Why is there no e-ink innovation in the USA?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Rizla

With respect, I don't think that's the point. If a fast (enough) color e-ink screen could be created, it would revolutionize the market. E-readers and tablets would combine. LCD would lose much of the market and even vanish if e-ink proved fast enough. And actually, monochrome e-ink is proven to be fast to display moving video.

Agreed. I have a lot of books that I read on my iPad at the moment precisely because they contain colour images. I'd love to be able to read them on my Kindle instead.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Rizla

And yet outside the USA demand has proved adequate to support companies producing e-ink screens of 8" and more.

Why does it matter where the company is based? Onyx don't market their products in the UK any more prominently than they do in the US, but I bought one of their readers online, just as anyone in the US could do.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Have you attempted to browse using e-ink? I regularly browse mobileread using a rooted Nook ST. It works very well.

I freely admit I haven't. I just rely on the fact that I have yet to see a review for an e-ink browser that praises the browsing experience. The reaction ranges from "don't bother" to "it caused me to weep." And what I've seen on YouTube, scrolling looks terrible.

Linking this to the future of e-ink tablets, hey, if they work, great. I'm ignorant about the technical details behind e-ink. Other users here obviously know more than me. But I wonder: If color e-ink shows so much promise, why aren't Google, Samsung and/or Apple investing heavily in the technology?

[fjtorres]

It is easier to reach 5000 customers in a small country of 9M than reaching 5000 customers in a country of 330M.
The marketing costs are out of line with the product's market.

That is why Kobo treats the US market as an afterthought.
And why their global model is based on relying on local partners doing the bulk of the marketing.
To play a global game on eink you need deep pockets willing to live off thin margins. Amazon can do that. Sony couldn't.

Asus, Acer, Samsung, and iRiver all bailed out when ereader pricing dropped.There wasn't enough money left on the hardware side to cover the cost of global marketing.

There are perfectly good economic reasons for why small companies remain small regional players. Small ponds are safer than the big ocean.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

If color e-ink shows so much promise, why aren't Google, Samsung and/or Apple investing heavily in the technology?

Because, obviously, it doesn't promise a proper return on investment.
You have to spend money to make money but companies only spend money if they expect to make more of it.

Samsung owned Liquavista for about a year before selling it to Amazon.
Instead, they are investing in LCD and (to a lesser extent) OLED. Which makes sense given that they make TVs , Tablets and phones, and got out of ereaders long ago. That tells you they don't see a use for it in the products they make.

If Samsung doesn't see a future for reflective displays in tablets and phones I'm inclined to believe them.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Because, obviously, it doesn't promise a proper return on investment.

Right. That's why I don't think color e-ink screens will be the game changer others do. I wouldn't mind being proven wrong though

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

E-Ink works best for displaying books largely static content, because there are no* color E-Ink screens. If there were color E-Ink screens, they would be used, e.g. they could compete against LCD as a display tech for mainstream tablets.
...
* -- technically the are, but you know what I mean

You are attributing the lack of color to why they are only used for mainly static content? I know the technology has improved since I got my K3, but I haven't seen anything that indicates it is ready for full motion video yet. It seems like refresh rate is more of a driver for displaying mainly static content than the lack of color.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by ingmar

Now they only need to to actually bring it to the market, especially the latter. I'm certain they would if it'd be ready to go into mass production.



Seems we don't quite see eye to eye regarding "mainstream technology". By your definition non-LCD color screens wouldn't be much of an innovation, because they have been shown to work in a lab somewhere, so what's new? I have yet to see an ereader that survives a drop from the kitchen table, and yes, I'd call that innovative. YMMV.

Something that has been proven in a lab is not mainstream.

Something that is mainstream is mainstream, regardless of whether it exists in ereaders per se. Or specific ereaders.

Waterproofing has been successfully added to the Kobo, which translates to mainstream for me. And for Kindles you can always go to http://waterfi.com/waterproof-kindle
As for dropping from the kitchen table, tablets can survive that, yes?


The fact that the tech adds cost to a device marketed as a cheap, at-cost device, making it a worthless thing for a manufacturer to utilize, does not make it innovative.

Ridiculously cheap waterproofing/durability upgrades could be regarded as innovation, insomuch as they involve something that isn't tried-and-tested mainstream tech (on account of it being in the mainstream, oddly)... but that isn't what you said.



