Pace of Ereader/Ebook change

Waylander · 11-09-2015, 05:58 AM

I get the sense that it is now so much harder for ereaders to make huge strides in terms of ereader development now than it was a few years ago.

For example, I bet that from 2009 to late 2012, when the change in publishing and ereader technology was going at hyper-speed and no-one knew what would happen in 6 months time, this forum would have been buzzing so loud it would make computer screens vibrate.

Now, I get the impression that we seem to be in some sort of lull from a few years ago, with the pace of change slowed down slightly and less dramatic change taking place in publishing world, ereaders etc. What do you think? Any recollections of the brave new world of reading between 2009-2012?

Cinisajoy · 11-09-2015, 09:39 AM

What has changed on ereaders since 2012.
There are now water-proof ereaders.
The memory has either doubled or quadrupled.
The display has gotten better.
More font choices on some.
They are now lighted or at least some are.
Now the reader has a choice of touch or buttons.

barryem · 11-09-2015, 10:59 AM

It's true that ereaders keep getting better but not at anything like the rate they were in the past. I think part of the reason for that is that they got really good and there's not a lot left to improve. Maybe some new technology will change that.

Another reason, of course, is that more people are reading on cell phones. There's a lot less interest in dedicated ereaders today.

I'm happy with the devices I have. They all have flaws and they all have remarkable advantages. The least of them is pretty good. My hope is that they'll continue to be available in the future.

I think one problem with the state of ereaders is that they're made by book sellers, not by hardware makers interested in competing with one another to offer the best device. The book sellers want to sell books and they make sure the ereader they offer is good enough.

Barry

HarryT · 11-09-2015, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Waylander

For example, I bet that from 2009 to late 2012, when the change in publishing and ereader technology was going at hyper-speed and no-one knew what would happen in 6 months time, this forum would have been buzzing so loud it would make computer screens vibrate.

Now, I get the impression that we seem to be in some sort of lull from a few years ago, with the pace of change slowed down slightly and less dramatic change taking place in publishing world, ereaders etc. What do you think? Any recollections of the brave new world of reading between 2009-2012?

Actually, MR had its greatest ever number of simultaneous users only a few weeks ago, on 5th September.

pwalker8 · 11-09-2015, 05:17 PM

The other thing is that many people use tablets as their ebook readers, rather than standalone devices. The innovation is tablets has been pretty strong since 2012.

I would say that where the biggest change since 2012 has been the speed at which ebooks are becoming the norm. Very few new books are not available as ebooks and a ton of backlist books have made it to ebooks. We still have a long way to go before we get to the point that every book every written is available, but compared to 2012, it's pretty amazing.

I still say that the next big jump will be software, both in finding new books to read as well as organizing and reading the ebooks you have.

Turtle91 · 11-09-2015, 08:13 PM

Lets just hope that the next jump is to an actual "standard" rendering process, so that books will look the same no matter what device you read them on...

Barbara1955 · 11-09-2015, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Lets just hope that the next jump is to an actual "standard" rendering process, so that books will look the same no matter what device you read them on...

I agree!

fjtorres · 11-09-2015, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Lets just hope that the next jump is to an actual "standard" rendering process, so that books will look the same no matter what device you read them on...

Wishful thinking.

JSWolf · 11-09-2015, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turtle91

Lets just hope that the next jump is to an actual "standard" rendering process, so that books will look the same no matter what device you read them on...

But how you want an eBook to look may not be how I want it to look.

Cinisajoy · 11-09-2015, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But how you want an eBook to look may not be how I want it to look.

Totally agreeing with you.
Just because one person can read at font 1 does not mean I can.
I hate fixed font books because I can't see them.

Also why I love ereaders. You can adjust them.

Turtle91 · 11-09-2015, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But how you want an eBook to look may not be how I want it to look.

Not at all what I meant - as I think you know. A standard rendering process means displaying the same styling with the same rules. It does not mean that a reader/device can't change font size, margins, colors, etc.

crossi · 11-09-2015, 11:48 PM

The physical readers are about as good as they need to be. Software could be improved. And the optimum physical options are a matter of preference/cost not innovation. Lighted/not lighted, buttons/no buttons, ect. What kind of innovation do you want them to invent?

GeoffR · 11-10-2015, 01:44 AM

For me the big step-change was the successful front-lighting of e-ink, that is what made me take the leap from paper to ebooks. All the other improvements in pixel density, contrast ratio, processor speed, etc. have been minor in comparison to that.

