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A couple of points:
As someone who teaches at the university level, the fact is that other digital media are crowding out typography. Instead of reading assignments, students will go watch videos on youtube.
The relative success of the ipad shows that many people want to sink a couple hundred bucks into a device like an ereader, that does one thing really well. From a product development and marketing standpoint, the question is do ereader manufacturers want to expand their devices and chase the ipad (think pocketbook's new tablet) or do they want to hunker down and produce an even more specialized device which targets a smaller audience?
I'm a big fan of the latter approach because, well, I'm one of those weird persons that still likes to read. But I think the success of the ipad, ipod touch and htc evo as well as the kindle/kobo/nook price wars are giving a lot of companies cold feet. Witness Asus hrm and haw all summer long about releasing its ereader.
The future of ereading likely involves reading ebooks on a device whose primary purpose is something else. The rest of us will be stuck with fewer product choices than what we might have liked.
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