why call it e-reader?

[temp]

i've been thinking. the e-reader is actually a low budget computer with very comfortable to read screen and low weight. wouldn't it be better if we just call it an eink-computer or something like that?
companies could just release a few basic programs, a developing environment, and the required libraries, and let the open source community deal with language compatibility, calender and whatever application that the community needs? this could help reduce the price since the software developing would be cheaper and support would cost less!

[Sweetpea]

Because I don't want a pocket computer with an e-ink screen. I want a book reader with an e-ink screen: an electronic reader...

[temp]

if it would be simple book reader there wouldn't be so many extras such as speakers, wifi, calender, home screen, browser. there is already an operating system in the background. admit it, it's a computer!

i'm just saying sell it simple as a computer with nothing installed on it, and let everyone upload/write whatever application they want.

[mr ploppy]

The same reason things like Gameboys or mobile phones aren't called computers. If they called it a computer they wouldn't attract their target audience. Plus a lot of the manufacturers want to tie you into their own book shop, so they wouldn't want people putting their own programs on it. A rival book shop might develop a program that lets people read their books on a competitor's device.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by temp

if it would be simple book reader there wouldn't be so many extras such as speakers, wifi, calender, home screen, browser. there is already an operating system in the background. admit it, it's a computer!

My toaster probably has an operating system. Does that make it a computer? As for my ebook reader, it neither has speakers, wifi, a calendar, a home screen or a browser. What does that make it?

Originally Posted by temp

i'm just saying sell it simple as a computer with nothing installed on it, and let everyone upload/write whatever application they want.

While that's a noble thing in theory, in practice, it just won't work. Asking people to *gasp* setup or configure a gadget right after buying it is too much for 90% of the populace. Even charging the batteries can be asking too much.
As for your implied OSS development of reader software, or OSS in general: While it's a fine principle, many open source projects are geared toward an audience that is somewhat more educated on computer usage than the "average" user. There be dangers in just asking everyone to please use what some geeks (no insult intended, I consider myself one) cobbled together in their spare time. (And again, no insult inteded towards the world of OSS, it's just that I wouldn't, for example, ask my mum to use most of the open source programs there are.)

[TGS]

It's a liseuse! (that sound you can hear, that's TGS running for cover).

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by TGS

It's a liseuse! (that sound you can hear, that's TGS running for cover).

It's an electronic device that reads ebooks. Thus, an ebook reader.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by temp

i've been thinking. the e-reader is actually a low budget computer with very comfortable to read screen and low weight. wouldn't it be better if we just call it an eink-computer or something like that?

You've made me wonder why we still call a computer a computer. When it got its name, that's basically what it did - compute complicated sums faster than a person could do it. Now compute is what it probably does least of all - maybe when you have the calculator application open or update a spreadsheet.

For the rest of the time it's more likely to be surfing the web, managing your email, recording your keystrokes in your latest best-seller, helping you to enact the life of a tomb raider or a counterstrike team member, etc.

So what's your new word for a computer? E-reader or even e-book reader seems to fit the bill wonderfully for something with which I spend 99.76% of my time reading e-books!

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by temp

i've been thinking. the e-reader is actually a low budget computer with very comfortable to read screen and low weight. wouldn't it be better if we just call it an eink-computer or something like that?
companies could just release a few basic programs, a developing environment, and the required libraries, and let the open source community deal with language compatibility, calender and whatever application that the community needs? this could help reduce the price since the software developing would be cheaper and support would cost less!

There's nothing to stop a company doing that if they wish. I imagine all the companies that make e-readers think they'll sell more, and thus make more money, by marketing them as dedicated e-readers.

Many electronic items have computers, and could run other software if the companies opened them up. Some people hack them and make them run other software anyway. But they're not called computers because they're not intended to be general-purpose devices, they're designed to do one or two jobs. We own a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner - it's got a computer, it can be hacked to do all sorts of things, but it's sold as a vacuum cleaner because more people will pay for a robot vacuum cleaner than will pay for a short, cylindrical robot.

[GhostHawk]

Its my little big box of books, and I'm going to love it, and squeeze it and call it George.

For me its not so much how its made, what is is, as what it does, hence ebook reader or E-Reader.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

It's a dingus.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by temp

i've been thinking. the e-reader is actually a low budget computer with very comfortable to read screen and low weight. wouldn't it be better if we just call it an eink-computer or something like that?
companies could just release a few basic programs, a developing environment, and the required libraries, and let the open source community deal with language compatibility, calender and whatever application that the community needs? this could help reduce the price since the software developing would be cheaper and support would cost less!

"e-reader" to me define a device whose main purpose is reading. If go go adding apps and all, e-ink tablet would be more appropiate word.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by TGS

It's a liseuse! (that sound you can hear, that's TGS running for cover).

I still prefer to use "book".

I'm reading a book. As simple as that...


*goes after TGS with a shotgun*

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I still prefer to use "book".

I'm reading a book. As simple as that...

*goes after TGS with a shotgun*

I sometimes refers to my cybook as "bouquin", that's a French word for book.

[Bikeridr]

Originally Posted by Manichean

It's an electronic device that reads ebooks. Thus, an ebook reader.

Actually, it does not *read* your book. It *displays* your book(s)
(Yes, I know, som newer ebook-readers do read it out loud for you)

Originally Posted by James_Wilde

You've made me wonder why we still call a computer a computer. When it got its name, that's basically what it did - compute complicated sums faster than a person could do it.

That's not entirely correct. A "computer" in the "olden days" was a person who did mathematical computations. "human computers".

Wikipedia article