But the area that I see as having the biggest room for improvement is on the publishing side. If publishers could manage to work out how to consistently produce ebooks without spelling and punctuation mistakes, and without glaring formatting errors, then that would do more to improve my reading experience than any hardware or software innovations ever could.

rkomar · 11-10-2015, 01:56 AM

I'm hoping that the batteries become more efficient and degrade less in the future. It would improve the lifetime of many electronic devices, not just ereaders.

fjtorres · 11-10-2015, 08:24 AM

The thing is, ebooks (and ereaders) as they exist today are perfectly adequate to the needs of the people who matter most: the paying customers and the authors. And neither is terribly interested in any particular evolution of the product.

To some people, ebooks are books minus tree pulp and nothing else.
To others ebooks are stories wrapped in technology.

To the former, nothing less than an absolute adherence to print standards and customs will ever be acceptable; to the latter, the wrapping is of the essence and it doesn't matter if the narrative gets mangled in the process.

Two extremes; ebooks as digital paper and ebooks as, effectively, games.
The market has not been friendly to either.

Simply put, commercial ebooks are primarily about the story. People care about typos and ocr errors; they don't particularly care about drop caps, white space, ligatures or kerning. Those are remants of the print age; people are a lot more interested in getting immersed in the narrative than whether the story is rendered according to some arbitrary standard left over from the molten lead era. It all boils down to personal preference and where ebooks shine is in letting the user set their own standards, whether it be no paragraph indents with an added blank line in between, ragged right, or no margins on-screen. (Somewhere out there somebody is happily reading ebooks in comic sans, ragged right, with no white space and auto scroll. It's their eyeballs.)

Similarly, most people see the whiz-bang "enhancements" in the digital effects-laden editions more as distractions than value adds to the core narrative, not unlike the DVDs that ship with commentary tracks that most people simply ignore.

To both camps, the market is saying: just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done. And if the market shrugs or cold shoulders a "feature" nobody is going to spend much money implementing it. So as long as the bulk of ebook money comes from genre narrative prose neither the publishers nor platform holders are going to waste time and effort on issues that consumers of narrative prose don't particularly care about.

Ebooks are a consumer technology and consumer behavior is going to dictate how fast and where the industry goes. It might pay to look at other similarly consumer-driven narrative industries (video and console gaming) where genuine technical advances have stalled simply because consumers are perfectly satisfied with "good enough".

As Adam Osbourne said a generation ago: adequacy is sufficient.

11-09-2015, 05:58 AM	#1
Waylander Guru Posts: 665 Karma: 2905052 Join Date: Oct 2013 Device: Kindle Paperwhite 5 16GB, Kindle Paperwhite 6, Kobo Clara,	Pace of Ereader/Ebook change I get the sense that it is now so much harder for ereaders to make huge strides in terms of ereader development now than it was a few years ago. For example, I bet that from 2009 to late 2012, when the change in publishing and ereader technology was going at hyper-speed and no-one knew what would happen in 6 months time, this forum would have been buzzing so loud it would make computer screens vibrate. Now, I get the impression that we seem to be in some sort of lull from a few years ago, with the pace of change slowed down slightly and less dramatic change taking place in publishing world, ereaders etc. What do you think? Any recollections of the brave new world of reading between 2009-2012?

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11-09-2015, 09:39 AM	#2
Cinisajoy Just a Yellow Smiley. Posts: 19,161 Karma: 83862859 Join Date: Jul 2015 Location: Texas Device: K4, K5, fire, kobo, galaxy	What has changed on ereaders since 2012. There are now water-proof ereaders. The memory has either doubled or quadrupled. The display has gotten better. More font choices on some. They are now lighted or at least some are. Now the reader has a choice of touch or buttons.

11-09-2015, 10:59 AM	#3
barryem Wizard Posts: 2,459 Karma: 68781975 Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Arkansas Device: Paperwhite 4	It's true that ereaders keep getting better but not at anything like the rate they were in the past. I think part of the reason for that is that they got really good and there's not a lot left to improve. Maybe some new technology will change that. Another reason, of course, is that more people are reading on cell phones. There's a lot less interest in dedicated ereaders today. I'm happy with the devices I have. They all have flaws and they all have remarkable advantages. The least of them is pretty good. My hope is that they'll continue to be available in the future. I think one problem with the state of ereaders is that they're made by book sellers, not by hardware makers interested in competing with one another to offer the best device. The book sellers want to sell books and they make sure the ereader they offer is good enough. Barry

11-09-2015, 05:17 PM	#5
pwalker8 Grand Sorcerer Posts: 7,196 Karma: 70314280 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Pro, iPad mini, Kobo Aura, Amazon paperwhite, Sony PRS-T2	The other thing is that many people use tablets as their ebook readers, rather than standalone devices. The innovation is tablets has been pretty strong since 2012. I would say that where the biggest change since 2012 has been the speed at which ebooks are becoming the norm. Very few new books are not available as ebooks and a ton of backlist books have made it to ebooks. We still have a long way to go before we get to the point that every book every written is available, but compared to 2012, it's pretty amazing. I still say that the next big jump will be software, both in finding new books to read as well as organizing and reading the ebooks you have.

