Quote:
Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan
I agree: A color e-ink device could be the hardware everyone wants to have... especially if it can be used to read full-color magazines, newspapers, comics, etc, and especially if it allows the user to "snip and save" pieces of articles, photos, ads, etc, in a sort of "scrapbook" for future use, and discard the rest when done.
I see the "scrapbook" function as a potential killer-app for any periodical-reading device. Combine that with color, and you should have a hit.
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Agree completely, the primary thing not getting the attention is the underlying software to manage using the device. I have long felt until there is good study/research management software on these readers they will be mere shadows of what the potential they represent.
Now not everyone will need a full featured device of that type but by then a simple reading device will be in the checkout at the grocery store for $25.
Color is without a doubt a key component to let readers reach their potential. At least with the advent of the LCD LED backlighted panel devices gives the mfg's and developers a working platform on which to build the app suite needed. I like to use programs like MS OneNote (anymore I would not get anything done w/o OneNote) and in the past Evernote was a favorite. There are a few similar apps which could be used as a starting point. Much as I don't care for the company itself the iPad is a very close glimpse of that potential realized. So is the enTourage Edge and it's new smaller brother.
Still as always power is the bug-bear which the screen tech can pretty much make go away w/o any improvement in the power tech used today. Next is the need for connectivity, and it needs pretty much constant/on-demand connectivity beyond just wifi.
I would be thrilled with a daylight readable dual 7"-8" panel device as my OTG hardware letting me leave the laptop at home. Hence, why I am coming around on the new small enTourage Edge (sorry I forget the exact name but it has a thread here somewhere and is for sale on HSN), it's as close to the Courier as we have seen to date.
I firmly believe the software/firmware is where every single reader to date has failed to deliver. Too much time has been spent on what amounts to very simplistic hardware. And this perplexes me no end, the hardware used on ereaders is nothing special, in fact it is old, inexpensive but proven hardware. Yet little attention has been spent on the underlying software. Worse is not as if we don't already have similar apps on PC's but too much is made of the money in multimedia and developers all seem interested in YAMP (yet another media player)...we must have a billion and a half of those, lets really get these devices delivering.