iPad Can the iPad replace ebook readers?

[richman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egMA0DeFqKQ

video review of just the IPAD's Kindle app with the options/fonts/bookmarks etc. This review just came out today. Looks good to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhnE8...eature=channel
This is video review of the IPAD magazine app which has cool features of video links embedded in magazines.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by lilman

I've seen some pics of the Marvel app and it looks gorgeous. As western comics are full color, non color epaper devices like current Kindles would not be good for them.

Manga (or Japanese comics for those unfamiliar with it), on the other hand, are almost entirely black and white (except for the cover art and the occasional color page). So I would be interested to see how the iPad stacks up against the Kindle DX in manga viewing. Maybe I'll find out if I end up getting the 3g when it launches

My girlfriend did actually put some manga on it in the form of scanned images. I'd forgotten that.

They looked great. But the photo syncing system was a pain to figure out, and it scrambled the order of them, and she hasn't figured out how to reorder them so the pages are in the right order yet. But they did look great--and I'd imagine a manga app would produce better results than displaying scanned photos in iPhoto.

In any case, I'd think black and white would still look better since you can have a real white background, vs. the gray of an e-ink. Not to mention the faster page turns etc.

Originally Posted by sfernald

For instance you mentioned PDAs, but they got wiped out by the smartphones. I don't know anyone that uses one any more.

I'm sure you do.

I also don't know any company that sells them. Does palm still sell them?

No Palm doesn't sell them. But two small, obscure companies do: HP and Apple.

[sfernald]

Originally Posted by akira28

I'm sure you do.



No Palm doesn't sell them. But two small, obscure companies do: HP and Apple.

ITouch and iPad have PDA functionality, but I don't think I would refer to either as one.. Itouch is an offshoot of the success of the iPhone and more of a media/iPod/game device than a pda and the iPad is a tablet computer - you can't even fit it in your pocket - you might as well call a netbook a PDA then. I guess you could argue that a itouch is a PDA, but I don't think the PDA functionality is a primary use of it and reason for buying it. People are buying it as a ipod to listen to music and watch movies and play the games. Some people may be using it as a PDA, I'll grant you that.


I don't really think it's even arguable that smart phones did not wipe out the PDA market. That is a well known fact and one of the reasons palm has been dying for years. I'm not saying there are none out there, I'm just saying the market for them is virtually dead.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by richman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egMA0DeFqKQ

video review of just the IPAD's Kindle app with the options/fonts/bookmarks etc. This review just came out today. Looks good to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhnE8...eature=channel
This is video review of the IPAD magazine app which has cool features of video links embedded in magazines.

Thanks for that link to the zinio app review that looks great and seems to be about what I'd want in a magazine reader....and free to boot!

[richman]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Thanks for that link to the zinio app review that looks great and seems to be about what I'd want in a magazine reader....and free to boot!

Almost as good as bootie for FREE!

[dmaul1114]

PDAs are different in the sense the Smartphones do contacts and calendars pretty much as well, and are more convenient in the sense that people always have their cell phones with them.

Vs. PDAs. I have a palm pilot, but I seldom took it places other than back and forth between the office (and still do today). It's more just a link to sync my desktop and home laptop Palm Desktop software as that's where I do all my event entering etc.

Point being smart phones largely rendered PDAs useless for most of the market. As much as I like tablets like the iPad, and like reading on them, I think there's a lot more people who will want a dedicated reader for novels than there were people who wanted a plain PDA when they could have a smarthphone.

Time will tell of course.

[BearMountainBooks]

It's a little big and unprotected for "just" a reader as others have said. The other complaint I'm seeing is that the bookstore wasn't really ready for primetime--in that there aren't enough categories and browsing is difficult.

Of course as with anything out the gate, there's room for improvements.

Personally I am happy to see a device that does multiple types of things. This particular device doesn't do it for me (price, no multi-tasking, price!). If I had to buy something today as a reader, I'd still go with a netbook. Cheaper, does the multi-tasking and I can download reader software. Not as portable as Kindle, but better price for the functions. And probably more durable than either Kindle or iPad.

[stustaff]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

My girlfriend did actually put some manga on it in the form of scanned images. I'd forgotten that.

They looked great. But the photo syncing system was a pain to figure out, and it scrambled the order of them, and she hasn't figured out how to reorder them so the pages are in the right order yet. But they did look great--and I'd imagine a manga app would produce better results than displaying scanned photos in iPhoto.

In any case, I'd think black and white would still look better since you can have a real white background, vs. the gray of an e-ink. Not to mention the faster page turns etc.

lookinto getting some cbr or czb software for putting the manga in one file, it will then work very nicely on one of iPads comic reader apps.

