Thoughts on eBook readers

Bargepole · Post by **Bargepole** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 2:12 pm

My £0.0135-worth: Kindle's great for reading but no good for anything you want to annotate -- I read with a pencil in my hand -- or stick post-its in. Obviously. But the BIG problem for me is you can't riffle through the pages. The technology has reduced reading to a linear process. Books were the original random-access device and that, ironically, has gone. You don't get physical feedback -- you know, that "I think it's about two-thirds of the way in on the top of a left-hand page" sort of navigation.

One thing they could easily implement is the "scrubber bar" you get in A/V editors. Or even, for Pete's sake, a scroll-bar. Clik clik clik back-clik clik clik... it gets a bit tiresome.

Otherwise, I love mine. But (this may have been already said) it's as well as, not instead of, "proper" books.

And even as a writer with a vested interest, I think there's an argument that the purchase of a book/e-book should allow you purchase of the other medium at 50% discount.

Still. We're at the beginning of this thing. We'll see.

Oh, and one more problem which would have scuppered me in my youth. I used to hang around at parties looking (so I thought) interesting and mysterious with a copy of something obscure in my hand -- Pliny's Naturalis Historia, or something by Baudelaire (written in Foreign, and beyond my actual comprehension) -- in the hope that some sad-eyed beautiful girl would come up and talk to me. Didn't work, but I lived in hope.

Still, I suppose now, I'd look moodily into my Kindle screen, occasionally uttering a contemptuous bark of cynical laughter. "Say, handsome, what are you reading on that thing?"

Nah. In my dreams. I am so glad I'm not young any more...

jww · Post by **jww** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 9:06 am

Good points, Michael. I admit to having similar feelings -- I like books when I am after random searching, wanting to annotate, etc. But for the sheer portability of reading linearly, my Kobo is about as perfect as it gets for me.

Although, I admit that my wife is frequently annoyed when I am reading in bed with the constant click-click-click of the navigator button. I speed read -- and on the Kobo, I flip through pages like a hot knife through butter.

fallingwickets · Post by **fallingwickets** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 3:40 am

I speed read --

except for a woman or two, my regrets are very limited, however, not being able to read quickly is high on the list. When i was a kid and offered the chance to be taught how to 'speed' read i declined the offer.

clive

Squire · Post by **Squire** » Fri Jun 03, 2011 7:09 am

I take book to bed ignoring her viewing of popular television programing until they make her feel cosy and want to turn my page down. Guess there's some value to tv after all.

GA Russell · Post by **GA Russell** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:41 am

Borders.com has on sale through the 13th the original Kobo reader for $59.99.

http://www.borders.com/online/store/Tit ... A_20110608

jww · Post by **jww** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 4:28 am

The original Kobo is a fine e-reader -- excellent for that application, and at this price is a great deal.

However, beware that the page turning button can be a tad loud and may be disturbing to those trying to sleep while you are trying to read.

GA Russell · Post by **GA Russell** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:13 am

My hunch is that for the next few years, each company's new models will be priced in the $100 range, and that what we will see sinking are the prices of the old "last year's models".

rustyblade · Post by **rustyblade** » Tue Jun 14, 2011 7:57 am

I really think the lack of page turning buttons on the Kobo is a huge mistake. Most ereaders can be held and read using one hand, try turning a page using one hand on the new Kobo.

fallingwickets · Post by **fallingwickets** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 6:25 am

Off topic, but on track anyway(??), from todays metro diary:

Dear Diary:

In a world before search engines, the go-to source for instant information was the human mind. And no mind searched faster than a New York City librarian’s.

Two decades ago, I needed the source of an obscure hymn for a research project. When thumbing through old hymnals proved fruitless, I headed for the reference room of the public library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. I stated my mission to the young woman behind the desk, chanting “Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings.”

She lifted her eyes to some point far, far away and immediately said, “Sounds like Cowper.” Like a shot, the librarian led me past rows and rows of shelves and selected an antique book. Of course, she was spot-on.

Today, Google instantly tracks the same hymn. But can it hand me an elegant old volume of verse in half calf as well? I think not!

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/nyre ... f=nyregion

clive

m3m0ryleak · Post by **m3m0ryleak** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:18 pm

Amazon's marketing machine was starting to tempt me into getting the Kindle but this thread put on hold on that seduction. Wendell's comments prompted be to sign up at Kobo for at least the Android app, cruising the freebies as we speak. So does one actually "own" their e-book or is it some 21st century electronic "lease"?. I'm still smarting over giving up my defective Tivo DVR for DirecTV's p.o.s that I only "rent".

GA Russell · Post by **GA Russell** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 3:22 pm

Tony, with the Amazon Kindle you are buying a license which they can revoke. No court has ruled on whether those terms are enforceable.

