My daughter on the Sony Reader, et al.

I encountered an almost identical reaction from another adult geek who loves sci fi. He is perfectly comfortable reading from his pda (and of course his laptop).

Part of it has to do with the appliance intimacy which Marie Campbell spoke about. Laptops became THE device on college campus (despite its shortcomings and cost). I personally find the battery life, the bulkiness and the fan noise to be too distracting.

I think it points less to the inadequacies of the device than the irrelevance of a text-only device in an age of interactive multimedia. Leave aside for the moment that people don’t read anymore (and certainly not novels). The problem is the black and white nature of the screen, plus the lack of layout/design capabilities. part of this is intrinsic to eink devices and part of it to the lack of good ebook creation tools (and the tower of ebook babel). The under 30 crowd is used to color and graphics, and the novels on ebook readers are just plain and monotonous. The other issue is the cheap prices of used paperbooks, which I don’t expect to continue (in 5 or so years, most novels will be cheaper in digital form and used paperbacks will be harder to find).

On the other hand, the Sony is the perfect form factor for bed and the bus and the restaurant table. Also, if you are a graduate student in English or history or foreign languages, I cannot imagine NOT having such a device. Already you can download a ton of source material for free.

That said, even though, I am a big fan of ebook readers of all kinds, I still read about 75% of my books in print form. I expect this to change gradually over time. At $300-350, a dedicated ebook reader is still a boutique device and not a good value proposition. But by summer most of the 2nd generation e-ink devices will have gone down in price to under $200, and that would make these devices a lot more attractive. Remember that 2 gig ipods used to cost $200; now you can buy 2 gig mp3 players for under $50. Maybe soon they’ll be giving them out for free as an inducement to use paid music services.

I have a pocket-full of gadgets. Even though my phone can be a music player, it is not a great one, so I carry an iPod. My phone and iPod are lousy e-book readers, so I have currently repurposed my PDA as an e-book reader. My PDA’s screen is a little small and it doesn’t allow me to read e-books outdoors, so I have ordered a Cybook Gen3. I also have a laptop that I use for the interweb. Maybe someday there will be a phone with a fast, multi-color e-ink screen that is large enough to read on but not too large to put in my pocket; a phone that has enough storage for all my audiobooks, music, and ebooks; a phone that has fast, always-on internet connectivity; a phone that doesn’t cost more than the sum of all my other e-gadgets put together. Until then, I just have to buy pants with big pockets.

Considering that the median age in the US is 35 (and it is only going to increase), I think your daughter’s opinion about whether her age group would use an ebook reader may not be as tragic as it sounds.

As a 33 year old tech savvy physician, I’d have to feed my opinion on this subject. I am an enthusiastic e-book reader (with 2 full libraries of p-books, just the space savings alone is worthy, not to mention the environmental impact), and while I have a cybook, sony reader, Nokia 770 and 800, I am most pleased with the Nokia line. Its portable, has a great screen, and an impressive battery life (batteries are cheap). Plus, with Skype, web browsing, and an open source Maemo platform, I can do so much with it. With all of the books I read, I’m constantly looking for something better, and haven’t been able to find it. The Kindle’s design, “pricing” plan etc. are not at all desirable! Paying to read select blogs at any price is ridiculous and offensive!

I would like some phase shift to propel more people to seek the e-book format. I’d love to see full editions of my favorite magazines in an e-book format. That’s the main drawback of these readers – too slow with PDF page generation. I’m sure, however, that with smaller subnotebooks (an EEEPC -style tablet would be ideal), more titles, such as WIRED will be available in full e-book glory!

Well, as usual, I’m not just out of the alleged mainstream, but fully washed up on shore. Given a choice between a novel and a graphic novel, I’d choose the novel. I like words. Pictures are nice, but there aren’t enough words, dammit. And this is coming from someone who was just about raised on comic books and TV. (And when I say words, I do mean letters; I can’t stand audiobooks. But I do like Old Time Radio…)

So I guess we’ll all have to await Apple’s rumored mini-tablet for ebook Nirvana… (or at least mainstreamism…).

That’s strange. I’m 28 and the only thing holding me back from buying a Sony Reader or Cybook is lack of .epub support.

