Thoughts on "e-readers"

I used to think the Kindle was slow and chincy until I used a Nook, which feels like its ink display is powered by three blind, drunken gnomes. Agonizing pain is the only way I can describe a device that takes twice the time to turn a page that a third grader reads it.

The NYT begs to differ:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/personaltech/10...

I think the key of the solution for making a good e-book reader is simplicity. Really, a book is not a very complicated thing. What you need is a device that gets out of the way of the content of the book. A good e-book reader is an e-book reader I can't notice while reading.

I primarily use my iPhone as an ereader since it's portable and functional. The original book format is lost in translation and yet I get the essence of a book, the authors well thought formulation of concepts all bundled together. Newspapers and magazines are just weaker aggregators though so they mesh well with the evolving web layouts we experience now.

I think I see the great value of posting your thoughts directly here now. You invite an entire community to share their feedback without the barrier of a page load, well done!

Second, I haven't used a Nook, but I own a Kindle 2, and I freaking love it. I carry it everywhere and I often find myself wanting to stop whatever I'm working on and go sit in a coffeeshop and just read. The device isn't perfect, but I don't have any major complaints at all. Most importantly, when I'm using it, it disappears in my hands. I'm not reading a Kindle, I'm just reading.

Also, I had an MP3 player before the iPod and it was a painful experience. It was clear that there were large opportunities to improve the experience, but I would argue that the biggest one that the iPod solved was making it easy to get content on the device, which wasn't the iPod at all, it was iTunes. This is similar to how I see the Kindle. The device is good enough (just like the gen-1 iPod, which was fugly but functional) but the really killer feature is how incredibly easy it is to get books onto the device. I browse Amazon all the time on my laptop and when I see a book I'm interested in, 1 click and I have a free sample on the device waiting for me. If I want to buy after reading the sample, just 1 more click. Easy. I buy probably 3-5x as many books as I used to, and it takes me 10% of the hassle and I'm not paying much more in total even though I read way more. The device is only one piece of the puzzle here; the overall Kindle business model is what's really amazing, imo.

Have you read Neil Gershenfeld's "When Things Start to Think"? A lot of the more general problems surrounding new technology and its (flawed) implementations are discussed in this book, very interesting. That book is from 1999 btw.

He also discusses the drawbacks of ebook readers and his arguments still stand today, even though the technology has matured significantly.

I want a device that I can load whatever text / PDFs / etc. I want into it for convenient reading later. I don't want 3G. I don't want DRM. I don't want a device that is constantly begging me to open my wallet. I just want... an e-reader.

Also, the page is a useful interface tool. The size of a page in a traditional book is limited by its physical characteristics, but segmentation of the data makes the experience much more comfortable. I notice this whenever I read a wall of text on the web versus reading pages in a print publication.

I have lots of books that I haven't read yet. I have lots of books that I would like to read again. I don't want to have to re-purchase my books just to be able to read them on an eReader device. If there was a way to either scan in all of my books, or provide a way to download previously scanned versions after providing proof of ownership, that would seal the deal for me. I don't care about 3G connectivity. I can even live without 802.11, as long as I could sync via USB.

An ebook reader doesn't need to play videos or MP3s. That's what my phone is for :^)

At first I was excited about the Nook because it was running Android and was looking forward to seeing that apps they might come up with. But after using it for a week or so, I decided that I really only need my eReader to do one thing. Read books. Any extra stuff is just distractions. While obviously not everyone wants such a specialized device, I think I enjoy the fact that reading is a separate activity from everything else.

So, honestly, I don't see anyway a company like Apple could do much to improve on the experience of the Kindle (or even the Nook) when it comes to just getting lost in a book.

In my opinion they should have targeted the student or corporate market first, where the potential to save money and the need to work with the text is higher. Things like comments and annotations could be distributed via a "social network" to colleges, documents could be auto updated to reflect the latest version and so on. Might be for technology/pricing reasons though, as there's currently only one manufacturer that can deliver e-ink (afaik).

I also think that Google (Google books/docs, Android) is in a far better position than Apple to evolve the e-reader market. But maybe someone like Adobe (pdf) could also be a candidate.

--- But I wonder how exploratory they were in finding an answer since they both ended up with "let's put e-ink in their hands with 3g and long battery life". ---

First of all, the long battery life comes as a function of the e-ink screen. It's not a built-in design feature, it's an advantage of the technology that takes no charge to retain content on the screen. Secondly, who really uses the 3G on their ereader, and for what purposes?