Today the news is that the Kansas library system is claiming that they own their eBooks, not a license to them. They have the support of the Kansas Attorney General, and it looks like it will go to court.

jww · Post by **jww** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 4:41 pm

You do own when you buy other non-proprietary formats. Kindle is pretty restrictive, imo.

fallingwickets · Post by **fallingwickets** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 4:51 am

thats why i love ipad or similar........you can read any book using any system...kindle, kobo etc etc

clive

jww · Post by **jww** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 6:52 am

fallingwickets wrote:thats why i love ipad or similar........you can read any book using any system...kindle, kobo etc etc

clive

I just can't get my eyes around the iPad display for long-term reading. I can read my kobo for hours at a time (literally), but an with an iPad, my limit is around 20 minutes max in one sitting.

fallingwickets · Post by **fallingwickets** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 4:57 am

and forget taking the ipad into sunlight.....impossible to read, but still, thats what umbrellas were invented for!

btw, i think either kobo or nook edged out kindle in latest consumer reports ranking

clive

jww · Post by **jww** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 9:09 am

Technology - it's never quite perfect is it?

At least my shaves are always great .....

m3m0ryleak · Post by **m3m0ryleak** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 12:44 pm

Yesterday, I looked at my neighbor's "nook" and her son's iPad...reckon I'll need to trundle down to the nearest Borders to scope out the Kobo Touch reader. Best Buy(somewhere else) does not show them in stock.

Seamaster · Post by **Seamaster** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 12:10 am

jww wrote:Kindle is pretty restrictive, imo.

Except for choice of content, of course.

rustyblade · Post by **rustyblade** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 5:39 am

Seamaster wrote:
jww wrote:Kindle is pretty restrictive, imo.
Except for choice of content, of course.

Really? Why doesn't the kindle store have any Haruki Murakami e-books available? There are available from Kobo in .epub format.

But if you're talking about illegal content, then sure, you can easily find almost any book to load on it. I think a great deal of the popularity of e-readers is due to the ease of loading pirated books onto them which will destroy the industry in a decade or so. Unlike music artists, authors can't make their living doing concerts while people download their music for free. I stopped buying books for my e-reader and started buying mostly used paper books, and new from Book Depository.com because I refused to pay often the same, or more for ebooks that are infested with DRM and, once read, can't be loaned, sold, or donated. I realize the advantages or e-readers, I exclusively read on one for 18 months, but until the price of legal ebooks comes down to a reasonable price to reflect the restrictions of the format, say $5 for popular literature, I won't be buying. And don't get me started on the hopeless formatting many ebooks suffer from. The publishing houses are scanning much of their back catalog but doing a poor job proof reading it.

fallingwickets · Post by **fallingwickets** » Wed Jul 27, 2011 10:39 am

from a post today on the consumer reports blog:

Apple's in-app-purchasing rules mean inconvenience for e-book buys

Do you use an app from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo to get e-books and digital subscriptions on your iPhone, iPad, or other Apple device? Be warned: It's not going to be a simple swipe-and-tap process anymore.

Apple has changed the terms of its in-app purchasing policy, and now companies that want to sell digital content directly within an app on Apple devices owe Apple 30 percent of each purchase. Companies that don't want to give up that revenue now must make their customers buy content outside of the app—and some are modifying their apps accordingly.

E-reader apps such as the Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, and Kobo Wireless eReader apps, as a case in point, do still function on Apple devices, and users still have access to content purchased prior to the change. But links to online e-bookstores—the Amazon Kindle store, for example—are apparently disappearing from their respective apps. The Nook app has actually disappeared entirely and will be available again in an upgraded version that, responds to Apple's new demands, among other changes.

This development puts consumers in the middle of a conflict between Apple and app developers. And it threatens, at least for now, to make Apple's iBookstore the only one-stop option to buy titles on the company's devices.

Buying an e-book or digital newspaper with your Apple device may now require some inconvenient additional steps. For example, when we tried buying a book using the latest version of Kindle’s app on the iPad, we noticed that the link to the Kindle store had disappeared. We had to exit the app, open the iPad’s browser, and log onto Amazon’s Kindle site to make a purchase. Then we had to return to the app and sync it to our account, at which point the new content appeared in our library.

In a message to customers, Amazon made the following suggestion for quick access to Kindle books: "We recommend creating a bookmark in your web browser. Your Kindle books will be delivered to your Kindle application and automatically downloaded when you open the app."

If you have an older version of the Kindle app, try to avoid updating as long as you can. On an iPad with a prior version of the app, we were still able to buy a book from within the app. But we're not sure how long this function will exist.

If you're in the market for an e-reader, you can check out how individual tablets fared and which we recommend in our most recent Ratings, available to subscribers.

Apple rule change hits WSJ, Amazon, Nook apps [Washington Post]
Booksellers Alter App Sales [Wall Street Journal]

http://news.consumerreports.org/electro ... -buys.html

clive