Have ereader development peaked?

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

"A display" could be-- but not one based on eink. It simply isn't possible.

Not entirely true. You could do something like that if you did it in layers. Have a side lit LCD on top of an eink display. You'd have to figure out a solution to some glare problems, akin to the older Sony touch readers, though.

[misling]

Most of the improvements I want from my Kindle ereader are software - though I think some of them might require more processing power too.
I'd like indexing to be faster.
I'd like to have a comprehensive book management utility - 'collections' are cumbersome and insufficient.
I'd like to have more options for sorting books to the main display - for example, collections should have an option to show in collection name order.
I'd like the Kindle not to slow to a crawl when you fully load it with books - the advertising says it can hold 3000 books, but performance becomes unacceptable long before then. This is a function of the database design (or rather the complete lack thereof), but could also be fixed by brute force with more processing power.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

Not entirely true. You could do something like that if you did it in layers. Have a side lit LCD on top of an eink display.

You would then throw away all the battery life advantages of eink. The way LCD technologies work as that when no electrical field is applied, the Crystals suspended in Liquid are oriented randomly, blocking light from passing through, making them opaque. When an electrical field is applied, the crystals align perpendicular to the surface of the screen, allowing light to pass through. Therefore, for an eink display under the LCD to show through, the LCD panel would have to be switched on (and constantly drawing power) at all times. And surely would cut down hugely on the amount of reflected light reaching and bouncing back from the eink display to the outside.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

A good analogy. "Pocket" calculators used to be bulky, cost hundreds of dollars, and require a 9-volt battery because they had vacuum tubes for a display. Now? College math students might need a fancy calculator costing $50, the typical buyer might buy one that cost $5 or $10-- but almost everyone would have all their needs met by a calculator that costs a buck.

Now, I doubt that we will see $1.00 ebook readers because of the size of the display compared to a pocket calculator-- the bargain ebook readers'll probably set you back a full five bucks.

(BTW, thanks to PRS+, my Sony Reader is now my calculator.)

My "pocket calculator is 25+ years old and still works... big buttons, big LCD nd solar powered without an instant-on battery. I expect it to work another 25 years...

Much of the "slowness" of e-readers (other than e-ink limitations) is the firmware. And as the CPU's get faster, the more bloat will be in the firmware. Or why I use Word 97...

By the by, if you follow MP-3 music players, they peaked as a product in 2007...They are now made cheaper (i.e. crappier), and dropping features.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

And as the CPU's get faster, the more bloat will be in the firmware. Or why I use Word 97...

[pidgeon92]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

And Pidgeon: Your Sony can look up foreign words now! Just change to the Spanish to English dictionary.

I actually did try using this dictionary when reading the book, but it wasn't terribly useful.... There was a lot of slang and colloquialisms in the text, and for a long sentence it's inconvenient to look up each word. Instead, I read the book near my computer, and used Google Translator to translate complete sentences, and some of the slang words I was able to look up in some online urban dictionaries.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

I think so. . .

I think ebook reading will become part of a multipurpose device to the point where stand alone ebook readers simply don't exist any more. In the meantime, I think we will see a race to the lowest possible price point for stand alones, and I think the narrow margins means MUCH less R&D.

Look for Sony to exit the market in 6 months to a year.

Technically the Kindle is already a multipurpose device if you think about it. For example I can read on it, listen to music, play games, do some math, and write notes to myself as well as noting down appointments that I have coming up.

[ebusinesstutor]

Originally Posted by AlbertaCowboy

As soon as they make a Sean Connery text to speech option, I'll buy a Kindle!
"It wash the besht of timesh, it wash the worsht of timesh".
Pure magic.

It is uncanny. I could hear him saying it while I read this post.

[ebusinesstutor]

I think convergence will change the ereader and it will be quite different in 10 years. It will do more - web, email, calendar, and tell your fortune.

I think of it like Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) like the ole Palm Pilot. Once a common business tool, but now their functions are taken over by smart phones and people don't want to carry both.

I think ereaders and tablets will converge into a single type of device. Some may have e-ink or future innovations, but they will all do the same basic functions.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

With the new Nook and Kobo touchscreen readers, I'm concerned that we're going to look back and decide that ereaders peaked in their development with the previous generation.

Are we now in a race to the bottom, where features like physical page turn buttons disappear (as in the Kobo, not yet in the Nook) in favor of a bunch of hoo-hah like finger swiping to turn a page that doesn't even exist?

Will quality of construction suffer in that race to be the cheapest?

I saw this happen with VHS recorders back in the day, where prices went down and so did picture quality until I found myself longing for my old, heavy machine that actually delivered a decent picture.

Maybe I should be stocking up on K3's.

I'm not really sure I'm understand how touch screen is a race to the bottom. It sounds more like you are substituting your personal preferance for fact or industry advancements.

