It is the Worst of Times for Reading EBooks

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by patrickt

Amazon Kindle has made some missteps, such as the Voyage and it's silly cover, but overall the progress has been impressive and affordable.

The Voyage with origami cover is the best reader cover combination ever, but not quite as nice as reading on a naked Voyage.

[haertig]

There comes a point where technology doesn't need to advance - things are good enough as they are. How about the technology of printed books? The last time that changed was well before my birth ... I certainly don't remember it ever changing during my lifetime.

When technology doesn't need to advance further, often times you will see prices start to decrease (and that's an advancement in and of itself). So to support prices, manufactures will come up with newer technology that is often times useless, and serves more as a marketing tool. e.g., There may be a some users that absolutely have to have a waterproof eBook reader, but I'm betting that 99% of the users out there don't need that and aren't willing to pay extra to get it. We now have smartphones where the screen is so large you can't fit the thing in your pocket, but by golly, the screen is rounded at the edges. Really quite useless when you think about it, but how else are they going to justify continuing to charge you $1000 for a telephone? Oh yeah, wait, they did give us little talking piles of crap emoticons - that was certainly a necessary technology advancement. Makes me want to run right out there and plop down another grand to get it.

IMHO, eReaders have already matured to an end state of maximum functionality and utility. Innovations from now forward will be mostly fluff, meant to prop up prices.

[Lparsons21]

Originally Posted by leebase

I have an open mind....what are the recent innovations? When was the last new entrant? When was the last device selling a screen that wasn’t the same screen everybody else is selling?

How is it that compete tablets sell for half the price of eInk only devices?

What new ebook store has come along? Where does one go to find a real deal on a popular ebook?

What cool feature is a new part of the ePub or mobi standard that’s actually being implemented?

Heck...when are the features we loved about Stanza going to appear in the Kindle app?

How can an iPad mini be thinner than an eInk reader?

All good questions!
I would add when will we get a little speed in e-ink devices? Every e-ink device I’ve ever seen is sluggish, even more so than some no name, low spec tablet. For me it is the single reason I don’t use e-ink devices much.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by leebase

Now now....just because some of us have an eReader we like...wasn't it better when there was more choice? I mean, it's one thing for Sony to leave the business...but who took their place?

No one. Normal shake-down in a new industry. Sony never did well at low-end competition — they shut down a lot of their computer and device lines at the same time they shut down eReaders. Their specialty is higher margins, kind of like Apple.

Originally Posted by leebase

And while the original $400 price of a Kindle has come way down....how come there isn't a pretty nice $49 eInk device or even $25?

No real competition. Amazon basically has the market sewn up (especially in the U.S. where most of the money is).

Originally Posted by leebase

Remember when some phone had an eInk screen in addition to an lcd?

You mean like up until April of this year, when Yota went bankrupt?

Originally Posted by leebase

We seem to have these wonderful "reflected light" screens in less places than before.

Really? — because I never did see a lot of them "in the wild." EReaders always were a niche product. Where are you getting your statistics?

Originally Posted by leebase

Why isn't there an eInk reader that is agnostic and works with multiple book stores like an iPad or an Android tablet?

There are. Search for Android e-Ink readers.

Originally Posted by leebase

eInk devices still aren't great for pdf's. By now that use case should have been dealt with.

That wasn't what they were designed for — at least not for most standard eBook readers (where the lion's share of the market is). And the bigger eInk screen eReaders do fairly well at PDF. (Never been much of an issue for me.)

Originally Posted by leebase

And what of those business oriented ones with the cool pen markup etc?

They're still there. More of a niche market than standard eReaders. These DO handle PDFs pretty well.

Originally Posted by leebase

Not only did none of these pan out....it seems like no one even cares or remembers how bright the future seemed to be....ten years ago

I'm happy with the current status of eInk eReaders (as are many who use them). Since you don't use them, why is this a concern for you?

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by haertig

There comes a point where technology doesn't need to advance - things are good enough as they are.

Exactly. I think eReaders are at that point. You can buy high-end e-Ink tablets, but it's a very small (niche) market. Most eBook readers are happy with 300dpi, decent front light and the ability to download a book on the fly from Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or their library. I know I am.

[pwalker8]

Much of the talk is about the readers, but for me, once you get past a certain point, it's all about content. These days, it's a pretty rare book published by main stream publishers over the last decade that isn't available as an ebook. Are there backlist books that I wish I had? Sure, but more and more are becoming available. Now we are reduced to nibbling around the edges.

I still think that the next big break through will be discoverability, and that goes for all digital media, not just ebooks.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by haertig

There comes a point where technology doesn't need to advance - things are good enough as they are. ...
IMHO, eReaders have already matured to an end state of maximum functionality and utility. Innovations from now forward will be mostly fluff, meant to prop up prices.

Except for what Lparsons21 said about speed; they're still unacceptably and irritatingly slow.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Exactly. I think eReaders are at that point. You can buy high-end e-Ink tablets, but it's a very small (niche) market. Most eBook readers are happy with 300dpi, decent front light and the ability to download a book on the fly from Amazon, B&N, Kobo, or their library. I know I am.

This. Kindles have come a LONG way since my first K2. I love reading on my Oasis or new Paperwhite. The only thing on the Oasis that needs improvement is the battery life, and it would be lovely to be able to control the light by sliding a finger up/down like you can on the Kobo.

I don't need a large format e-ink device with pen input. I need a good device for reading, and Kindles fill this need.

[jhowell]

It seems odd to me that people are far more interested in participating in the “worst of times” thread than in the “best of times” one.

Personally, I feel that as ebooks have become an established phenomenon they are more useful to me as a reader but less exciting from a techie prospective.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by leebase

And while the original $400 price of a Kindle has come way down....how come there isn't a pretty nice $49 eInk device or even $25?

