Quote:
Originally Posted by harryE123
...I am very disappointed at the development of the tec. Compromises, a still not close to paper image quality, drm everywhere, standards and formats havoc and vapourware galore, small screens, crap interfaces, laggy software...
... and amidst all this vapourware, still after all that time no decent 9.7" or larger reader: A couple of years ago there was this bob guy here shilling the aztac for months only to (supposedly) let us know that they had run into technical issues with the 9.7" (funny thing is a lot of people here bought that crap and even called me out for calling it like it is), then the plastic logic vapourware, then irex going bust. ...
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Perhaps this has already been said, but I didn't see it, so...
What are you doing about it?
Ereaders are a nascent technology, both in terms of hardware and software. Like the smart phone, the ereader suffers from the added problem that instead of being a new software technology run on mature hardware, or a new hardware technology powered by mature software, both the hardware and software are experiencing their early growing pains together. Add to that content and service providers who are trying their best to create vendor lock-in, and you have a real mess.
It isn't, however, an unprecedented mess. The browser wars (you may not have seen the hardware component of this mess, it was on the server side, but it was there), the early days of the digital audio market, the smartphone wars, and many other examples exist. Thanks to history, the way out of this mess is clear:
- Commoditize the software.Common, open software increases choice. This is why droid is kicking iPhone's butt. Commodity software and unregulated innovation lead to more consumer choice. The best way to get this to come about is by investing our resources (time, money, whatever you have to give) in an open source eReader platform like OpenInkPot. When it becomes good enough, it will be picked up by hardware manufacturers as a way to slash their development costs the same way smartphone manufacturers picked up Android.
- Increase compatibility.One of the natural consequences of commoditizing the software is that compatibility between different hardware and service providers is increased. This means you can choose the device you want, and trust that content from whatever provider you favor will work on it. No more vendor lock-in.
- Educate the consumer base.In the browser wars (which had little to do with browsers: it was really about who would control the web server market) and the advent of digital audio sales, consumer education was a *huge* factor. People believed that their MP3s compatibility problems were technical until the geeks got involved and made the issue of DRM mainstream. There was a time when nobody outside a few players believed that web standards could be a good thing. We have to become open standards evangelists to counter the well-funded marketing campaigns of those controlling the industry. Once people have the chance to choose, helping them cut through the marketing BS creates a market where providers really have to compete on price and quality.
OpenInkPot already looks pretty awesome (I haven't gotten my hands on an eReader device to try it with yet) but it has a long way to go, too. It needs more hands on deck. More people using it and reporting bugs, more developers working on making the software better, more volunteers doing bug triage and helping new users out, more documentation, more developer access to hardware (donations help big-time here), and so on. There's a critical mass of manpower that a project needs to achieve the kind of growth and maturity you seem to want -- you have the ability to make it happen.
I'm at least as disgusted with the current state of eReaders as you are. Too many formats, software that just isn't "there" yet, vendor lock-in, DRM, hardware nightmares, and ridiculous hardware and content provider posturing have made for a poor experience. Ereaders and ebooks are a growing market anyway because they will change the way we preserve and share information.
Let's do something about it. You don't have to be a coder to do it; I already listed many other ways to help.