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emkay · 01-06-2007, 07:48 AM

Hi Neko,

I have been studying for an MSc in e-Learning since September, a course which is done completely remotely, no face-to-face, and I have stored and read all of the course material on the iLiad. The only time I printed out an article was when I once left my iLiad at home by mistake.

A giant leap forward for me was the zoom/rotate/continous modes for pdf. This was timely for me in that it made ALL of my PDF documents comfortably readable. Many of them were two-page-on-view scans of articles.
The next great advance was the addition of freehand notation to the PDF viewer software. Note writing and sketching is fine for me on the iLiad. There is a very short delay involved in the process, but you quickly adjust to this and forget about it. The only thing which is holding this feature back at the moment is stylus calibration.

Handwritten annotation capability puts the iLiad way ahead of other competitors in my view, particularly in an academic context. Without it you are forced to take notes on paper or on another computing device, which defeats some of the purpose of using an ebook.

I am with Mace in his scepticism about handwriting recognition and its value for text input. (Though I am interested by his indexing idea.) The iLiad's handwriting recognition is no worse but also no better than any other I have used. I also find onscreen tap-entry keyboards unusable. Other than for the capture of freehand text and sketches I do not see the iLiad as an input device, and so I don't share your priorities for tagging and the like.

I use my iLiad in combination with my desktop computer. I mirror my iLiad files on my desktop, and do searches in documents there. (This mirroring process should be possible wirelessly soon - it was promised in the last update but didn't make it.) Searching will be possible on the iLiad in future, but again, there is the crucial problem of text input. I anticipate iRex releasing desktop software which will also handle the handwritten annotations made on the iLiad.

My own priorities for improvements are to have an ebook device which is even more paperlike. For me this means much higher contrast than the iLiad; extreme speed of use (page refreshes, boot time, switching quickly + easily between multiple documents - all should be instantaneous); the possibility of colour, and a larger screen.

In terms of input capability, I can happily imagine a nice A4 device which slots into a dock with a built-in keyboard....

When we have that, along with the improved features above, computing power will probably have advanced enough so that the ebook will BE your desktop computer, as well as your mobile reading device.

01-06-2007, 07:48 AM	#5
emkay Zealot Posts: 103 Karma: 11 Join Date: Jul 2006	Hi Neko, I have been studying for an MSc in e-Learning since September, a course which is done completely remotely, no face-to-face, and I have stored and read all of the course material on the iLiad. The only time I printed out an article was when I once left my iLiad at home by mistake. A giant leap forward for me was the zoom/rotate/continous modes for pdf. This was timely for me in that it made ALL of my PDF documents comfortably readable. Many of them were two-page-on-view scans of articles. The next great advance was the addition of freehand notation to the PDF viewer software. Note writing and sketching is fine for me on the iLiad. There is a very short delay involved in the process, but you quickly adjust to this and forget about it. The only thing which is holding this feature back at the moment is stylus calibration. Handwritten annotation capability puts the iLiad way ahead of other competitors in my view, particularly in an academic context. Without it you are forced to take notes on paper or on another computing device, which defeats some of the purpose of using an ebook. I am with Mace in his scepticism about handwriting recognition and its value for text input. (Though I am interested by his indexing idea.) The iLiad's handwriting recognition is no worse but also no better than any other I have used. I also find onscreen tap-entry keyboards unusable. Other than for the capture of freehand text and sketches I do not see the iLiad as an input device, and so I don't share your priorities for tagging and the like. I use my iLiad in combination with my desktop computer. I mirror my iLiad files on my desktop, and do searches in documents there. (This mirroring process should be possible wirelessly soon - it was promised in the last update but didn't make it.) Searching will be possible on the iLiad in future, but again, there is the crucial problem of text input. I anticipate iRex releasing desktop software which will also handle the handwritten annotations made on the iLiad. My own priorities for improvements are to have an ebook device which is even more paperlike. For me this means much higher contrast than the iLiad; extreme speed of use (page refreshes, boot time, switching quickly + easily between multiple documents - all should be instantaneous); the possibility of colour, and a larger screen. In terms of input capability, I can happily imagine a nice A4 device which slots into a dock with a built-in keyboard.... When we have that, along with the improved features above, computing power will probably have advanced enough so that the ebook will BE your desktop computer, as well as your mobile reading device. Last edited by emkay; 01-06-2007 at 08:16 AM.