Quote:
Originally Posted by Larla
A UI on a touch e-reader that is not graphical is decades behind the technology curve.
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It's decades behind the *design* curve, not the technology curve. The technology is the same.
And it's not clear to me that using thumbnails of cover is superior as a matter of function or design. On a 6" monochrome reader, where 99% of what you do is select a book to read and then read it, choosing from a list of books is very efficient in terms of recognizing what you are looking for and maximizing screen usage.
Modern computer interfaces are not post-text, either: you may tap on icons to run programs, or to find a particular folder - but once you open the folder, you are presented with a list of files that you scroll through and select.
And even though something like iTunes offers you the choice of viewing and using your music library as a list, as a collection of thumbnails of cover art, or using "cover flow" to flip through the album art, everyone I know uses the text list.
(And of course my 25" screen is a lot larger than my Kindle's screen, it is color, and some music cover art is iconic and easily recognized even decades later. None of this applies to books - in fact, not only do they have different covers on hardbacks vs. paperbacks, but every few years they update the cover. This doesn't happen with "Abbey Road").
Having said all that, I would like the option of having the cover of the book I'm currently reading be the screensaver if I stop reading while in the book.