Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
A recent TeleRead thread discussed preferences between spaces and indents between paragraphs. Here, we've discussed issues like display margins and contrast issues regularly. The winning devices will be those that allow the user to set their display options they way they like them, to optimize their reading experience. Software flexibility... that's what will win consumers over. |
Definitely. Both in display (indents vs space between) and content management--right now, all the ebook readers on the market flounder when there's more than a few hundred books on the device.
As memory gets smaller and cheaper, a card of 5,000 books won't be unreasonable. (It's not impossible now, just not done much.) But right now, none of them can deal effectively with that much content; there's no easy sort, tag, display-subset-only options. There's no option for "just show me the PDFs" or "add this newspaper to my 'social justice' collection" from inside the reader.
The device with the most bells & whistles (mp3 player, internet browser, ability to run apps) may win the most media attention, but the first good ebook *library* device is going to clean up in the academic world.