MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - iPad What will iPad do for e-books?

RedHeadPeter · 01-29-2010, 01:37 PM

Great discussion. Seems to me serious readers have either already bought an e-book reader or decided they will never buy one (lots of people in that camp). So I don't see that the people who are going to buy this (and there will be lots of them) are going to massively change the e-book market because, in the main, they aren't book readers. I don't see that the Apple-DRM issue is an issue for these people - the few books they will read they will read only on this device because they won't have any other e-reading hardware or software.

The newspaper/magazine market is interesting. There is a war underway already between those newspapers (like all those owned by Rupert Murdoch) who want to charge for e-access and others (like the Guardian group in the UK) who don't and (in a 3rd camp) those like the BBC who aren't a newspaper but still provide enormous amounts of news and journalism through their licence-fee funded operations. (Time we took steps to stop all those from outside the UK accessing for free stuff I have paid for.

) Until the dust settles on that little conflict no telling what is going to happen to the paid for model which seems to be central to the iPad.

On the hardware front I think its clear that the ipad will force the price of e-readers down. Some of the comparisons made here aren't necessarily valid (the $499 model is clearly limited because of tiny memory and no 3G) but the e-reader makers will respond to avoid their business model being savaged.

It is, though, just an iPod on steroids. I want a device that size (but preferably 16:9) that is a proper computer. But it would have to be significantly better than my netbook to make it worthwhile.

I'm getting more and more curious about this idea of reading technical books and journals etc on e-readers. I've said it elsewhere but as a researcher I find e-readers are useless. You can't flick backwards and forewards between index and main text. You can't stick little labels in pages (different colours to tell me different things). Now - if there was a device that allowed to to mark a section of text and drag it into one of several folders, and take with it any references in this bit of text, and kept with it all referencing material. Then we'd be on a winner - but the market would be tiny. So my e-reader is for novels. But maybe I'm missing something, or just being useless (no surprise

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01-29-2010, 01:37 PM	#164
RedHeadPeter Enthusiast Posts: 30 Karma: 294 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: London, England Device: Bebook	Great discussion. Seems to me serious readers have either already bought an e-book reader or decided they will never buy one (lots of people in that camp). So I don't see that the people who are going to buy this (and there will be lots of them) are going to massively change the e-book market because, in the main, they aren't book readers. I don't see that the Apple-DRM issue is an issue for these people - the few books they will read they will read only on this device because they won't have any other e-reading hardware or software. The newspaper/magazine market is interesting. There is a war underway already between those newspapers (like all those owned by Rupert Murdoch) who want to charge for e-access and others (like the Guardian group in the UK) who don't and (in a 3rd camp) those like the BBC who aren't a newspaper but still provide enormous amounts of news and journalism through their licence-fee funded operations. (Time we took steps to stop all those from outside the UK accessing for free stuff I have paid for. ) Until the dust settles on that little conflict no telling what is going to happen to the paid for model which seems to be central to the iPad. On the hardware front I think its clear that the ipad will force the price of e-readers down. Some of the comparisons made here aren't necessarily valid (the $499 model is clearly limited because of tiny memory and no 3G) but the e-reader makers will respond to avoid their business model being savaged. It is, though, just an iPod on steroids. I want a device that size (but preferably 16:9) that is a proper computer. But it would have to be significantly better than my netbook to make it worthwhile. I'm getting more and more curious about this idea of reading technical books and journals etc on e-readers. I've said it elsewhere but as a researcher I find e-readers are useless. You can't flick backwards and forewards between index and main text. You can't stick little labels in pages (different colours to tell me different things). Now - if there was a device that allowed to to mark a section of text and drag it into one of several folders, and take with it any references in this bit of text, and kept with it all referencing material. Then we'd be on a winner - but the market would be tiny. So my e-reader is for novels. But maybe I'm missing something, or just being useless (no surprise )