Survey Reveals 49% of iPad Owners No Longer Want an eReader

[bminata]

Hehee.. the technical term is "amber"
Brings back the memories

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I had a Toshiba like that. But I think that one had glowing orange letters.

[Talldog]

Originally Posted by bminata

Kindle for reading, iPad for browsing, email, and all those "i" stuffs.

That's where I am, too.

[ThomasMc]

Would it not be just as honest to say: "Majority of iPad users STILL want to buy an eReader, anyway?"

I wish tech writers would be a little more objective, instead of being blown about by the current fad. "Google Chrome Will Bring End of Desktops PCs" "Google Chrome Will Bring End of Disk Drives" etc. Google Chrome won't end anything, and will end up taking only a very small percentage of the market. They used to go on and on about how Java would end all other software languages, too.

I expect a real journalist to recognize hype for what it is, not fall for it before everyone else.

[BenLee]

Originally Posted by ThomasMc

Would it not be just as honest to say: "Majority of iPad users STILL want to buy an eReader, anyway?"

Good point. It's definitely possible to spin a statistic a lot of different ways.

I do wish we knew what percentage of those iPad owners were considering getting an eReader BEFORE they owned an iPad.

[ThomasMc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

78.3% of statistics are meaningless...

He he. A friend of mine used to teach statistics at a well known college. It's her opinion that most published statistics are just propaganda.

[ThomasMc]

Originally Posted by HarryT

My first "portable" computer (a thing the size of a small suitcase) had a gas plasma display - a mono display technology which had glowing green letters on a black background.

My first computer wasn't portable, but it had a white on black display. It was a TRS-80, bought around the end of the 70s. It was a Z-80 based microcomputer, and came with a magnificent 4k of RAM, but when the 16k chips came out, I blew a week's pay and upgraded the memory, the day it hit the stores. It used a simple tape recorder for storing programs/data, but you could buy an expansion interface that would allow you to use a 5" floppy drive, and expand the memory up to 64k. I couldn't even imagine anyone ever needing 64k memory, as you could write an incredible assembly language program in only a few k. The operating system was a tokenized BASIC held in eprom, from a little startup company called "Microsoft" that nobody where I worked at the time (Hewlett Packard) had ever even heard of. They all thought it was funny, they didn't think anybody would ever be able to compete with the new Apple!

The computer I used at work was about the size of a large refrigerator, had a megabyte of RAM, and cost a quarter of a million dollars. The hard drive (which was a separate unit) was two feet square, three feet tall, and held an impressive 50 MB of data. My terminal communicated with the system at a mind blowing 9,600 bps!

Whew, it made my head spin, just to think about it

[BVLarson]

Looks like Apple will be a big ebook player, there is no question about that. They could also have asked something like: "when an EInk dedicated Ereader costs $50, might you be interested then for the superior screen reading?"

Price is huge and this market shifts everyday. Apple is not in any position to dominate this market (like it did music), there are too many big players with billions of their own competing.
-bvl

[Maggie Leung]

The first computers I used had amber displays, too. I owned an actual word processor as well, one with pathetic two-line display, lol.

With statistics, I just take 'em for what they are -- interesting, but not necessarily reliable. Shrug. Whatever other people's preferences, I know what works for me. As long as I can get hold of the devices I want, I'm happy. I'm not going to waste emotions on something as trivial as stats.

[devilsadvocate]

Originally Posted by ThomasMc

I wish tech writers would be a little more objective, instead of being blown about by the current fad. "Google Chrome Will Bring End of Desktops PCs" "Google Chrome Will Bring End of Disk Drives" etc. Google Chrome won't end anything, and will end up taking only a very small percentage of the market. They used to go on and on about how Java would end all other software languages, too.

I expect a real journalist to recognize hype for what it is, not fall for it before everyone else.

Jobs declared the end of the desktop PC earlier this year as well. By my calendar, the desktop PC has been "ending" for the last 6 years but neither AMD nor Intel are exactly slashing prices on their latest-gen desktop hardware so once again it appears it's safe for us to just let the press continue thinking it knows anything about the subject.

[pwjone1]

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

Jobs declared the end of the desktop PC earlier this year as well. By my calendar, the desktop PC has been "ending" for the last 6 years but neither AMD nor Intel are exactly slashing prices on their latest-gen desktop hardware so once again it appears it's safe for us to just let the press continue thinking it knows anything about the subject.

I'm not going to worry too much about the quality if a web article, or not, the press (print + TV + web-based) has to publish things that draws readers, something along the lines of "PC still fine after all these years" would draw instead yawns. We bring it on ourselves, as consumers of the news. Jazzy/sexy/dramatic headlines suck us in.

In terms of the iPad survey, it was about what I would have expected, but I would hesitate in drawing too much of a conclusion from the eReader % numbers. The main reason is that the iPad users at this point are mostly early adopters, which means that the still-buy-eReader % is going to be substantially higher than for the later iPad (and eventual competitive slates) population as a whole. Early adopters tend to buy more stuff, and be more open to buying more stuff, it's what they do.