I’m not interested in the Kindle though. Not only doesn’t it support .epub, but they introduced a whole new format. That’s the last thing we need.
Also, I think the hidden costs in retrieving content aren’t worth it.
Also, the interface design looks clumsy. I’m all for having buttons to make navigating easy, but it looks like there’s only one way to hold the thing without pressing buttons. I read in various positions, and hold a book in different ways. I don’t see (from the pictures I’ve seen on the web) how it’s possible to do that with the Kindle and avoid pressing a button or four.

I agree with Yoda in that introducing another standard at this stage – with the hope of cornering the market and becoming the de facto standard – is indeed the last thing we need. In fact, it’s a little rude, given all the work people have done on the .epub standard.

I also think that smaller laptops are a much more effective e-reading tool than dedicated readers. We already use our laptops for everything else text-based. Why re-invent the wheel?

While there’s a lot to be said for device convergence, if it were as important as Paul’s daughter would lead us to believe then nobody would be carrying around iPods.

Well, I agree that device convergence *is* important. The problem is it is really hard to pull of. I like reading e-books on my Blackberry…but I can’t do it for nearly as long as I can with a dedicated reader due to screen size, battery issues, etc. (and my experience has been that the Kindle may be sluggish, but not nearly as sluggish as Mobipocket on a Blackberry or Windows Mobile device…haven’t used it on Palm, but it is dog slow on those two platforms, esp. once you start annotating the book).

Personally, what I’d like to see is convergence around something like the Sony Reader or Kindle. Ultimately you’re going to have these devices in color with ubiquitous networks and extremely long battery life. Add a touch sensitive screen and basic calendaring/task/contact management, and all of a sudden you’ve got something out of a Neal Stephenson novel.

I’m assuming we’re still at least a decade or so away from that sort of device being manufactured at a price cheap enough to bother with.

Laptops are only going to become more ubiquitious, powerful and smaller, and Erin’s generation (which is my generation, too) understands that. Its been my experience that my peers get most of their news, look at most of their photos, watch tv or video, and do a decent amount of communication, through a laptop. Ebook devices are moving too slowly towards open web standards and open ebook formats. Laptops are going to get there first.

>>>Ultimately you’re going to have these devices in color with ubiquitous networks and extremely long battery life. Add a touch sensitive screen and basic calendaring/task/contact management, and all of a sudden you’ve got something out of a Neal Stephenson novel.

Or the Mind of Steve Jobs.

http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/10/our-new-ibook-reader.html

Apple *better* come out with that.

I think what we’re going to start seeing is convergence in the form of USB memory sticks. As they decrese in cost and increase in capacity (I have a matchbook-size 100 gb drive already) I think we’re going to see devices become just a shell with a screen and a card reader. Users will carry around thumb drives with them and just plug them in. Inagime just popping out your thumb drive at work, taking it home, plugging it in to THAT computer, and having your entire PC from work right there. Now, imagine taking that same thumb drive and plugging it into your cell phone. Maybe all of the software won’t work, but the smart phone will recognize the files and documents, and serve them up to you in the menu screen. I think this is the sort of convergence we’ll see.

I’m a 28 year old writer, and I completely agree. While I love print books, I also love the possibilities that digitization creates for publishing and distributing great writing that’s free of the expense involved with print publishing. With that said, I will never buy a reader that includes DRM, or proprietary file formats, and i won’t buy some 2 or 3 or 400 dollar machine just to read books. My PSP – a video game system – can also get on the internet, play mp3s, hold my photo collection… and read books in PDF format (although I had to download special software to do that, and the manufacturer frowns on it).

As Cory Doctorow has argued, the ideal e-book reader won’t be an e-book reader at all. It’ll be a machine with a nice screen that can read books and blogs and surf youtube and play music and do a ton of other stuff… most importantly, it’ll be something whose manufacturer ENCOURAGES third-party software and other forms of customization, and won’t try to limit what I can do with content.

I’ve always been a believer in converged devices and agree with the notion that eBooks would succeed better if they could migrate seamlessly to the best available reading device. If you’re sitting, waiting for the boss to show up for a meeting, read on your blackberry. If you’re at your desk and want to look busy, at your desktop. If you’re going to be sitting and reading for a while, though, a lightweight larger-screen reading device is perfect (which is why I join so many in hoping for a universal eBook format). I use my iPaq and Palm for reading but prefer my eBookWise when I’m going to really be settling in to read.

