Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Actually, the OP is 100% right.
The industry is *not* moving in the way he likes.
It *is* moving away from the needs/interests of hobbyists/enthusiasts. It is, instead, movingtowards the interests of mainstream consumers; away from focusing on reader devices and focusing on the activity of reading and the people themselves.
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I am sorry but this is marketing speak. "The activity of reading" and "the people themselves". I won't go into "people themselves" because this is imho a vapid comment. But how is the activity of reading fostered when people are tied to and confused by multiple closed formats, when they can't have larger screens to read with more ease, when people are tied to a particular bookstore and the screen tec is still nowhere near being identical to printed paper, etc., etc.?
Other than that I agree with most of what you wrote, but these again validate the fact that the technology hasn't evolved much.
I don't need a large flexible e-reader a la ipad which will be a converging device, I 'd like one, but I don't expect or demand one.
But the fact that after so long we still can't get a meagre 9.7 screen one that isn't tied to amazon to read an epub on that is a failure of the technology evolving to "focusing on the activity of reading and the people themselves.", not some wet fantasy a techie like myself might have of what they'd want a device to do.
p.s. sure one can get excited about future developments - tec history in the making is understandably exciting, but this excitement for me has been compromised by a lack of development in getting a modicum of current functional hardware. I really can't be too thrilled or excited when I can't get my hands on a fractionally larger screen and borrow some epubs from my library to read on, and 9.7" is just a moderately large screen.