One could argue, quite easily in fact, that the Kindle's hardware out of all the major ereaders seem to be a generation behind.

We live in an age of touchscreen. From ATM's, to retail and grocery store checkouts, to our phones, our GPS etc. If anything the Sony's, Kobo's and the new nook are actually keeping ereader's afloat in today's world of rapidly advancing tech's.
Can't imagine a 15 year who has an iPad and then giving a choice of a kindle or one of the three ereader's they would choose the kindle. And remember the kids are our future.

Swiping a finger or tapping the screen to "turn a page that doesn't exist" is not the best example. Having a nook classic I do have the opprotunity to do both. And I can assure you clicking a button is no where near as natural as flicking a finger to turn a page when reading. And to be honest you are still clicking a button to turn a page that isn't there as well, let alone this is how we navigate all our devices we use on a daily basis.

We swipe a finger to change homescreens, we tap a screen to open an application.

clicking buttons I'm afraid is the genereation that will be left behind. I would be shocked if Amazon kept it's same navigation hardware in place with the upcoming Kindle. And that's not to joing the race to the bottom, that is the race to keep ereaders from becoming a niche market, in this world of tablets.

But I do agree the technology in eink itself needs to improve in a faster rate. Looking back the best advancement it has had has been the Pearl Screen which is nothing more than a better contrast ratio. It's been company's hardware that has been making eink more relative to today's world.

Eink needs to incorporate more animation in it's refresh rate of different screens. It has to lose the flashing. It needs to have color, it has to stop looking like technology from the 1980's.

I love eink but if advancements aren't made soon, and these tablets continue to shrink in price, I'm afraid eink ereaders will be nothing more than a niche market.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by boswd

One could argue, quite easily in fact, that the Kindle's hardware out of all the major ereaders seem to be a generation behind.

I'd have to say-- an ebook reader without a physical keyboard is like a fish without a bicycle.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by boswd

We live in an age of touchscreen. From ATM's, to retail and grocery store checkouts, to our phones, our GPS etc.

ATM's and grocery store checkouts have both touch and buttons. I've literally gone for month's without touching a screen—and without having to jump through hoops to do so, so I'm not yet willing to concede that "we live in an age of touchscreen."

(I'm not saying we'll never see that age, just that we're not truly there yet)

[Rainmaker]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Maybe. But other than screen clarity, I can't think of one technological advance that would improve my current ebook reading experience. How will faster, thinner, and more capacity enhance my "Buy Book, Turn pages" habits? To be perfectly honest, I think we've already blown past the Rube Goldberg point with todays eReaders.

I think we might be mixing 2 concepts here:

1- what we think the current eReaders will evolve into
2- what technology is going to take over eReaders

It has happened with many things:
Laptops -> netbooks -> tablets.
phones -> phones with PC properties -> ............

Concerning the current standards, i would say we have reached the pyke. After this, everything would be tweaking into enhancement; slimmer, lighters, faster. But no real improvement will come.

If we take a technological gap (say a bending screen which we have been hearing for 4 years more or less); well, that would turn most eReaders obsolete.
That's my point of view at least; as Diap says, there isn't anything else to do concerning the product, but adding eyecandy and flashy buttons.

Concerning the screen: i prefer e-ink than LCD for the reflection factor; it doesn't bother with any soruce of light; going into a flexible LCD screen would be a step backwards in my opinion. But there is a market inclined into LCD eReaders (~tablets mostly), and thus, I see manufacturers pointing their sails into that direction, and leaving eReaders as they are. (same as it has happened to mp3, the first 3 years were incredible, after that, there wasn't nothing new except the name "iPod 4th generation"; there hasn't been any new development regarding mp3 players since....)

[CyGuy]

The problem I see now is that features are now being left off intentionally. Several mainstream readers are missing SD card readers. Several mainstream readers are limited to the kinds of files they support. Several mainstream readers do not have folder support. Several mainstream readers won't allow simple copy/paste from the host computer. I feel like vendors are attempting lock-in and are just making the readers less and less versatile all the time.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

You would then throw away all the battery life advantages of eink. The way LCD technologies work as that when no electrical field is applied, the Crystals suspended in Liquid are oriented randomly, blocking light from passing through, making them opaque. When an electrical field is applied, the crystals align perpendicular to the surface of the screen, allowing light to pass through. Therefore, for an eink display under the LCD to show through, the LCD panel would have to be switched on (and constantly drawing power) at all times. And surely would cut down hugely on the amount of reflected light reaching and bouncing back from the eink display to the outside.

Yes, but usually in the off state, the LCD is still fairly transparent. It may not be 100% transparent, but usually good enough that the untrained eye is fine. At least when it comes to monochrome LCDs.