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Originally Posted by nick101
Personally, I think adding apps later risks turning an e-reader into a tablet, with all that implies in the way of complexity, cost and battery life.
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Please explain to me just how exactly adding apps later is going to imply anything at all in the way of costs
for a device you already bought? Really, I am terribly confused how an open platform means whatever I payed in the past is suddenly going to increase in the future. They ship timemachines with those apps now? Though I jest - you are right, who would ever want to add additional functionality to a device they already own? Luckily Apple figured this out before they spend money on some crazy idea like an application store for their devices, surely nobody would ever have used such monstrosity!
For the record: Sony's PRS-600 is still very much closed off - a russian development group has managed to load a custom firmware giving access to an additional dictionary and clock, but this is far from an open system where you can just load any kind of application you want, despite it running linux - which demonstrates exactly how much the OS actually matters when the manufacturer does not want you to meddle. I will stay my rejoicing till I actually see some freely available SDK's to develop Nook applications.
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I think it's more likely that multiple-purpose devices—such as smart phones and the tablet Apple is rumored to be working on—will become the preferred means for accessing print content.
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And again an article completely misses the point. An eReader, unlike a smart phone or even a tablet, has two distinct trademarks: its battery life is far, far greater than that of any cellphone or tablet, and the eInk screen is far easier on the eyes than an LCD. These points and these points alone warrent the purchase of an eReader - just how many people here would spend $300 on a Kindle if its battery life was 3 hours and it used an LCD screen? While it might be true smartphones and tablets are used more often, they are far from the preferred device for reading and, untill they are equiped with foldable eInk screens, will remain so.