Please stop being disingenuous. You know perfectly well what mainstream means.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

You are attributing the lack of color to why they are only used for mainly static content? I know the technology has improved since I got my K3, but I haven't seen anything that indicates it is ready for full motion video yet. It seems like refresh rate is more of a driver for displaying mainly static content than the lack of color.

As Rizla mentioned, E-Ink has been demonstrated to display videos at a reasonable speed, which is why the part of my post you didn't quote said:

[...] and the fact that the screen is artificially slowed down to further improve battery life. That is not inherent to E-Ink, it is simply the current manufacturer design. [...]

[leebase]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you have any evidence to support that extraordinary claim?

Really? We have to debate that again? The wholesale price of a NYT's best seller book was 50%....around $12.50 a book. Amazon sold them for $9.99. That was never a controversial opinion and the Amazon-blinkered folks on this forum repeatedly said "why should the publishers care since they still get their $12.50".

The destruction of the value of a new release book was the very reason the publishers all went to war against Amazon.

All of that changes nothing about the reality that -- in the US, you have zero chance of selling a stand alone ebook reader. There is just too much of a compelling "goodness" to having a nice tie in between the reader and the library.

Therefore, to introduce a book reader in the US is to go into direct competition with Amazon's book dominance. This explains where there is competition elsewhere in the world but not nearly as much here. It's not like we lack for competition in the US in any other electronic space: mobile phones, computers, tv's, and the like.

That's true whether or not you think Amazon is doing anything predatory or wrong.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by leebase

Really? We have to debate that again? The wholesale price of a NYT's best seller book was 50%....around $12.50 a book. Amazon sold them for $9.99. That was never a controversial opinion and the Amazon-blinkered folks on this forum repeatedly said "why should the publishers care since they still get their $12.50".

The destruction of the value of a new release book was the very reason the publishers all went to war against Amazon.

But the fact that Amazon used to sell a very small number of books at a loss is a completely different thing to your assertion that Amazon "willingly takes a loss on every popular book it sells." Can you provide some evidence to support your claim that today Amazon is making a loss on every sale of a popular book?

[leebase]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But the fact that Amazon used to sell a very small number of books at a loss is a completely different thing to your assertion that Amazon "willingly takes a loss on every popular book it sells." Can you provide some evidence to support your claim that today Amazon is making a loss on every sale of a popular book?

The entire bestsellers list of the NYT may indeed count as "very small" but it equally counts as "every popular book" IMHO.

In terms of sales in a given month, how much do you think the NYT best seller's list accounts for?

[HarryT]

Sorry, are you saying that today, Amazon makes a loss on the sale of every book that is on the NYT list? I know that at one time Amazon sold NYT books at $9.99 or less, but they don't still do so, do they? Isn't that largely what agency pricing was introduced to prevent?

I honesty have no idea what percentage of total worldwide Amazon book sales the NYT list accounts for. I'd guess it's relatively low. Do you know?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by leebase

Really? We have to debate that again? The wholesale price of a NYT's best seller book was 50%....around $12.50 a book. Amazon sold them for $9.99. That was never a controversial opinion and the Amazon-blinkered folks on this forum repeatedly said "why should the publishers care since they still get their $12.50".

Wrong!

A certain subset of the general category of "NYT Bestsellers" was sold at a loss-leader price, in order to drum up business.

And publishers were of course making their money off it anyway. And even if they were eating the cost of those loss-leader prices, ebooks would STILL be extremely profitable. But none of that matters because you are pulling the standard evasive maneuver in this high-profile case, by conflating specific books with books in general, or even just bestsellers in general.

And that is still irrelevant to your claim of "willingly takes a loss on every popular book it sells". You are certainly allowed to claim that only NYT Bestsellers are popular books, but that doesn't make it any more than an IMHO ill-informed opinion.


And considering you ultimately want to prove (emphasis mine):

Originally Posted by leebase

So to launch an ebook reader is to also launch an ebook store that has to be able to compete with Amazon who willingly takes a loss on every popular book it sells.

It is, once again, irrelevant how much Amazon may or may not lose on popular books as long as they still have to make their money on the other books, the majority of books, which have to be priced a lot higher apparently or else Amazon would go out of business. According to your own logic, that is where the competition needs to be anyway.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I honesty have no idea what percentage of total worldwide Amazon book sales the NYT list accounts for. I'd guess it's relatively low. Do you know?

No need to guess. It's relatively low.