[Faterson]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I don't think you understand the meaning of good enough.

And I don't think you understand what I'm talking about. I'm not interested in "good enough". I'm interested in excellence. So was Steve Jobs. The shoddy mobile devices with styluses and non-responsive screens, prior to the invention of the iPhone, were "good enough", weren't they? Yes, they most definitely were.

But Steve Jobs wasn't interested in "good enough", or in the expectations of the general public. He wanted excellence. And so do I, in terms of an e-reader. There are 7 billion people on this planet, and I'm 100% certain that there is a sizable market niche for an e-reader that is not merely "good enough", like the inept iBooks and Kindle, but superb.

The trouble is that, at this point, even I, a Marvin fan and user, can't recommend Marvin to my professional colleagues with good conscience. I just can't. So you can't say whether there would be a sufficient enough market for a truly superb, professional e-reader, because such an e-reader has not yet been created in the history of humankind.

Let's create it first, let's strive for that high aim, at least in our theoretical deliberations, instead of just being content with being "slightly above mediocre", and let's see what the future brings.

You guys started talking about "wishful thinking", so here is mine: I wish that the developers of Marvin, MapleRead, Hyphen, tiReader, Moon+ Reader Pro (etc.) joined forces and created ONE superb multi-platform e-reader that would offer all the features professional users need while studying books. Yeah, it ain't gonna happen – "wishful thinking", like I said. But joining forces and creating "The Mother of All E-Readers" would make perfect sense, instead of each developer creating their own product, each coming up short in slightly different ways.

I'm not giving up hope. Perhaps corporations have conscience, too, after all. (Mitt Romney said that corporations are people, too.) Perhaps, one fine day, Apple, Amazon, and Google will finally feel deeply ashamed of the inferior e-reader products they're offering, and they will, perhaps, set up a foundation to help create a top-notch e-reader to serve that minority, world-wide, who needs a professional e-reader. It's a minority, but given 7 billion people on the planet, I'm sure it's a pretty sizable minority.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You can't insist on anything.

Of course we can. App users provide their feedback to developers, and developers can take it or leave it. Very simple.

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Bashing a good app in an online web board because it isn't perfect in your mind merely drives the developer off and bores everyone else.

Just your private opinion, Phil (or Paul), and once again, dependent on your own (apparently "politically correct", or hyper-sensitive) definitions of terms like "bashing".

To me, stating the deficiencies of an app is not "bashing". It's stating its deficiencies, period. That's it. How could developers ever improve their apps if users never stated what the deficiencies are?

Originally Posted by rfog

Ok, man, change the concept: amateur use vs professional use.

Bingo!

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

I agree that professional use requires more features than amateur use. But the problem here is: we're talking about a READING app.

Terisa, you think there aren't professional readers? Think again. I am one. I earn my living partly by proofreading books. I might also be a literary critic, and then I'd be earning my living by reading books, too. I might be a literary scholar, or a college student majoring in literary studies. The market is definitely there – but the app to satisfy those users is not.