Possibly that the cost of the eInk screen does not allow for selling a $50 eInk device without having to make up the losses elsewhere.

Originally Posted by leebase

Remember when some phone had an eInk screen in addition to an lcd?

Hmm... Yota and HiSense(?), the case for an iPhone that added an eInk screen. Niche products at best and Yota recently went bankrupt.

Originally Posted by leebase

Why isn't there an eInk reader that is agnostic and works with multiple book stores like an iPad or an Android tablet?

Take a look at the Android eInk readers. Though many of them have antique versions of Android making finding apps a PITA. I do find that I have no issues using multiple book stores with my ereaders. Calibre is a great equalizer.

Originally Posted by leebase

eInk devices still aren't great for pdf's. By now that use case should have been dealt with.

As has been pointed out many times, PDF files are page oriented making them unattractive on smaller screen devices -- shrink an A4 page down to a 6" screen and it's gets a bit hard to read unless you are a devotee of zoom and pan. From some figures I once saw, PDFs have never had the sales to qualify as even a niche market for ereaders. There are large screen eInk devices which work pretty well with PDFs though you pay for that screen size. Some even have pen support and allow saving your annotations with the PDF.

As one example of how small the market for PDF compared to EPUB, the local library shows 2882 open EPUBs compared to 9 open PDFs. All 9 of those PDFs are childrens books.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by leebase

It is the worst of times....

Looking back over ten years of participating on this forum, I think it is the worst of times for reading ebooks. IMHO.

eInk innovation has all but come to a stop. Where are the large eInk readers with pen input and worklow?

It escapes me, why do I need an ereader with pen input? I can't for the life of me work out how that would improve my reading. Annotations? Only if you want to draw or use handwriting. And, I don't think that is enough of a use case to make them any company produce them. Though, Sony does.

There are no more independant eInk devices to speak of. Surely not of the quality of the Sony line. Pretty much "eco system" plays like Amazon, Kobo and Nook are all that's left. And only Amazon has a healthy business.

Wasn't Sony an "eco system" device? I never used one, but they did have a store and their own application to get books on them. Sounds exactly like what the the three companies you mention do.

Fictionwise and many many other beloved ebook stores are gone and are never coming back. Along with them are the special pricing deals that so many of us loved.

And from my viewpoint, bricks & mortar book shops came and went before ereading started to take over. Why do you expect it to be different for on-line stores?

The rise of audio books is a detriment to actual reading. It's bad enough with the twitters, face place, and insta-whosit's of the world destroying people's attention spans....now folks are too lazy to learn to read and are counting listening to a book as if it's reading.

Personally, I don't do audio books, I'd probably fall asleep. And I choose music if I am going to be listening in all those places that people say are great for audiobooks. But, I think it is a perfectly valid way of absorbing literature and the ideas, feelings, etc. contained within. Just as watching videos, attending lectures, classes etc are all ways to learn.

As to attention spans, over the years, I have watched my sons play various computer games. They have a much longer attention span than I have for all my years of reading.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by leebase

It is the worst of times....

Looking back over ten years of participating on this forum, I think it is the worst of times for reading ebooks...

It is quite clear that you are correct as there cannot be many people left who can read ebooks at all. That because it seems to me from these forums that the E Ink fans must be blind because they cannot read on the alternatives, and tablet and phone users must be blind from all the light shining in their eyes.

[MarjaE]

I have coordination issues and haven't been able to use touch devices such as newer e-readers and tablets. It's possible that settings to disable more gestures, stylus devices, and/or overlays with holes can help. But I have coordination issues and tendon issues and can't use the one stylus device I've tried, because it required users to use a button near the nib, to operate the stylus...

In the meantime I use an older Kindle Dx. I got it cheap, and apparently damaged.

Increasing reliance on pdfs, incompatible versions using jpeg-2000 for extra compression, and slow-t-run versions are problems for me.

I work around the 2nd issue by pre-processing all pdfs in either k2opt or ghostscript.

I have instructions to test for the 3rd issue using wxdemo. But I have a strobe sensitivity and other visual processing issues, and can't see around blinding cursors, and can't see in wxdemo code windows, so I am at a bit of an impasse.

For purely technological changes, I'd like to see a new generation of button + keyboard devices, further improvements in ocr, and better support for older or non-standard orthographies.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by haertig

There comes a point where technology doesn't need to advance - things are good enough as they are. How about the technology of printed books? The last time that changed was well before my birth ... I certainly don't remember it ever changing during my lifetime.

The change in my lifetime was from sewn bindings to perfect. For many years, it meant that a lot of glued-together books fell apart.

The most significant eBook change since the Kindle came along was the demise, several years ago, of the killer app, the $1.99 / month NY Times Latest News Blog.

As for readers, neither my wife nor I have found anything better than the Kindle 3/Keyboard. We did try the front-lit Voyage when Amazon accidentally sent us one when I had bought a spare used Kindle Keyboard. We like the old model. Obviously, YMMV.

The only big defect I see in the eInk Kindle Keyboard, and it is significant, is that you can't read ePUB library books, such as from the Cloud Library. There also are defects in the "experimental" browser -- web site support for which has declined -- but since we eventually broke down and got international smartphones from Google Fi, it is no longer an issue for us.

It is unfortunate that prices of eInk readers haven't sunk to the point where people in dire poverty around the world can easily buy them. Maybe that will have to wait until eInk patents run out.

The biggest improvement I would like to see is international eBook equality. There still are eBooks I read that you can't find at amazon.com but can find at amazon.co.uk. Right now I am reading this one in paper. I know how to evade the purchase geo-restriction but I doubt I'll go through the hassle again.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Personally, I don't do audio books, ...

I don't either. Reading is a quiet time for me.