The future of e-readers

[altworld]

The future of eReaders may indeed move beyond just being a reading device, and becoming a multimedia unit, the Nook color maybe the first to go that way. Same way Kindle, Nook, Kobo may become brand names for eBook publishing and move away from providing the tech, to just providing the App gateway.
Arigato,
Nick Davis

[wyndslash]

then they probably wouldn't be called e-readers anymore D:

i really would like a specialized device rather than a jack-of-all-trades master of none thing.

course, i could just go back to pbooks xD

[Kingpool7]

I really hope it will not be true. If they want me to even consider this, they have really improve battery's. I do not want to charge my book every month. 10h they offer right now is not acceptable for me.

[MikeB1972]

Yep, they'll disappear just like the single function mp3 player did.

Wait, hang on a minute, mp3 players still seem to be all the rage (OK I know a lot of them show videos now but there are enough that don't).

You will end up with a mix of single and multifunction devices.

Although the single function devices may be no cheaper if they are better at what they do - I could get a phone that has an mp3 player cheaper than a walkman (or iPod) but it wouldn't be better.

So you may end up with a e-ink (or similar tech) reader that is more expensive than a tablet and as long as enough people buy them some companies will continue to make them.

Although if the multifunction device does the job as good or better then the one trick pony is in trouble - The sat nav on my phone is actually better than my sat nav

[wyndslash]

Originally Posted by Kingpool7

I really hope it will not be true. If they want me to even consider this, they have really improve battery's. I do not want to charge my book every month. 10h they offer right now is not acceptable for me.

considering that i read continuously when i have time, i don't want to have to charge the ereader once in a couple of days!

[HamsterRage]

Originally Posted by mdmorrissey

I predict they will be replaced very soon by tablets or netbooks with improved displays, portability, and battery life -- which are the only (current) advantages of e-readers.

I don't see any of those three issues getting resolved "very soon".

I can envision a colour e-ink type screen with good performance that can work in direct sunlight or backlit being designed some day. But a best guess would be that that is years away from market now.

There's no doubt that tablets are going to a little thinner and lighter, but the design pressures on them are going to be to make them more powerful and that's going to work against achieving more portability and longer battery life in the short term. Especially battery life. So don't look for a tablet to go three weeks on a charge in any time frame that any one could call "very soon".

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

i hope not. i like having a dedicated e-reader that does its job well rather than paying a lot more for features i won't be using and will just be a distraction

Truth.

If there's ever a tablet with the weight, battery life, and portability of my Sony PRS-505, I'll save up for one ... though, of course, I could buy several ebook readers for the price. But I don't need a tablet (of course I want one, I want every cool gadget; I just know I don't need one). I do need my 505, unless I want to give up certain types of reading.

Look at it this way: I have a car. It's a small, elderly Honda. You can't go off-roading in it. You can't sleep a family of four in there. You can't tow your boat with it. You can't even realistically put more than two people in it unless the ones in the back seat have stubby legs. But that car does exactly what I want: it gets me and a reasonable amount of stuff from point A to point B, uses very little gas while doing so, and cost me about what a couple of months of car payments cost the people with much bigger and newer cars. In other words, it fits my needs exactly. Tablets are like SUVs: you can take a SUV off-road (though very few people do ... they might get their paint dirty!), you can sleep in it, you can tow with it, and you can fill it full of people, and if it's a Ford Excess, you can probably even put my car in there. But you pay a price for that: many thousands of dollars of initial expense, and about a third (or less) of the MPG that I get, which for the sake of discussion you can equate to battery life.

There's a place in the world for SUVs (though I suspect not as big a place as many of their owners seem to think). There's a place in the world for shabby little Hondas. Neither one is going away any time soon, for that very reason.

The same is true of general-purpose tablets and special-purpose ebook readers. They both fill specific niches. Tablets are Swiss army knives; they can do a little of everything. But most people aren't going to want to replace their kitchen knife set, or anything in it, with a Swiss army knife any time soon.

[mdmorrissey]

My prediction is based quite simply on the failure of e-readers to do what any lap/net/book/tablet can do, which is make everything on the net readable. Instead of dedicating themselves to that task, the e-readers have squandered development energy and money by trying to become netbooks/tablets. They will not succeed. Netbooks/tablets will become ereaders long before that happens, if it ever does, and it serves the e-reader industry right. They should have limited themselves to producing simple, cheap devices that would allow you to transfer a few gigs of text from the computer screen and take it to bed (and elsewhere) with you. They do NOT do that now, and the limited functions they do perform now are trouble-filled and unreliable. The comparison is very simple: 1) What do you have to do to get text on your computer screen? 2) What do you have to do to get the same text on your e-reader? It is illogical to expect the development to go from 2) to 1). In short, tablets or netbooks (better yet, tablets with detachable keyboards, which is perfectly possible and no doubt already exists) will get smaller, cheaper, more readable (e-ink or the equivalent), and more energy-efficient long before e-readers manage to tool up to the equivalent of what netbooks/tablets already do. I doubt that I will buy another e-reader. I'll wait for the Android tablets or Chrome netbooks. Just consider Google books, gutenberg.org, public libraries, PDFS, without even taking into account all the other stuff computers can do. All of these present no problem for netbooks/tablets but huge problems for e-readers, which they might have been able to solve if they had concentrated on that instead of trying to become little computers (touch screens, color, WIFI etc.). "All" computers have to do is get smaller and cheaper, which is the inevitable progression in any case.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by mdmorrissey

My prediction is based quite simply on the failure of e-readers to do what any lap/net/book/tablet can do, which is make everything on the net readable.

