Strangely busy weekend, what with meetings with eds who flew in from San Francisco and so on. One nice detail for mobileread denizens: At our event, people loved the fact I was reading from a "Kindle" (actually a PRS-950) and applauded me for being a "cutting-edge nerd" as well as for the short pieces themselves. Dino tech or cutting edge? You decide.
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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
So if you tell me dedicated ereaders will be expensive and rare in several years... I'll believe you. But I refuse to believe they'll become extinct.
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Diap: I'm not against your asking questions regarding tech that lingers vs. tech that's completely extinct, but keep in mind that your point about old tech remaining available in some sense doesn't contradict what Jeter's saying, and it especially doesn't contradict what I've said.
If I understand you correctly, you seem to be attempting to disqualify the larger point with a technical argument about old things remaining available. Aside from questions as to whether they're still being manufactured or whether old stock lingers (minidisc), whether it's affordable in the sense of close to the original price (Studer remotes) or whether what's still available new is optimum in terms of the model being offered (DAT recorders), Jeter's making a point about mainstreaming, as am I. Just to verify that bit, allow me to quote myself earlier in the thread:
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So far, a tablet isn't an optimum reader. Nor, for that matter, is an iPad's internal amp and DAC as world-class as Ray Samuels' SR-71A and the Cipher Labs AlgoRhythm Solo. But in the widest common markets, when has quality of user experience trumped versatility in any sense? If you doubt it, ask Sony about their aborted Qualia line.
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Note the distinction between Sony and Ray Samuels/Cipher Labs. RS and CL continue to make high-quality DACs and amps specifically tailored to the iPod, but that's for people like you and me, Diap, who care about quality (though not necessarily about Touches, iPhones or iPods in general).
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Or perhaps some smaller or niche companies will pick up where Sony, Amazon and B&N leave off. We'll all become eInk purists, the tech-reading equivalent of audiophiles. . . .
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Whether eInk readers continue to be available as old stock or overstock and/or whether smaller companies nurse the eventually smaller market, the prediction
I'm interested in can't be disqualified by the idea that new old tech still exists.
Of course, you also have to allow that old tech which is being made today wasn't necessarily made at all for a period of years. The dedicated professional hardware sequencer is one example: I'm thinking of machines like the Roland MC-500.
Which begs the question as to whether old tech is really secure tech if there isn't any support. In my line of work, one's always on the lookout for geniuses who can repair anything and are obsessive enough to find old parts. The reward is having a sound that few people can get. Ask keyboardist and producer Jeff Lorber how he gets that vintage electric piano sound and he'll tell you (if you're lucky) about a keyboard techie in the Pacific Northwest who developed a way of customizing old Fender Rhodes electric pianos that makes them cut through the track incredibly well.
Guess who's now lining up for that advantage? People in famous bands, whose music will trigger renewed interest in old instruments without anyone quite being able to get that same sound.