Quote:
Originally Posted by Rizla
There's a lot of talk here that e-reader(s) available in America are adequate for reading and that the tech is perfect for the job. But what if I want to read an A4 pdf on e-ink? Can't do it, not with an American e-reader. But I can do it with a large-format European / Asian e-reader.
The extremely limited choice of e-readers in America might satisfy your needs, but they don't satisfy mine.
In addition, I want to use a large e-ink screen to double as a computer monitor. European tech is approaching that. It's just a question of software. In America, nada. America has fallen behind. Amazon's dominance has stamped out progress.
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My argument is not that the current crop of US e-ink readers is perfect for all uses, but rather has to do with the nature of innovation, and whether Amazon killed it.
To me, the most important thing about innovation is that it's not obvious. It isn't "more of the same." An e-ink reader for A4 or US letter size PDFs isn't an innovation, it's an obvious application of the technology. It's also proven to be an abject failure in the US market. The economics just haven't been there to produce one at a price people are willing to pay.
The large screen e-ink reader isn't an innovation Amazon killed, it's just a product no one was able to make economically viable in the US.
To me, things like syncing the same book across different devices, text to speech, buying books from the device with built-in 3G or Wi-Fi were innovations. So is audiobook syncing.
Front lighting was an innovation, so were touch screens. Amazon introduced or adopted most of the innovations, too.
In the end, though, both Amazon and Nook ended up focusing most of their resources on LCD tablets because every company has limited resources and they were bigger markets.
The simple fact that a company is not producing the device you, or any other specific buyer, may want does not mean they are killing innovation. It just means their priorities are different from yours.