Impact on iPad?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by troymc

I know a half-dozen people who own Sony 505s, and not one of them uses any of the additional features (eg mp3 player, picture viewer, games.) They bought them to read ebooks. Dedicated ebook readers are only "crippled" from your point of view.

mp3 playing - drains the battery far too quickly.
Picture viewer - hardly worth it on a grayscale screen
Games - refresh rate far too slow
It is used as a dedicated device because it isn't any good at the additional functions. That was the point.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by boswd

you see what gets me is, I'm willing to wager that about 90% of the people are not buying the iPad FOR the e-book reading feature, but more for web browsing, streaming movies and videos, all the fun apps and the ebook reader is a "cool i guess" extra.

as where people buying the Nook, Kindle,sony etc. are buying them FOR e-reading.
Just because the press wants the iPad to kill e-readers doesn't make it so.

In numbers terms, how does 10% of iPad sales compare to 100% of Nook sales?

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by troymc

I'm not sure if you even meant that post as a rational statement, but here goes anyways...

I know a half-dozen people who own Sony 505s, and not one of them uses any of the additional features (eg mp3 player, picture viewer, games.) They bought them to read ebooks. Dedicated ebook readers are only "crippled" from your point of view.

No, they're pretty crippled. They are advertised and marketed as reading devices, and the awful extra features are not only far inferior to the primitive reading function, but are also not actively marketed and are generally disregarded. If the devices were at all competent at handling more diverse media, they would be marketed accordingly.

The current ereader market shows you are badly mistaken. The reason ereaders like the Sony, Kindle & Nook are so successfully is because they work well as ebook readers - even with their current faults.

I'm sorry but you are not contradicting me. I said they are crippled devices. I in no way said they were unsuccessful in the marketplace.

And are you attempting to imply that "displaying badly typeset text" would somehow be better on the iPad with it's color LCD + bells & whistles?

No. Not unless there were good software for it. That's why I mentioned that.

The characterisation of the text is more a quality of the document not the reader - although some readers do have issues with some parts of existing standards. (eg. older ADE-based ereaders can't handle justification, iPad can't handle embedded fonts, etc.)

There are a rare few that have choppy support for some elements like hyphenation (I think Stanza had some support, and FBReader supports it...), kerning, and other pleasantries, but it's pretty hilarious what the general state of the art is at the moment, and even more hilarious what people are willing to accept (or in the case of MR members, sometimes prefer).

Again, your "guess", your "idea". I know a couple of people who actually have iPads - not one of them bought it for the ereader capability. In fact, only one actually has any books on his.

Apologies for the confusion; I was trying to be slightly less pompous by using language that admitted assumption. I know a couple iPad owners myself (wow, small world huh), and am happy to stick with my assumption based on a limited sample size of acquaintances, an apparently active press interest in the subject, and my own consideration of it for precisely that usage scenario.

If, in your opinion, there aren't even any "decent ebook reading programs" for the iPad, then why would people "buy iPads primarily for reading"? And how could you possible see it as an non-crippled ebook reader?

I do see it as another mostly crippled reader, but my knowledge of software for it ceased a few weeks or a month after its release, and I'm willing to admit there may be far superior ebook reading platforms than iBooks and Kindle for it. People are happy buying the Kindle, Nook, and many other crippled readers, so naturally such an outrageous phenomenon is possible.

Your points of view are inconsistent and do not seem to match reality.

Interesting reality.

[BenLee]

From what I have seen, 95% of iPad owners do NOT buy iPads primarily for reading. Reading is just a "nice to have" feature for most iPad users. But when you are throwing down $500-800 bucks for a new gadget, you will justify the purchase with any reasons that seem to fit. It's by combining a multitude of these factors that you end up deciding that "yea, it's worth it."

So maybe a person isn't really a heavy reader, but reads on occassion, and enjoys comic books, and likes magazines, and frequents youtube... In that case, the iPad seems like a perfect fit because even though they may not use all of these features all the time, they use some of these features some of the time. Now, if you ask this person if he/she bought it for reading, they will say "yes."

Is that really true? Maybe not. Theres just too many other devices that are perfect for reading that he could have purchased instead. Why didn't he? Probably because of all the other cool features he REALLY wanted, but couldn't really justify to himself.

