Quote:
Originally Posted by barryem
I think the idea of a perfect ereader from such an imperfect system is a bit silly. What is needed is real competition. We need lots of companies who aren't trying to sell us books to try to design the perfect ereader for us. Of course they can't because there's no such thing but that way we'll get whatever we want.
That could also lead to something else that would vastly improve ereading: a universal syncing service. What if you could read on your phone using whatever app you choose, get home and read on your Kindle and then at the office read on the Kobo or Sony reader you keep there, and always begin automatically where you left off. And any of those devices could download and read any book you got anywhere. That's a perfect system and it could lead to much more perfect ereaders.
If you look at the music industry, I can listen to my music on just about any device with no problem. I can buy music from a number of different companies, some of whom specialize in high quality Classical music, while others focus of easy of shopping and listening.
We just ain't got no competition. What we have is a lot of book sellers giving us good enough ereaders to sell us more books. They're doing a decent job of it within the limitations of the system but it's a bad system.
Barry
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In an ideal world, ebook sellers would sell ebooks that couple be read on any device and they would focus on improved selling experience and let the eReader vendors focus on the reading experience. That way, everyone would have plenty of choices to find what fits their needs. Certainly we would be closer to that without DRM.
Take a look at the music industry. I can listen to my music on a wide array of devices and buy my music from a wide array of stores. I can get very high quality Classical recording from a company in Europe and can buy music from either Apple or Amazon, and play music from all three without having to worry about where it came from.