Some of us were reading eBooks on small LCD devices known as PDAs long before eInk readers or tablets even existed. Granted the PDA users probably were mostly professionals and techie types who used them more for work than entertainment in the early days, say the mid-1990s. But by the time that eInk readers were being released many PDA users were using their PDAs for entertainment purposes. And speaking of entertainment, seems like reading can be considered entertainment in many cases! At any rate PDAs with LCD screens and entertainment type apps were used for reading by many long before dedicated eInk eReaders and even longer before iPhones and tablets became all the rage. Seems to me that dedicated eInk eReaders are located historically in the middle of eBook reading on handheld devices.

Perhaps the dedicated eInk eReaders have just been a temporary reading device type located between PDAs with very low resolution and low pixel density and modern tablets with very high resolution and high pixel density. EInk is still the best high lit area reading device IMO. But eInk technology does not seem to be improving much. EInk designers are not making quantum leaps in resolution and page refresh speed because they have hit a technological wall that seems impenetrable. Any new eInk devices are going to have lackluster improvements. EInk is/was/ and always will be merely a niche product for people who read a lot.

What that article failed to mention is that eBooks now out sell print books in the USA. I don't think the decline of eInk devices will impact that at all. EInk readers introduced a lot of people who read to eBooks and helped more than any other device type to make eBooks so popular, but eBooks will continue to grow in popularity regardless of whether eInk lives on or simply fades away to a grey that is too dim to read any more.