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Originally Posted by cmdahler
That's all true, but there's a difference between tradition and science. Typography is a science, not a tradition. It has basic rules that have evolved for good reasons: they increase the readability of the text. For example, long experience has taught that the ideal single line of text on a page should have approximately 66 characters. Much longer than that, and the eye has to move too much to read the text and the reader loses the natural flow of effortless reading.
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And yet the posts here often have more than 100 characters in a line, with no kerning or ligatures, and there is no shortage of people reading them and commenting on them.
It's not that typography doesn't work; it's that people's acceptance of less-than-optimal typography is vastly affected by the medium they're reading. Some people's tolerance is higher than others; while I love well-designed pages with crisp edges to the text and no rivers and fonts that vanish when I read them... I'll read letter-sized, single-column pages in 9pt Comic Sans. (I have a teenage daughter who writes. She likes Comic Sans. I'll get her over it, but it'll take a while.)
Everybody cares about not-awful typography. Not everyone cares enough to pay for really good typography.
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E-readers should strive to produce this while also adding to the experience. Pop-up text blocks, note taking, dictionaries, the ability to resize the font - these are all cool technologies. But since the e-reader is still, at its core, a device that is designed to present readable text, these new technologies should add to, not break, the rules of good typography.
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I'm told Eucalyptus does an excellent job of typesetting the txt files from Project Gutenberg; I've got a friend who can't stand any of the other iPhone e-reading apps. So it does seriously matter to some people. However, the majority of readers seem more willing to tolerate Stanza's layouts, with its much larger range of books to read. (My friend removed Stanza from his iPhone; he couldn't read with it.)
Also, the science of onscreen typography is not yet developed. Margins around the page aren't just to rest the eyes--they're to give the fingers a place to stay that doesn't block text. It's entirely unknown what margin is optimal on an e-reading device where the fingers never hold the screen itself. LCD screens are made of light, and even e-ink screens have DPI issues; serifs are different on screen than on paper. The smaller sized screens, with different ratios, means different layout options, especially where images or charts are concerned.
Perfect typography for ebook readers isn't yet possible; nobody knows what it is. Insisting on a program that would allow it is pointless; first we need to find out what features are necessary. Perfect typography on a computer screen isn't even possible yet; 72-96 dpi limitations drastically changes what looks good & is easy to read, and the scrollbar changes how a "page" works.