Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
The person who wrote that article doesn't love reading specifically; he loves physical books and handling them, and thus got turned off from digital books.
I did buy some (large) physical books, because they are either not available on an e-reader (most of the "History of Middle Earth" series by Christopher Tolkien), or are better on paper (illustrated books), but... it's... difficult.
Because I wanted to read the illustrated version of the Hobbit, I did so on paper, and it's a fairly large book. While I love reading, I didn't enjoy reading that book after having an e-reader for four years now.
I even start to wonder: should I have spent all that money on those favourites I wanted an illustrated edition of? Should I have bought the "History of Middle-Earth" books sight unseen? All of these books are huge, and around 4 inches thick.
Will I ever read them, now that I have discovered that I don't like handling those large books any longer? The only paper books I still like are those you normally read at a desk, which is mainly study material.
The things I need from a digital book are the following:
- An open format, widely supported and convertible into other formats
- Flawless technical execution and good markup/layout
- Correct metadata
- No DRM
Given those four points, it's almost certain a book will convert into whatever format will be used down the line.
So yes, at some point, I *hope* ebooks will stagnate and get 'stuck' technically. IMHO, EPUB2 can already stay as it is. I don't need video's and other stuff in my books. It's a book, not an interactive movie or a website.
That's the same thing I always think when people say that they don't reread a book or rewatch a movie. Then why buy it at all?
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The author seemed hypercritical of the format limitations of Amazon, and I think that was correct to a degree. But I also agree with you that Epub 2 can just freeze in time right now and I'll be content.
I've come to the conclusion that the best time for ebooks was right at the Kindle Keyboard and nook Simple Touch. Once they put lights on those things and ruined the contrast, removed the page turn buttons, my reading experience on them got worse rather than better, plus battery life suffered. If I buy another Kindle it will likely be without the light, and if they wanted to seal the deal they could put page turn buttons on a slightly wider bezel than current Kindles. When my old nook Simple Touch has better contrast and clearer text than my Paperwhite--there has been some stagnation. And that is without all the light/color/shadow issues people have complained of with the lighted e-ink devices.
I would like to see Amazon incorporate text-to-speech in their Android tablet app. I can't see any good reason for it not having that feature as Moon+ and Fbreader have that function. I shouldn't have to buy a crippled Fire Android tablet to have Amazon's Kindle text-to-speech function, again, the old Kindle Keyboard even had that. So have we stagnated with Kindles, I think so. We lost features from Kindle Keyboard onward on e-ink. As for files, Kobo seems to do a better job allowing format changes than Kindle.
Mirky contrast with lighted Kindles compared to those without lights, no more page turn buttons, no more text-to-speech on e-ink or mp3/audio, shorter battery life, and with the first Paperwhite less battery and storage, yes, some stagnation overall.