[troymc]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

mp3 playing - drains the battery far too quickly.

Will the battery drain slower on a general purpose device like the iPad?

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Picture viewer - hardly worth it on a grayscale screen

Granted. Although that is somewhat subjective.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Games - refresh rate far too slow.

The games which are implemented (eg chess, soduko, etc) don't require high refresh rates, color screens, etc.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

It is used as a dedicated device because it isn't any good at the additional functions. That was the point.

My point is simply that that's what it's engineered for - they're not designed to be general purpose machines - so how can that be a fault?


Troy

[kjk]

I'm willing to wager that about 90% of the people are not buying the iPad FOR the e-book reading feature

Originally Posted by BenLee

From what I have seen, 95% of iPad owners do NOT buy iPads primarily for reading

Do you guys have links to the user surveys/data for these usage percentages? :P

[troymc]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

No, they're pretty crippled.
....
Interesting reality.

All of this simply begs the question of what does "crippled" mean to you?

Are the existing models perfect? No. Do they all have their individual faults? Yes. Are they all designed to be multimedia entertainment devices? No.

But, does any of that make them "crippled"?

Is there a problem with some manufacturers creating devices with a single primary purpose? and who might throw in a secondary, lesser capability? (eg. Sony w/perfectly usable mp3 player)

I can wait around until some reader meets some unreachable standard of perfection, or I can accept and use the existing state-of-the-art.

But I personally would not consider them "crippled" simply because they have not reached some futuristic, never-yet-attained, undefined goal.


Troy

[vaughnmr]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

If readers weren't as crippled as they are...

And this guy is a "wizard" on MobileRead????

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

And this guy is a "wizard" on MobileRead????

If you aren't aware, ebooks are a form of media not restricted to a crude, low-grade electronic device that some call "specialized" because it has an EPD.

[troymc]

Originally Posted by kjk

Do you guys have links to the user surveys/data for these usage percentages? :P

How about something like this:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Apple-....html?x=0&.v=1

"iBooks Not Flying Off Shelves"

1.5 book per iPad sold as of May.

That, of course, does not cover side-loaded content.

EDIT: I also noticed that the May Distimo report lists ibooks as the #1 free app downloaded for iPads from the appstore. So there is definitely some interest - which I don't think anyone would/has denied.

EDIT: that Yahoo article is pretty confusing. They seem to conflate "ibooks" the app, with "ebooks" the media. Is Apple really calling ebooks sold through their store "ibooks"? the same name as the app?

Troy

[kjk]

Originally Posted by vaughnmr

And this guy is a "wizard" on MobileRead????

Being critical, demanding, and realistic about the state of the eBook reader market are valuable traits here, imho.

[kjk]

Originally Posted by troymc

How about something like this:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Apple-....html?x=0&.v=1

"iBooks Not Flying Off Shelves"

1.5 book per iPad sold as of May.

That, of course, does not cover side-loaded content.


Troy

Exactly! Which is 1.5 more books than per Kindle or Nook that we have any hard numbers for from Amazon or B&N

The only real research I've seen done for actual buyers so far (as opposed to "everyone I know") is here: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/04/...6-had-iphones/

[troymc]

Originally Posted by kjk

Exactly! Which is 1.5 more books than per Kindle or Nook that we have any hard numbers for from Amazon or B&N

The only real research I've seen done for actual buyers so far (as opposed to "everyone I know") is here: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/04/...6-had-iphones/

Interesting! Thanks for that link.

According to those stats only 38% listed "reading ebooks" as a reason for buying.



Troy

[kjk]

Originally Posted by troymc

Interesting! Thanks for that link.

According to those stats only 38% listed "reading ebooks" as a reason for buying.

Troy

And, of course, they didn't ask for primary usage, or main reason for purchase.

[TallMomof2]

My husband borrowed a friend's iPad and I tried to read on it outside where I normally read off one of my other reading devices. I couldn't until about an hour before dusk because either the screen wasn't bright enough or the glare/reflections interfered too much. The iPad is a nice *indoors* device but I like to spend quality reading time outside when the weather permits. If I could read on it easily outdoors I would be seriously tempted to buy one.