Quote:
Originally Posted by elcreative
Horrible idea... I read, stop for a few minutes... slide switch and release... finish whatever... slide switch and release, carry on reading... how is complicating interface with multi-key ops an improvement over a simple slide and let go!
Each to his own...
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Take some time to READ what I proposed before you 'shoot from the lip'.
Your Idea SHUTS DOWN the reader to try to extend battery life, but will not save ANY of the power used by the touch screen while actually reading.
My idea would allow users to easily and quickly shift back and forth to a Kindle like "key-press-page-turn-only" mode that would still allow FULL USE OF THE READER,
but with greatly extended battery life.
It's not something you would have to fiddle with every time you want to turn pages, because in the touch-turns-disabled mode, YOU WOULD JUST USE THE PAGE TURN BUTTONS, and would be no worse off than with readers like a Kobo or Kindle that lack touch screens.
It would be really nice to be able to switch modes if you happen to jump on airplane or cruse ship for a two week vacation, and realize that, although you remembered to load several books, YOU FORGOT THE CHARGER.
Having the OPTION to get 'Kindle like' battery life, with a 'Kindle like' key-press-page-turns would also highlight the fact that the Sony is not an 'inferior technology' when it comes to battery capacity, or power-saving design, it's just that having the luxury of doing touch-screen-swipe page-turns uses power that creates a slight but constant drain on the battery.
Lastly, I am only talking about an OPTION, that pin-heads who don't want to take the time to understand, and who don't mind charging their reader every three or four days, DON'T HAVE TO USE.
Edit:
Also, the method I proposed never disables the use of the touchscreen for pop-up screen menus HOME, ZOOM, or OPTIONS (only for page turns).
So, there could ALSO be a simple menu option under the main "settings" page for those who are befuddled by haveing to press two side by side keys for two seconds. (there are already several other options that can be set in more than one way, so this would be consistent with the other elements of the existing interface)
So, under "Page Turn Preferences" instead of just having an option for -
'Left-to-Right' and 'Right-to-Left' , we would ALSO be able to simply chose "Disabled".
This could also be added the "Options" pop-up menu that shows up while reading, so it could be popped-up and changed very quickly.
The key things to remember are -
1. Page turns would ALWAYS be available via the page turn buttons below the screen.
2. This would NOT disable the touch screen for control purposes or option setting ONLY for reading features like page turns, highlighting, hyper-links, etc. (so you could ALWAYS use the touch screen to quickly re-enable touch-page-turns for example).
It might be confusing that there would be a big power savings when the touch screen would still be available for control purposes, but this would be because you have to hit HOME, ZOOM, or OPTIONS, first and then the reader's firmware could take note of this and activate the touchscreen scanning ONLY while you were using those functions, and disable again when reading. This would save more than 99% of the power used to keep the touch screen active.