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Old 03-04-2009, 07:06 PM   #34
Moejoe
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Posts: 5,100
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Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: South of the Border
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thibaulthalpern View Post
Why would someone want to intentionally read a book length text or even journal article length text on a mini-screen like the iPhone or iPod touch? That's rather ridiculous and makes reading very limited. Such a tiny screen is no conducive to skimming and scanning. When I read academic texts (my field is anthropology) much of the time I skim through things and read portions that I deem necessary. The iPhone is a bad device for something like this. By the way, I own the iPod touch and I never use it to do lengthy reading.

Also, I'm not sure that to call eBook reading a new phenomenon a useful classification. We've been reading a lot of lengthy texts on the laptop screen for a while now. They may not be in the format of a book, but they certainly are lengthy. Examples include documents, internet websites, online journals, and so forth. With regards to reading lengthy texts, we've been doing that for a long time now (long in computer years). What is a little different is having digital reader devices. So, it's not the reading that that's new but rather what device the reading is done on.
I can give you a couple of practical answers to that question:

1: Money. An iTouch can be bought for around £130, significantly cheaper than the crop of e-book readers available at the moment in my country.

2: Portability: the iTouch/phone is small and fits into a jacket pocket. You can carry it wherever you go and it's unobtrusive.

3: Convergence: with an iTouch/phone I have a multi-function device. Make calls, listen to music, watch video, read books, it does it all.

My own reasons for getting an iTouch for reading were mainly to do with money. I got a good deal on an iTouch, £100 and the crop of readers available at the moment were either too expensive (Sony) not available (Kindle) or clunky-looking (BeBook, Hanlin etc).

I've managed to read a couple of full length novels on the device so far, nothin approaching War & Peace, mind you, but nonetheless it wasn't a terrible exprience. I will be purchasing the Txtr when it's released because it does doe everything I want and looks the part, and hopefully I'll have more money then. But to say the iTouch/phone is no good for reading dismisses all those of us who actually use the device and have little or no problems with the experience.
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