Quote:
Originally Posted by davidfor
[*]More innovative products - There isn't really anything innovative about any of the devices.
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Innovations ereaders:
- Sony: eink
- Touch (pros and cons of capacitive, IR & digitizer and all are 20th C.)
- Front light (pros and cons)
There has been slow incremental improvements to eink and not as much as there has been in LCDs. Early graphic LCDs were greyer than original eink, mono and abysmal viewing angle. However inherently LCD is transmissive and eink is opaque, so LCD does colour well and existing eink technology can never do colour well.
There are only minor variations possible on ereaders and the improvements are mostly just the eink panel. Options like audio (jack or BT), buttons, SD card slots and waterproofing are not innovations:
3.5mm jack socket and digital Audio: 1980s
Bluetooth: 1998
Touch: Capacitive, IR, Resistive, digitiser are all at least 1980s.
Front light: Glass (later plastic) light "pipes" to illuminate from the front from 1930s.
SD card: 1999, based on 1997 MMC.
eInk/ePaper: Xerox in 1970s. Sony ereader based on eInk 2004, A watch 2005. Kindle was late 2007. Sony Frontlight & Touchscreen in 2008.
Waterproofing: Both by thin coating and package design are over 70 years old.
Any improvement in eink "whiteness" without a frontlight has been marginal since 2016 (Carta & Mobius).
Almost all competitors to eInk company have been bought and buried.
There hasn't been real ereader innovation since about 2008, just incremental panel brightness/contrast quality improvements till about 2016. Then incremental increases in resolution and size.