[arma_virumque]

the promise of digital printing was supposed to be the single format. Books are a single format so to speak: table of contents, index and the actuall content, (then you get the little extra details in footnotes, biblios, etc).

The problem of e-readers is their proliferation in many different types that soon will match of books been published!! If every publisher attaches an e-reader to their contents then you'll be hauling 15 different e-readers with their corresponding flavor of USB cable, firewire, bluetooth, 3G, wifi, chargers, etc.

Hence ALL the advantages of digital books is lost, the environmental factor (save trees, in case is not from a tree farm), the usability factor (fast words look up without a dictionary that weights a ton, citations, linking etc), space/weight and the ability to carry as many books as you wish. It's all lost in the DRM crap, vastly different and cumbersome user interfaces particular of e-readers.

Thanks god I got a NOOK with it's touchscreen which makes the experience iPad-like. Because e-readers user interface and navigation is the biggest stumbling block for a fully natural and pleasing reading experience, the very thing the article mourns about.

With a paper book all you gotta do is go and open it. With e-readers you need to pass a user interface degree in order to get to the book.

In my opinion e-readers got a long way to go before they become a solid and comfortable 'writer's' alternative to pulp books.

However, this is just the beginning. As I said earlier e-readers should match the iPad's iBook and pdf reader. I saw a video and fell in love with that.