Quote:
Originally Posted by stangri
I meant progress in the mass-market devices (which for North America started with PRS-50x if I'm not mistaken). iLiad with its price/distribution was never a mass product (unlike PRS, Kindle, nook). But that's how it works in the world, if you look at the cars for example, some features which are initially only available in the bigger and more expensive cars over time make it into the regular cars as well. That's what we're seeing in the readers and it is progress.
There's a number of obvious factors contributing to the lack of innovation in the niche e-ink products, still you can't blame Sony, Amazon and B&N for that (you can start blaming Apple in a few months tho).
PS. AFAIK, Kindle still was the first reader with the free 3G for books/browsing.
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Well, it's all about semantics...
To me, progress doesn't mean I get the very same as before - but cheaper and cheaper every time.
To me, progress means I get something entirely new/improved. Then it's up to me, whether I want to be an early adopter and pay the premium or wait some time until I can afford it.
I totally understand about the complexity of global business and country-specific licensing models. But most of my "complaints" aren't about content, but hardware specific.
Just some examples:
- About 1/3 of my legally purchased books has incorrect metadata (silly author's names like "24/7" or "some company" or all in capital letters or switching author's first and last name or .....). On iRex iLiad I've been able to change that. On the fly, without "calibre" or other PC based tools. Can't do this on most readers.
- Cheapest PDAs 8 years ago have had some kind of data management, i. e. copying files within folders. On our readers, we can be glad if we even have folders, but usually we can't move files inbetween.
-The very definition of PDFs always was, keeping the layout intact. Lots of readers don't have any zoom, so you have to use reflow.