26

By Paul Biba

paulsbadge.jpgFor a fair number of years I have been a writer for Palm Addict, one of the oldest blogs on the web, founded in 1999. With the advent of the iPhone I became their iPhone Editor, hence my badge to the left.

P.J. Arts is Palm Addict’s Smartphone and Treo Editor, and a real technophile. He has been in technology sales for many years. I mention this because Peter is not one to reject a technology lightly. Recently he had to switch from the Palm platform to Rim’s Blackberry for work reasons. He posted the following on Palm Addict today:

“I am buying no more ebooks. I was very late coming to the eBook party; and now wish I hadn’t come at all. Despite having to squint, and not having the wonderful feel, aroma and experience of paper books, I found eBooks to be a good idea for reading in bed (although that isn’t a good idea if you need sleep), or on a train/plane. In fact, I bought quite a few eBooks (and spent quite a bit of money on them) over the past 18 months. Never again! None of these books are convertible to the readers supported by Blackberry. That means I have to buy a Palm PDA if I want to read my library of eBooks. With a regular book, I can read it no matter what technology I am using at that particular time. Something as important as books MUST have a standard format, otherwise you run the risk of ending up like me: lots of great content (and money) tied up on an SD card…and no way to access it. So, tomorrow I am off to the book store, and will buy Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy (if you haven’t already seen “The Golden Compass”, go treat yourself…its a cracking good movie). I will take my BOOKS into my den, turn on some Christmas tunes, and curl up in my leather recliner for a nice old-fashioned read. eBooks? Bah, humbug!”

If someone as sophisticated as Peter throws up his hands, what is the general public going to do?

 
26