11-09-2015, 08:13 PM	#6
Turtle91 A Hairy Wizard Posts: 3,349 Karma: 20171571 Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Charleston, SC today Device: iPhone 15/11/X/6/iPad 1,2,Air & Air Pro/Surface Pro/Kindle PW & Fire	Lets just hope that the next jump is to an actual "standard" rendering process, so that books will look the same no matter what device you read them on...

11-09-2015, 11:48 PM	#12
crossi Guru Posts: 997 Karma: 12000001 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Seattle Wahington U.S. Device: kindle	The physical readers are about as good as they need to be. Software could be improved. And the optimum physical options are a matter of preference/cost not innovation. Lighted/not lighted, buttons/no buttons, ect. What kind of innovation do you want them to invent?

11-10-2015, 01:44 AM	#13
GeoffR Wizard Posts: 3,821 Karma: 19162882 Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: Te Riu-a-Māui Device: Kobo Glo	For me the big step-change was the successful front-lighting of e-ink, that is what made me take the leap from paper to ebooks. All the other improvements in pixel density, contrast ratio, processor speed, etc. have been minor in comparison to that. But the area that I see as having the biggest room for improvement is on the publishing side. If publishers could manage to work out how to consistently produce ebooks without spelling and punctuation mistakes, and without glaring formatting errors, then that would do more to improve my reading experience than any hardware or software innovations ever could.

11-10-2015, 01:56 AM	#14
rkomar Wizard Posts: 3,054 Karma: 18821071 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Sudbury, ON, Canada Device: PRS-505, PB 902, PRS-T1, PB 623, PB 840, PB 633	I'm hoping that the batteries become more efficient and degrade less in the future. It would improve the lifetime of many electronic devices, not just ereaders.

11-10-2015, 08:24 AM	#15
fjtorres Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,732 Karma: 128354696 Join Date: May 2009 Location: 26 kly from Sgr A* Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000	The thing is, ebooks (and ereaders) as they exist today are perfectly adequate to the needs of the people who matter most: the paying customers and the authors. And neither is terribly interested in any particular evolution of the product. To some people, ebooks are books minus tree pulp and nothing else. To others ebooks are stories wrapped in technology. To the former, nothing less than an absolute adherence to print standards and customs will ever be acceptable; to the latter, the wrapping is of the essence and it doesn't matter if the narrative gets mangled in the process. Two extremes; ebooks as digital paper and ebooks as, effectively, games. The market has not been friendly to either. Simply put, commercial ebooks are primarily about the story. People care about typos and ocr errors; they don't particularly care about drop caps, white space, ligatures or kerning. Those are remants of the print age; people are a lot more interested in getting immersed in the narrative than whether the story is rendered according to some arbitrary standard left over from the molten lead era. It all boils down to personal preference and where ebooks shine is in letting the user set their own standards, whether it be no paragraph indents with an added blank line in between, ragged right, or no margins on-screen. (Somewhere out there somebody is happily reading ebooks in comic sans, ragged right, with no white space and auto scroll. It's their eyeballs.) Similarly, most people see the whiz-bang "enhancements" in the digital effects-laden editions more as distractions than value adds to the core narrative, not unlike the DVDs that ship with commentary tracks that most people simply ignore. To both camps, the market is saying: just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done. And if the market shrugs or cold shoulders a "feature" nobody is going to spend much money implementing it. So as long as the bulk of ebook money comes from genre narrative prose neither the publishers nor platform holders are going to waste time and effort on issues that consumers of narrative prose don't particularly care about. Ebooks are a consumer technology and consumer behavior is going to dictate how fast and where the industry goes. It might pay to look at other similarly consumer-driven narrative industries (video and console gaming) where genuine technical advances have stalled simply because consumers are perfectly satisfied with "good enough". As Adam Osbourne said a generation ago: adequacy is sufficient.

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