[richman]

Most of the reviews are pretty positive and a few months ago lots of folks were knocking the IPAD , so if it was pretty bad, you know lots of people would be knocking it and they aren't. They say it's first generation and no camcorder feature, but on the whole , most are positive.
Like a lot of us the price they say is the major fault they have with the device but since this device just came out and apple makes the impatient people who buy on Launch beta testers , after they find the bugs and work them out apple lowers the price , so they can catch a lot of us that have been waiting for a sale.
Also, since apple was trying to keep the apple ipad secret with all those non-discloser agreements until last week, they couldn't test the unit out with lots of people, they were afraid it would get leaked, and only people apple really trusted were able to test it. But with 450,000 people having it the last week, whatever is a bug will be worked out over the next 6 months.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by stustaff

lookinto getting some cbr or czb software for putting the manga in one file, it will then work very nicely on one of iPads comic reader apps.

I'll pass that info on to her.

Still annoying as the files are ordered properly in the windows folder, but the iPad sorts it by something other than file name I guess (since the file are just 1.jpeg, 2.jpeg etc.

But c'est le vie, somethings just aren't very intuitive on Apple products (sure the PC/laptops are). Great UIs but a few things for sure that annoy me on the iPad, my new iPod Nano etc.

[lilman]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

My girlfriend did actually put some manga on it in the form of scanned images. I'd forgotten that.

They looked great. But the photo syncing system was a pain to figure out, and it scrambled the order of them, and she hasn't figured out how to reorder them so the pages are in the right order yet. But they did look great--and I'd imagine a manga app would produce better results than displaying scanned photos in iPhoto.

In any case, I'd think black and white would still look better since you can have a real white background, vs. the gray of an e-ink. Not to mention the faster page turns etc.

Thanks for the info. Good to hear that black and white manga looks good on the iPad. I don't mind the background color of epaper, and page turns are very fast on the Kindle DX as long as you use pdf format (jpeg turning though is very slow).

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

I'll pass that info on to her.

Still annoying as the files are ordered properly in the windows folder, but the iPad sorts it by something other than file name I guess (since the file are just 1.jpeg, 2.jpeg etc.

But c'est le vie, somethings just aren't very intuitive on Apple products (sure the PC/laptops are). Great UIs but a few things for sure that annoy me on the iPad, my new iPod Nano etc.

I faced a similar problem on the Kindle DX. You would think alphabetical order would be the default... There was a trick to it on the Kindle, some kind of system file in each directory, maybe the iPad does that too. If I get an iPad I'll look into it. I would probably use pdf manga anyway, which is what I use now on my DX, and that would avoid any page order issues.

Originally Posted by stustaff

lookinto getting some cbr or czb software for putting the manga in one file, it will then work very nicely on one of iPads comic reader apps.

You could use my program if you want. It will prepare the manga for the iPad and then zip it up (or pdf if you want). I guess in the next release I could give an option to change the zip file extension to cbr or cbz (since those are just zip files renamed).
Canti (manga processing program): https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79004
Note that I don't have an iPad so I have not tested this yet on one.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by stustaff

Its a known issue with eink devices! not an error as such.

read this https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27424

Obviously there are operational limits to eink displays, and it is possible to exceed them. And it is possible for specific eink screens (or the electronics driving them) to have narrower operational limits than others coming off the same production lines and be characterized as 'defective'.

About a year ago, I replaced my Kindle because of 'sun fade' behavior that was happening with every page turn while it was exposed to full sun (instants after walking out of my house with it, in 60-70 degree weather, mid-latitude noontime sunlight). So far, I have not observed a reoccurrence with the replacement unit. I regard the initial behavior as defective.

In my case it was apparently not excessive heat, but something about the intensity of the solar radiation that the screen could not cope with. Photoelectric effect? At any rate, Amazon must have made some adjustments, because I don't see this complaint very frequently of late.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Obviously there are operational limits to eink displays, and it is possible to exceed them. And it is possible for specific eink screens (or the electronics driving them) to have narrower operational limits than others coming off the same production lines and be characterized as 'defective'.

About a year ago, I replaced my Kindle because of 'sun fade' behavior that was happening with every page turn while it was exposed to full sun (instants after walking out of my house with it, in 60-70 degree weather, mid-latitude noontime sunlight). So far, I have not observed a reoccurrence with the replacement unit. I regard the initial behavior as defective.

In my case it was apparently not excessive heat, but something about the intensity of the solar radiation that the screen could not cope with. Photoelectric effect? At any rate, Amazon must have made some adjustments, because I don't see this complaint very frequently of late.

I agree. I've been on the Amazon Kindle boards for quite a while. It used to be a fairly common complaint and people received replacements. I haven't seen the topic come up for a couple of months now.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stustaff

both my 505 and pocket have massive contrast issues in direct sunlight! it is a known eink issue.

It's a know issue with eink screens made by LG. Those screens are defective. Vizplex was designed to work fine in direct sunlight. My 505 is fine.