I know Paul is simply reporting what his daughter said, but I always keep a grain of salt handy when one person claims to speak for his/her entire generation.

Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com

Convergence is a major trend and a very good one.

However, there are technical limits and we stand on one of those limits.

Eink, not a reader per se, is the vital element.

Eink’s paper-like display is essential from a book reading perspective. The niche market is book readers, i.e. those who already carry books with them, hence a lessening of what is carried and not an extra.

But it is not just the quality of the display, it is its power requirements, that it only uses power to change pages. That is essential, long battery life, many page turns is a critical characteristic.

For convergence to happen, it converges towards eink, which presently is too slow, uncolourful and non-video AT THE MOMENT.

It relies, if more processing is required developments in battery capacity, lightness and charge times, and a significant lessening of CPU power demands.

All of this will come, but not overnight.

For serious readers, and there are a lot of us, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantage of an extra device. For non-readers it is obviously unnecessary and until technologies converge, they will make-do with PDAs (as some dedicated readers have) and laptops (talk about lugging about something that is almost impossible to read under all but ideal conditions).

So the odd thing is not that readers become more like present day computers and phones, but in the end computers and phones become more like readers.

My view, for what that is worth will happen when flexible, fast and colourful eink is used, can be rolled up and and better input devices than keyboards are created. That is some years off yet.

Meanwhile a reader is no extra for readers.

When textbook publishers make their content available in ebook form, reaching all the way down into high schools, then you’ll have generations growing up with a comfortable reading device.

It won’t be long, though, before comfortable reading/viewing devices will all be one personal gadget.

Personally, I like reading devices because my eyes are getting bad. Loved my Rocketbook. Waiting for my Kindle.. and fearful that the Kindle won’t be as good for hot flash reading late at night as my Rocket was.

Well, I’m 29 and I love ebook readers. I have a CyBook, and am longing to get an e-ink device. Personally, I don’t like convergence devices – they seem to do a lot of things badly, instead of doing a few things really well. Sure, I use my Palm to read books when I’m out and about, but at home I would much rather read something with a decent sized screen.

If convergence means going any smaller, then it just isn’t going to work for me. I read mainly ebooks now on a couple different devices (770 and DT375). The 770 is a little small for me even. I want a reader with a 5.6″ or larger screen. I want one that has backlight so I can read in bed without an addon light or lamp. I would be willing to pay $300 or so for it.

I don’t agree that this generation of readers will not buy a dedicated device for reading. Many of us already have them. I would, however, welcome a unified device as long as it matched the specs above. I don’t think e-Ink will work if it doesn’t have a backlight (especially if it is a unified device).

P.S. I forgot I also have an EB-1150, although I don’t use it anymore. 🙂

I agree with the convergence arguments. General purpose machines with excellent screens, long battery life and responsive interfaces will eventually take over the space that dedicated readers are trying to create — just as the iPhone and its ilk are already in the process of displacing dedicated music players like the iPod.

While I have a Sony Reader and a tablet PC, I find that I now use my iPhone for nearly all of my ebook reading (except for comics and graphic novels, which demand a bigger screen). I always have the iPhone on me, the battery life is good, the screen is beautiful and its interface is responsive and gets out of the way. None of the other devices come close to this combination. Once it has true support for ebooks, it will be even better. And when an iPhone-like device optimized for larger-screen tasks becomes available, then dedicated readers will go extinct — unless they can compete with drastically lower prices.

Several things:

1) My personal fear is that if I have an ebook reader with a web browser, I will be pulled away from the book by the Call of the Net

http://www.sciencehumor.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/research-paper.jpg

2) When I was using the 770 as an ebook reader, I was always conscious that I was using electrons on reading instead of — you guessed it — WiFi for the Net

3) We have absolutely no idea what is in the labs right now in terms of early prototype screens or power sources. Eventually, those two things will converge and the Ultimate Device will emerge. I’d just like to still be alive (with good enough eyes and sound enough mind) to see that.

4) Of course, even with #3, we’ll still have the DRM and file formats battles.