3G is a way for the companies to push books to the consumers and a way for the consumers to pull books on the go. It's like a glorified USB wire that can transfer books to your device from anywhere.

Another thing to consider is the "illegal" market for books. Apple (and other music players) did luck out with the plethora of freely available music. How many of you would have your current portable music player if you had to pay for every song on it?

E-readers have no where near that advantage. To Amazon and B&N it might as well be about pushing books to consumers rather than pushing the device itself. Creating a network of people who have readers means being able to sell ebooks to them.

What will be interesting (at least for me) to see is the following:

What happens if publishers don't "get it" like the music industry didn't "get it". Things like delaying ebook releases to months after the print releases.

Will there be an increase in the consumption of public domain and other freely available books (CC, etc)? Will people care about these? How will authors get people to care about these?

As one of the comments here mentions, the best things these devices can do is the disappear in your hands so that they give you want you wanted to do in the first place: read. And occasionally check definitions without that being too distracting.

I think the challenges for ebooks lie in getting content from publisher to the consumers. The technology is not the problem here (or at least I doubt it is). Your person who thinks that the Internet is Google, or that the "browser" is search doesn't really care about the tech. Concentrate on the "reader" part of "e-reader", those are the problems worth solving.

On another note: I hope we don't "Twitterize" e-reading. Meaning creating an unnecessary service that comes with its own set of problems.

The economist had an article on this, but it's behind the paywall now. http://www.isegoria.net/2008/10/not-dead-just-resting.htm

Gist -- "American office workers’ use of paper has actually been in decline since 2001. What changed? The explanation seems to be sociological rather than technological. A new generation of workers, who have grown up with e-mail, word processing and the internet, feel less of a need to print documents out than their older colleagues did."

Publishers don't have to "get it" as long as Authors get it.

iTunes currently gives App creators a 30% cut. It they were to give authors 30% to publish with them instead of their traditional print publishers, I'm sure most authors would jump at the chance. 30% is SO MUCH higher than most authors ever get from print publishers.

I like the idea of an ereader, but they aren't ready for me yet. That's just me. I encourage everyone but me to get an ereader, so you can all work out the kinks for me. :)

One thing they will never have that books have, is being able to drop one or lose one and feel nothing more than slight regret. The other day I creased the back cover of a used paperback; I felt a bit of remorse because I have an emotional attachment to books, but I got over it. I'd feel sick if I dropped or creased a $259 kindle, more so if I lost access to all the books stored in it.

"Apple will try to solve a better problem."

What a great way to shift perspective and open up areas of possibility.

Others here object to an ereader doing anything more than presenting static text (and pictures I assume), specifically objecting to video.

For me, an ereader that does nothing more than digitize a book is not nearly enough of a new product to make me want one. Other than a great improvement in storage, and a slight improvement in portability, an ereader doesn't solve the problem that a book solves much better than the book already solves it. That's because ereaders currently try to be "better books," rather than trying to solve a better problem.

Here is an ereader that I would buy instantly:

- Reasonably indestructible.

- Made and makable by many vendors, using basic media standards. Competition is good, lock-in is bad.

- Owned media portable to any new reader that I may acquire, from any vendor. Copyright and piracy issues aside, this is merely an expected consequence of the previous point. Maybe better use of cloud technology would make this practical, and might also help solve piracy concerns. In other words, you don't "practice ownership" (better term?) by having a work on your ereader, you do it by having it on your cloud.

- Able to load media that I and my friends produce informally (without benefit of corporation).

- Tailored to consumption rather than production. I don't want a laptop with a keyboard. CD and MP3 players don't need to give the user the capability to play the bassoon. But I might like to be able to take pictures and record an audio record. I'd accept limited text entry ability if it didn't physically or cognitively bloat the device.

- Able to present any digital media, with a reasonable approximation of "any."

That last point jumps off from jamesmcintyre's "solve a better problem." As long as ereaders are merely better books, I'll probably continue to use paper books, until they're not commonly available.

What I expect to see is new forms and uses of media. Books should commonly become more than just linear text strings, except where that's all a particular work needs or aspires to be.

Certainly I would like video and audio commonly integrated into the idea of a "book," to the point where the table of contents and the index reference not just the beginning of a video/audio section, but specific locations within those sections, just as an index can reference a page within a section. Of course those directories would be active and lead you right to the referenced item.

Works that reference each other should also lead you to those other works (superhyperlinks). If you own access to the referenced work then you should be led to the work itself; if not, then to some "fair" portion or approximation of the work. I don't think payment should be involved; having a consumer exposed to a work, and made a potential buyer, is probably compensation enough.