You're missing the point; by a mile, if I may say so: they are special and very much single-purpose devices that excel at what they were meant to do, i.e. display ebooks. If your needs go further all kinds of alternatives exist, as you pointed out correctly.

They should have limited themselves to producing simple, cheap devices that would allow you to transfer a few gigs of text from the computer screen and take it to bed (and elsewhere) with you.

Prices have fallen considerably, and will continue to do so. It's almost trivial to convert any text found on the net into an ebook any reader can display (i use Calibre for that), so I don't exactly see what problem you're having there. Also, don't forget we're all early adopters here. It's early days yet.

... will get smaller, cheaper, more readable (e-ink or the equivalent), and more energy-efficient ...

Yes, the next best thing is just around the corner. Nobody said ereading was a mature technology yet.

[mdmorrissey]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

You're missing the point; by a mile, if I may say so: they are special and very much single-purpose devices that excel at what they were meant to do, i.e. display ebooks. If your needs go further all kinds of alternatives exist, as you pointed out correctly.

Prices have fallen considerably, and will continue to do so. It's almost trivial to convert any text found on the net into an ebook any reader can display (i use Calibre for that), so I don't exactly see what problem you're having there. Also, don't forget we're all early adopters here. It's early days yet.

It is you who are missing the point. I see that you have the same device I do (PB 360), which I have had to send back for repair (or hopefully my money back) for the third time in less than a year. So much for "excelling" at what they are meant to do. The main problem has been (probably) that they are "meant to display ebooks," which is to say, SELL ebooks. If they had concentrated instead on simply transferring text (including ebooks) from computer screen to reader, I am certain much more progress would have been made -- including re the No. 1 priority of RELIABILITY.

It is far from "trivial to convert any text found on the net into an ebook any reader can display." First of all, most of what is on the net (e.g., Google books, not to mention PDFs and web pages) cannot be downloaded (by non-geeks), though it can be read easily online. Second, Even if you can convert it in Calibre and download it to your ereader without further formatting (hardly "trivial"), you can't read it with anything like the ease of a computer. There are problems everywhere, with page-turning, with navigation generally, bookmarking, note-taking, dictionaries, etc. -- things that are no problem at all on the computer.

I stand by my prediction: Netbooks/tablets will become ereaders long before ereaders become whatever it is they are trying to become. The main service of the latter (and of us guinea pigs) has been to point the former in the right direction.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by mdmorrissey

It is you who are missing the point.

Very good. Let's keep it at that.

[MartinC]

Ereaders will end up like calculators - so cheap they're practically given away. And there will be one on every desk.

[mdmorrissey]

Originally Posted by MartinC

Ereaders will end up like calculators - so cheap they're practically given away. And there will be one on every desk.

I agree. And this explains why they have been trying (in vain) to become little computers and will fail. If they had been smart, they would have done what I suggested above. Greed has been their downfall. I doubt that they will remain even as bookends, though, because -- unlike calculators and in contrast to what RogueLibrarian says, they do NOT do even their most elemental tasks well.

What company will be smart enough to see the wisdom of what we are saying here? There might still be a chance a chance for them to capture the low end of the market, but I don't think they will try. (Again, greed and hubris rule.)

[HamsterRage]

Originally Posted by mdmorrissey

What company will be smart enough to see the wisdom of what we are saying here? There might still be a chance a chance for them to capture the low end of the market, but I don't think they will try. (Again, greed and hubris rule.)

Well, as the owner of a Kobo, I'd have to disagree with you.

[mdmorrissey]

Originally Posted by HamsterRage

Well, as the owner of a Kobo, I'd have to disagree with you.

Kobo is the only ereader my wife has expressed interest in, price and simplicity being the main attractions. But unfortunately it's not sold in Europe (though I read somewhere that it soon will be). How's the reliability? As I've said, I am so turned off by having had to return my Pocketbook 360 3 times within one year that I have resolved not to consider buying another ereader if I can't buy it from a local store -- where you are much more likely to get a refund or at least an exchange, even if it costs a little more.

Still, my point is that if all the energy of the various companies had gone into producing the equivalent of the Kobo, i.e. cheap and simple, no frills), we would now have bigger, better, and even cheaper and simpler Kobos! The same goes for the other readers, more or less.