The problem with convergence is that a lot of times certain features suffer. They usually do one thing really good and other functions so-so. I can read ebooks on my Treo 750, but the screen is too small and the battery life will suffer if I read too long. That’s unacceptable since I have to use it as a phone. I could read ebooks on my iPod Touch, but I don’t particularly care for having to use my finger to flick to the next page. I prefer a hard button to turn the page. If there were a convergence device that actually succeeded functionally in all areas without sacrificing battery life, I would definitely buy it. Until then, I’ll continue to buy dedicated devices.

I would have to disagree with your daughter and I’m near her age group. Multi-use devices are ok as a convenience but a specialized reader will do better for day to day reading.

I read a lot, I’ve used PDAs laptops and even crts to read books and technical manuals. One of the main problems with all of the portable devices like PDAs is that they can not display a full size PDF. Many of the technical manuals I read have graphics or are formatted for full sheet size. The larger the screen size the more useful the device will be for graphic novels, PDFs, images, magazines, and newspapers.

Color would be great on a reading device but not a requirement. The main things I want in a reading device are: large screen, long battery life, annotations, searchable text, and be able to handle DRM free formats. Nice to haves include touch screen and wireless access.

I will buy a dedicated reader when the price/performance meets my needs.

As mentioned in another post, for me e-ink is a major bust right now (slow, no integrated lighting, no touch screen outside of the super expensive Iliad).

Its selling features – long battery and outdoors reading are sort of irrelevant for me; my 770 does 4-5 hours, I rarely want to read in full sunlight and anywhere else it works beautifully; pdf is slow but I started using the iPod Touch for that and is much better though it still needs true e-book support not ad-hoc hacks

Regarding reading experience, if I want print like, well I’d rather read a print book; both 770 and the Touch have better than print experience for me, with customized background color (black) and text (yellow-orange) for the 770

Paul,

It would be interesting to see what Erin thought of http://www.booksinmyphone.com while Sony and Kindle are fresh in her mind. They offer books you can read in cell/mobile phones, it’s a fairly easy converged device reading experience to try.

I have a hard time letting Erin speak for our generation- sure, the last time I went on a trip I had an iPod, iPhone, Sony Reader, MacBookPro and listened to Sirius Satellite Radio, but I didn’t feel that all of those devices made the Sony Reader pointless- it actually replaced the many books I otherwise take on trips. The iPhone isn’t kind enough to the eyes for a long read.
Does anyone remember Penny from Inspector Gadget? When they make the Computer Book she had I’ll go with a convergent device. Until then each of my devices has a place in my media-saturated life!

I must disagree with Erin, and I am close to her age (32). While I am an electrical engineer, an MIT grad, and male, I actually don’t like gadgets that much. I don’t have a laptop (I need a desktop and giant LCD at work to do engineering and use a mac mini at home), I don’t have any portable video game platforms, or a smart phone, or even an iPod. My cell phone is ultra-basic (motofone F3), and the only other thing I carry around in my bag is a small digital camera. But I absolutely see the utility of an ebook.

I am an avid reader, which apparently most people in my generation are not. Boston Globe (yes, I even read newspapers, which is even more rare for someone my age) had an article the other day that said something like 50% of people my age _never_ read a book for pleasure. I buy tons of books from Amazon every year, and its mostly stuff that I’m not going to want to clog up my bookshelves with and won’t ever re-read. A lot of sci-fi, vampire romances, etc. So to me something like a Kindle would make a lot of sense. A good quality, reflective screen, good battery life, getting books from Amazon is easier cheaper and faster than paper, and stuff from other places is easy enough to get on there via usb or kindle email. I think DRM is annoying but I don’t care that much since for 90% of what I read I’m never going to read it again or want to read it on another device; so I can accept it as long as the use model is compelling enough.

I am mystified why people feel like color or touch (much less multitouch) is required to read novels, or why the are going to want to be watching sports clips or whatever while trying to read a book.

I can see why ebooks are not for everyone though.

I´m 31 and I was waiting for a good ebook reader for almost half of my life. It´s not my fault that the older ebook reader sucked. If they were as good as the actual ones I would have got an ebook reader 10 years ago ;o).