The PocketBook vs the iPad - ideologically

[omk3]

I remember a paragraph from a Cory Doctorow's review of the iPad that really resonated with me:

I believe -- really believe -- in the stirring words of the Maker Manifesto: if you can't open it, you don't own it. Screws not glue. The original Apple ][+ came with schematics for the circuit boards, and birthed a generation of hardware and software hackers who upended the world for the better. If you wanted your kid to grow up to be a confident, entrepreneurial, and firmly in the camp that believes that you should forever be rearranging the world to make it better, you bought her an Apple ][+.

(whole article here:http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/02...nt-either.html)

What does this have to do with the PocketBook, you say?

Well, for me, PocketBook is the reader you can buy your kid to "grow up to be confident, entrepreneurial, and firmly in the camp that believes that you should forever be rearranging the world to make it better".

I don't even own a PocketBook myself (yet), but I campaigned heavily for my mother to get one when her old reader broke, and from then on I'm like a kid again, excited with this new device and how to best tweak it to my (ok, her) needs. The PocketBook community encourages everyone to participate. You can translate. You can write apps. You can convert dictionaries. You can suggest improvements. You can design logos. Everyone, according to their desires and abilities, can do something. You feel that the device is really, actually yours, evolving with you. It invites you to change it.

This is a thank you to the PocketBook team, official or not, and to all the users that brought something to the table, and continue to do so.

If I had a kid, I'd buy him a PocketBook.

[fjtorres]

Well, there have always been different philosophies at Apple; the Apple II ethic was Steve Wozniac's, he was the founding hacker, after all. They built the entire company on two hacks: one that let them use floppy drives without a dedicated controller board, the other that let it do sub-pixel addessing on composite video monitors to get a quasi color display out of a single-plane buffer. Both were Woz's work.

Jobs was the marketing and money guy. (Especially money. He is notoriously tight-fisted.)

After Wozniac left, Apple became Jobs all the way. (Signature quote: After hearing somebody had shoehorned a 3.5" Hard Drive in a Mac 128 case; "Impossible! We made sure it wouldn't fit!")

Some companies want you to change you life to fit their product; others let you change their product to fit your life. Which you choose says a lot about the kind of person you are.

(As for getting readers for family members; I'm waiting for the 901 to ship so I can get one for my mother. In the meantime I have her making do with my Kindle.)

[Schnitzelbrain]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

After Wozniac left, Apple became Jobs all the way. (Signature quote: After hearing somebody had shoehorned a 3.5" Hard Drive in a Mac 128 case; "Impossible! We made sure it wouldn't fit!")

At that time I made a FAT Mac out of my 128, 4GB of mem. Chip by chip soldered on top of each other. Even replaced the address chip to get extra row select lines. Trust me , I saw the sad mac symbol allot of times
AND then installed a 3.5 Harddrive with a processor clamp for connection.

Oh man these where the days. Remembers me what a old fart I am now.

But actually thats why I love my PB360, it gives u the feeling of the old days. Beside the reading u can hack and do so many things with it. Perfect

[Logseman]

Besides my Pocketbook, I own an iPod touch which I use for reading occassionally, so I can say I can speak for both sides. I'm too young to have seen anything of the geekiest moments of computers, where people just tore a big bloat of metal apart just for the hell of it and started to tweak things.

On the one side, I love my iPod touch because it's very convenient to use. The thing called "user experience" exists, and it's there though many people, which are used to tinker and will want to tinker by default, do simply ignore that fact. However, I hate iTunes and the way it prevents you to operate your device swiftly, and I know I can't do anything about it but bugger myself and endure a product which is designed against my needs and wants.

On the other hand, Pocketbook offers a completely different concept. Pocketbook offers me so many things to steer, too many for me. I admit I don't know how to adjust many of the settings, or even want to do so. Hell, I can even choose what program I want to open my files with. I just bought it because it was cheap and I pictured myself reading a lot of classics oh so easily: I admit I don't want to crack my head choosing the text margins.

However, Pocketbook does something for me: it listens to me. If I really want something software-wise, I don't have to bugger myself: I can tweak it. I wanted a Spanish translation, e.g, and when it started shipping, I saw it and it was poor, so I wanted to improve it. I did so, and now Pocketbook has adopted it as their standard issue. That's something I value, because they've allowed me to help people, albeit in a menial way. I like to help people in the way I can, and whoever makes it easier for me to do so deserves my praise. Pocketbook counts in that category. Whether it is an ubergeek capable of programming a terminal emulator or a pure layman, Pocketbook encourages people to help others and has ways for all of them to be useful.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Logseman

I'm too young to have seen anything of the geekiest moments of computers,.
.
.
However, Pocketbook does something for me: it listens to me. If I really want something software-wise, I don't have to bugger myself: I can tweak it. I wanted a Spanish translation, e.g, and when it started shipping, I saw it and it was poor, so I wanted to improve it. I did so, and now Pocketbook has adopted it as their standard issue. That's something I value, because they've allowed me to help people...

See if you can track down a copy of FIRE IN THE VALLEY: it's a fairly accurate of the history of personal computers. (Accurate as in; no, Apple *didn't* invent computing. They just like to pretend they did. ;-) )
http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Valley-Ma.../dp/0071358927

Here's a sample:
http://www.computinghistorymuseum.or...nfo/Micro1.pdf

If you can get it, you'll find that the people who invented PCs and spearheaded the first generation were driven by the desire to do exactly what you experienced. They were counterculture techies of the 60's who were painfully aware of the power of information technologies and wanted to see that technology in everybody's hands, not in the grip of big money-grubbing corporations or all-seeing governnments.

It should provide good context to contrast against the current state of the industry, with its rush back to glass house centralized "cloud" computing and privacy-less "free" Internet services.

As for the Mac, if you're interested in who its real creators are and how much blood sweat and tears went into making it:
http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~klinger/mac.html

Underneath all the hardware and software, ultimately, the real heart of computers lies in the *people* who envision them and make them work. The best computers are labors of love, not marketting capaigns wrapped in metal and plastic.

[Guns4Hire]

Originally Posted by Logseman

I don't have to bugger myself

You should never have to bugger yourself. Of course unless you really really want too.


That should be in the Bill of Rights or at least one of the Golden Rules.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by omk3

I remember a paragraph from a Cory Doctorow's review of the iPad that really resonated with me:



(whole article here:http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/02...nt-either.html)

What does this have to do with the PocketBook, you say?

Well, for me, PocketBook is the reader you can buy your kid to "grow up to be confident, entrepreneurial, and firmly in the camp that believes that you should forever be rearranging the world to make it better".

I don't even own a PocketBook myself (yet), but I campaigned heavily for my mother to get one when her old reader broke, and from then on I'm like a kid again, excited with this new device and how to best tweak it to my (ok, her) needs. The PocketBook community encourages everyone to participate. You can translate. You can write apps. You can convert dictionaries. You can suggest improvements. You can design logos. Everyone, according to their desires and abilities, can do something. You feel that the device is really, actually yours, evolving with you. It invites you to change it.

This is a thank you to the PocketBook team, official or not, and to all the users that brought something to the table, and continue to do so.

If I had a kid, I'd buy him a PocketBook.

I think this same comparison goes for Android Phone vs iPhone...

[brainycat]

A couple more classics of the nature of the computing:
In the Beginning...was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson and
The Soul Of A New Machine by Tracy Kidder.