For me it was clear that eBooks were the future.
The Problem was they were always the future, just never the present.
I had been following e-ink development since R&D stage. I always thought that e-ink was one of the last pieces of our "all-digital" society. (I still do)
Finally last year when iRex announced the Iliad you all can imagine my excitement...
Following a link at Teleread I landed here and the wait for a ripe reader is killing me ever since.
Being a geek myself, it's hard to realize that for any tech product to succeed in mass market, it must be simple enough for the end user while providing and integrated (and pleasant) experience from purchase, to content, to support.
I'm thinking Dell (Which is everything an enthusiast avoids) but specially Apple: "simple and beautiful.". (BTW Apple still holds the trademark for "iBook" right?
)
Are ebooks "consumer friendly" enough right now? (not yet)
but hey...were books ever "consumer friendly"? (Harry P aside...)
So a year ago I was full of hope, but not anymore.
Now I think consumers are gonna skip first gen e-ink and go straight to 2nd gen flexible displays which are cheaper and more durable. (Plastic Logic we need you...)
I still think the market for e-ink will be in document management and not literature. (books) (in this area we probably have a cultural problem more than a technological one..)
Anyway, E-ink is probably still 5 years away from mass market.
As for me, after seeing how slow things were going with iRex I said I'd buy an Iliad as soon as they released soft v. 3.5 (sadly, what started as a joke it's getting dangerously close to reality...) Now I'm waiting for the Iliad2. And the new joke is that I'll buy Iliad2 or the V9. Whichever comes first.
The wait is killing me...