

The shift to color could create that push for upgrades, but Amazon thinks things are changing elsewhere too. It claims 60 percent of those who are buying Kindle are newcomers, and that this is pushing sales up in a particular market.

“Right now, we’re seeing the highest sales of Kindle in more than a decade—20 billion pages are currently read every month,” claims Panay. “And it turns out the majority of this new cohort are millennials and Gen Z—this is the fastest growing segment.”

Kevin Keith goes further, explaining that while social media used to be a distraction from books, it’s now a driving force for selling Kindles to new, younger readers. The “BookTok” phenomenon, he says, has a lot to do with that, and the hashtag, which includes people sharing book reviews and recommendations on TikTok, has amassed almost 39 million videos and more than 200 billion views.

“There’s definitely a bit of a TikTok/BookTok effect right now, and this has also transcended into Reels, into Instagram, into Facebook,” Keith says. “So you see across the board in terms of the social media impact that used to be a headwind, that used to be pulling people away from reading—now it’s actually driving people to read.”

“It’s been more than two years now that we’ve seen this growth rate,” he adds. “When we say sales are at their highest in a decade, this is after multiple years of double-digit growth.”

There is data to suggest this might be the start of a wider trend, with the e-reader market expected to start growing again between now and 2029. Keeping the emotional connection between readers and their books is important in this, insists Panay, who cites this as a reason why people will swallow the $120 hike over the best-selling Kindle Paperwhite.

“Value is not in the look and feel of a device,” he says, without hesitation. “Value is in the emotion you’ll be able to pull out of having a color screen. At this point it’s a choice, and that’s what’s beautiful. If you want color, it’s now there for you.”

Whether better late than never works out for Kindle remains to be seen, but Panay is banking on that emotional connection playing its part. In an overly connected world, he says that for its users, Kindle is a sanctuary—a device with no distractions, no notifications. Of course, books have been doing that for centuries.

“That sanctuary is very real,” says Panay. “You pick up a book [on your Kindle] and you start reading … multitasking doesn’t exist because you disappear into that moment. We need some of that right now, more than ever.”