I think that despite the problems with the battery life and reading in sunlight, the iPad and similar are going to take a huge chunk out of the market for eReader potential market because:

1. They do color
2. They do color
3. They do color
4. Not many of read all that much in direct sunlight
5. A day of reading is good enough for most of us
6. Better one device that may cost a bit more, but does a lot more

If what you read is mostly fiction, then color is not the big deal thing, but if you read anything else, magazines, newspapers, text books, picture-books, blogs, etc., it's a big deal. It might even be the case that color eReaders would be an even nicer differentiator from printed media, in that color printing costs are such that it drives the cost of printed books up, whereas if you have a color eReader, it's a nominal incremental cost. Consumers want color, you can hardly find a black'n'white magazine these days, and all the newspaper publishers are switching or have switched to color (even NYT) for ads, and added punch. And once color eReaders (or tablets) are ubiquitous, even fiction will use a lot more color, not just for emphasis, but maybe border themes, pictures for chapter headers, etc.

So I think, particularly in the absence of high-volume color eReaders, that for most customers, an iPad sale will mean a lost eReader sale, until the color gap is rectified. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony is off figuring out how to do a tablet and/or get color into its eReader line, maybe a deal with LG (although it must torque them, since they partner more with Samsung), as they're already big color providers in TVs and Games and Computer monitors, the value and market persuasiveness of color has to be well understood by them. The iPads (and competitors) will get thinner and lighter, they'll get easier to read in sunlight (they already beat eInk for reading at night, which I suspect is more important to a lot of us anyway), they'll have longer battery life. eReaders can still do fine in the marketplace, but they will need to get cheaper, and they will need to get to color.

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by pwjone1

If what you read is mostly fiction, then color is not the big deal thing, but if you read anything else, magazines, newspapers, text books, picture-books, blogs, etc., it's a big deal. It might even be the case that color eReaders would be an even nicer differentiator from printed media, in that color printing costs are such that it drives the cost of printed books up, whereas if you have a color eReader, it's a nominal incremental cost. Consumers want color, you can hardly find a black'n'white magazine these days, and all the newspaper publishers are switching or have switched to color (even NYT) for ads, and added punch. And once color eReaders (or tablets) are ubiquitous, even fiction will use a lot more color, not just for emphasis, but maybe border themes, pictures for chapter headers, etc.

Amusingly, a lot of the ebook defenders seem to feel that fiction novels and other applications that slow monochrome EPDs are adequate for are "serious" reading, and the forms of reading that fast color screens can do are somehow less "serious". "Serious" tends to be chosen as it allows the user to be arrogant without outright calling themselves better.

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

Amusingly, a lot of the ebook defenders seem to feel that fiction novels and other applications that slow monochrome EPDs are adequate for are "serious" reading, and the forms of reading that fast color screens can do are somehow less "serious". "Serious" tends to be chosen as it allows the user to be arrogant without outright calling themselves better.

That type of dismissal of color always makes me laugh.

Astronomy, biology, chemistry, economics, investing .... Just a few examples of subjects that benefit from color photos, graphs and such. They seem plenty "serious" to me. It always surprises me how limited some people's perspective can be, that they think about color and think of nothing but fluff.

[HamsterRage]

This thread title might be considered a little deceptive. "No longer want..." implies pretty strongly that all of the people surveyed wanted an eReader before they bought their iPad.

I don't believe that to be the case.

[Talldog]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

That type of dismissal of color always makes me laugh.

Astronomy, biology, chemistry, economics, investing .... Just a few examples of subjects that benefit from color photos, graphs and such. They seem plenty "serious" to me. It always surprises me how limited some people's perspective can be, that they think about color and think of nothing but fluff.

I think you folks are getting a little defensive about the use of the term "serious readers". That term seems to be mainly used in these forums to refer to people who read lots of what we might think of as traditional books (novels, biographies, etc). I don't think it has anything to do with a sense of intellectual superiority. For those folks, a black-and-white e-ink reader probably is the best choice. If all I want to do is read detective fiction, Tolkien, and Discworld and Destroyer books, what is all that extra money spent on a iPad going to buy me? Nothing, except shorter battery life, tired eyes, and an inability to read outside in the sun. Oh, and look around at the beach, at the park, and in the campground. I see lots of people reading outside.

OTOH, color IS important for lots of other things. Who would want to look at a book of color photography in black and white? I read that the Kindle is not having the desired impact in the textbook market, and I would guess that color has something to do with that. Lots of graphs and charts and such probably don't come across well in black and white.

Some people need one, some need the other, and some need both. That's why my iPad will be arriving tomorrow to go along with my Graphite. Neither one will do the whole job for me.

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by Talldog

I think you folks are getting a little defensive about the use of the term "serious readers".

Nah, I've got nothing to defend. I think E-Ink is rubbish, and I think the iPad is largely wasted potential. The things I'm hopeful for and excited about aren't even on the market, and may never be, considering the way companies have marketed newer technologies in the last year or two.

I've been very entertained by the EPD-LCD feud and how the different sides act. The term "serious" is almost always used by EPD proponents as a veiled statement of superiority, now that LCDs are not as easily dismissed outright (which they used to be). The advantage of such statements is that their intentions can easily be denied, turning an accuser's words around to make the accuser seem like a fightmonger. It's a very old game, and it's amazing how effective it still is.

Now that I think of it, most of the hostile reactions have been from EPD defenders who are angry at pseudojournalists for writing all those "iPad killing ereaders" articles. Regardless of the truth to those statements, it's easy for most any sensationalist writer to know which camp will react more strongly.