
Why There Isn't a Perfect Ebook Reader - mridulkhan
http://i.gizmodo.com/5152092/giz-explains-why-there-isnt-a-perfect-ebook-reader
======
TomOfTTB
The feeling I got while reading this was the same one I got many years ago
when reading why Microsoft's PocketPC was going to wipe the floor with the
simplistic PalmOS. Ironically, I agreed with those PocketPC articles at the
time but now see why the simplicity of the Palm made it the winner back then.

Amazon clearly understands readers better than Gizmodo does and the Kindle, if
Amazon's sales pronouncements are to be believed, clearly resonates with
people. I think that's why Kindle sells so well and will continue to do so.

One final point, the author thinks the disappearance of actual paper books is
inevitable but I don't believe that. Paper is easy to produce, easy to recycle
and most people like the tactile feel of books. So paper may disappear but
it's not inevitable imho. Paper Books are certainly here for a long time to
come.

~~~
unalone
Paper books are to ebooks like the theatre is to cinema. Cinema is more
storable, purer, more controllable. It's more permanent in the sense that it
lasts in different form. That said, there's an art to theatre that can't be
replicated on-screen, and because of those arts, and because of the incredible
history of theatre, it won't ever go away. It might not be constantly in the
spotlight, but it'll always be there.

Similarly, paper books won't disappear. I'll be able to hold on to my Little
Nemo and Krazy Kat and Series of Unfortunate Events and my kids will be able
to have that same thrill of opening a new book for the first time. Maybe
they'll read more ebooks than they'll read books, but the books will always be
there.

------
twopoint718
I'm kinda in the Cory Doctorow school of thought. Whenever I see it reported
that this or that e-book reader will soon be _the_ thing, I can't help but
think of: [http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2007/03/cory-doctorow-
you-d...](http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2007/03/cory-doctorow-you-do-like-
reading-off.html)

Those waiting for the e-book to "arrive" may have already missed the fact that
it's here.

~~~
unalone
I don't want to be a dick and argue with Cory Doctorow, who is bright and
famous, but every time I read this article I feel frustrated. I tolerate
computer screens, yes. I can read off one for eight hours a day. It is _not_ a
good screen for reading a book off of. It's bright and very slightly stresses
my eye and most importantly, it's not invisible. I don't sink into the
content. E-ink vanishes as I read it. I curl up into it mentally the way I'll
physically curl up with a good book. I gladly put down money for the Kindle.
It was utterly worth my money.

The problem with Doctorow is that he's a geek more than he is a writer. Yeah,
he got himself published thanks to BoingBoing, but he's not from the breed of
writer that lives and breathes for language. I'm not the best spokesperson
here because I'm lodged in between the two types, but I'm close enough to the
one side, and I'm friends with enough people over the brink, to be able to
definitely say that the people who are obsessed with language will never
tolerate something like a light-based screen. Some people I know are in fact
physically sensitive: they won't watch TV because they don't like how jumpy
and powerful the screen is. Those same people are fine with e-ink, because
it's so neutral.

Maybe most people here either don't get that or don't care. I've been in
arguments with people here who think that literature is overrated and
overblown by English majors: it's a typical elitist hacker response. Doctorow
absolutely has that opinion. But as somebody whose startup is focused entirely
on the English language, and on emphasizing beautiful language, I rather
disagree, and I'd say that the people who are really pushing literature
forward today are still the ones who read ink and write ink, and a lot of
those people won't put up with screens as a primary reading type. I'm sure
that many non-writers are the same way.

~~~
twopoint718
Disagreement isn't being a dick. And I agree more with you that Doctorow, I
have cases and cases of books (my back remembers this every time I have to
move). But I, and I may have misread Doctorow's article, take it that his
point wasn't that "the screen" (phones, e-readers, laptops, etc.) is a _good_
device to read things from but that it is _good enough_.

I think of this as similar to the comparison between a live concert, a CD and
an MP3. The concert is the one that really moves me, that's the one that makes
me want to get up and dance or at least tap my feet. A good band vibrates my
guts just as well as I hear them.

A CD is _nothing_ like that experience, it's flat by comparison, the tones
aren't as low or as high and I can't feel the music thump in my stomach like I
can at a concert. But at the end of a great show, I'll plunk down $10 so that
I can hear a really great band again.

Now an MP3 is even more flattened, I don't know what the science is but I
think that on a lot of rips I _can_ hear some sort of difference from the CD.
There are parts that don't feel as crisp, etc. But MP3s, (and by this I mean
"compressed digital music files") are doing really well out there. Apple sells
a lot of them. In other words they seem "good enough". Or it may just be that
when people evaluate different formats, concert, CD or MP3 they choose the
most portable one and don't care as much about the quality.

That's what I was trying to cite, without judgment, that it seems people will
sacrifice a lot of quality for a gain in some other area. I don't see why it
would be different with books.

I remember reading a book ("Scrolling Forward" by David M. Levy, Arcade Pub.,
New York, 1st ed.) the author was an alum of Xerox PARC; he had written his
thesis on one of the first WYSIWYG word processor typing systems, an early
machine with a mouse. After this experience he went off to learn the very
analog art of calligraphy. He felt that he had lost his connection with the
feel of the page and the art of writing, he also wrote this whole book about
what "document" means in the digital age. I mean to say that there may also be
a more expanded notion of what _reading_ and _novel_ mean in the future. Or
maybe not.

------
jpd

      The problem with that E-Ink is expensive, slow (you can't 
      have moving cursors or any kind of video) and boring.
    

The price will decrease once the technology behind its production improves
(and people stop there willingness to actually spend that much), it will also
speed up over time (its just how things work. To address the last point: WTF?

Secondly, from the Pixel Qi site:

    
    
      Our screens use 1/2 to 1/4 the power of a regular LCD 
      screen, and when integrated carefully with the device can 
      increase battery life between charges by 5-fold. 
    

and from Giz:

    
    
      Jepsen says it's even possible to get a week of battery 
      life from LCD tech, of course depending on the device the 
      screens are embedded in.
    

I really don't see how those two can statements can coexist. Currently we get
around 8 hours from labtops, improve that by her 1/4 estimate and we now get
32 hours which fall short of our weeklong estimate.

Lastly:

    
    
      Infrastructurally and perhaps historically speaking, the 
      odds are in LCD's favor.
    

I'm going to need this one spelled out for me...

~~~
Retric
I think the important part was _when integrated carefully with the device._
Laptops spend energy on other things than just the LCD. However, reducing
energy in other places has diminishing returns when the LCD is draining a lot
of juice. Take the 17 inch mackbook's battery and use it to power a dell mini
9 with this type of LCD and you might get a weeks worth of use (7 * 8hours +
standby) out of the thing.

------
gabrielroth
Shorter Mary Lou Jepsen: My company's magic vaporware will solve every single
display problem by 2010.

~~~
jonknee
Considering I have one of her displays (an XO), it's hardly vaporware. In
eBook mode it is very much like an eInk display, super crisp and great in
sunlight.

