Is this Apple's e-book trojan horse?

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by sdbryan

In any case the low contrast monochrome display of the Kindle 2 would be a tepid competitor to an Apple tablet.

While it may not be as shiny as an apple tablet (if it eventually shows up) the kindle would still be far more comfortable to actually read books on, which considering the name of this site is actually a noticeable consideration of most of the people here.

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by sdbryan

In any case the low contrast monochrome display of the Kindle 2 would be a tepid competitor to an Apple tablet.

Unless you were to step into sunlight. Then suddenly said Apple tablet is going to be the one with worse contrast.

[WillAdams]

There are daylight viewable LCD options --- Fujitsu has offered them on their Stylistic line and a lot of GPS units use such as well --- Apple using such a display would be an interesting value-add.

The LP feature in iTunes is interesting --- quite the response to the paucity of content on CDs --- interestingly some of that has gone on-line (the notes from the LP version of Jim Croce's _Photographs and Memories_ showed up on-line a while back).

It is a possible successor as well to some of the earlier proprietary interactive e-book formats and such hybrid things as _The Manhole_.

Certainly none of the interactive music CD formats ever took off...

William

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by WillAdams

There are daylight viewable LCD options --- Fujitsu has offered them on their Stylistic line and a lot of GPS units use such as well --- Apple using such a display would be an interesting value-add.

I know there are existing daylight viewable LCDs... they fall into two major categories: Reflective and Transflective. Reflective LCDs have the best contrast outdoors (which still isn't as good as eInk), though since they rely on side/frontlighting in low light there is the issue of illuminating them evenly (particularly as the screen size increases) and they don't produce the level of color depth as a backlit display in my experience. Transflective LCDs, which have a special layer that allows light from behind to pass through but reflects light coming from in the front of the display, are usually more expensive and not nearly as good outdoors as purely reflective displays.

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by fugazied

LCD is not an issue for me. I use LCDs all of the time and I have no eye strain and they display color brilliantly.

Same here. I do think e-ink is better for long term reading--but I seldom every read for more than an hour or 2 at any stretch, so it's really a non issue. I also never read outdoors (allergies etc.) so sunlight viewability is a moot point for me as well. Battery life is more of an issue, but the vast majority of reading is done home and office. And even on a long flight I'm not going to read more than 3 or 4 hours probably.

So I personally could give up e-ink for LCD to get a tablet device that did all the stuff I wanted--writing on books and letter sized PDFs, internet, email, PDA calendar/contact functions, videos etc. etc. But I can see why more avid readers want to stick with e-ink.

The rumored Apple tablet has promise--but I suspect it will be finger touch only like the iPhone/iPod Touch and won't meet my stylus writing needs. But something will come out that does all that I want, has a good screen and a good battery life at a decent price sooner or later--may be 5 years or so, but I'm patient.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by sdbryan

That is just fashionable nonsense. When Apple introduced the iPod there was no DRM other than a message not to steal music. DRM for the iTunes Music Store was forced by the music industry and Apple was happy to get rid of it when it became possible. In the open source sense there are few commercial companies with more open source participation, e.g. Webkit. There is an SDK for the iPhone, will there be one for the new Zune HD?

If Apple is open, then why is Mac OS only sold on Apple hardware? If Apple is open, then why were there numerous iPhone firmware updates that did little other than un-Jailbreak the phone?

[sdbryan]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

If Apple is open, then why is Mac OS only sold on Apple hardware? If Apple is open, then why were there numerous iPhone firmware updates that did little other than un-Jailbreak the phone?

You're kidding, right? The nature of jailbreaks, whether on the iPhone or any other digital device, is to exploit an error in coding like a stack overflow. Unfortunately these errors can be exploited both by what we call jailbreak exploits and other more insidious malware (see Windows). When Apple releases updates (I've applied all of them and don't recall any that were superfluous to my iPod touch, I'm not interested in the iPhone per se) it would be irresponsible to not patch the errors that have been uncovered.

The other issue is a business decision that doesn't materially affect anyone who wants to put OSX on any fairly vanilla Intel PC or laptop. Apple tried its hand at supporting an official clone market in the 90's and it eventually sent the company into a tailspin. Near death experiences are known to have strong effects on the victim. So if you want to assemble your own lower price box and put OS X on it you will have to follow the widely available information about how that is done without Apple's help. It has even been known to work on some low price netbooks. Personally I like Apple's hardware so I can only provide second hand information; your results could differ from my acquaintances.

My claim about Apple's open position is that they provide and support comprehensive API's for third party developers. This allows people other than Apple employees to add value to the iPhone and Mac platforms. Can the same be said for the Kindle, Zune or Palm Pre? Apple does have this cryptographic code signing thing going on with the new platform and it seems likely they will need to tweak the app store concept. But I'm willing to be patient. They didn't originally support true third party apps (for the iPhone) and that changed. Heck, for that matter they didn't support third party apps for the Lisa but that changed when the Mac was introduced (yeah, I know, that was 25 years ago).

[spinoza]

People seem ready to point out that LCD displays do not work well in in direct sunlight, but these negativistas don't seem as ready point out that LCDs work infinitely better than e-ink in low or no light. I much prefer the advantage of being able to read without ambient light than with reading in direct sunlight, since I don't do the latter near as much as the former.

That being said, I understand a new transreflective kind of technology will be coming out this fall that will allow LCD displays to be used in bright sunlight just like e-ink. It supposedly will revolutionize LCD technology because it will combine the advantages of e-ink (low battery use, etc) with LCD. If this is the case, we won't have to decide between one or the other in the future.

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by spinoza

People seem ready to point out that LCD displays do not work well in in direct sunlight, but these negativistas don't seem as ready point out that LCDs work infinitely better than e-ink in low or no light. I much prefer the advantage of being able to read without ambient light than with reading in direct sunlight, since I don't do the latter near as much as the former.

A simple clip on booklight works great with eInk. For me this is actually better than an LCD in some sense, since a backlight can prove rather irritating on my eyes while reading in a pitch black room. (I have my lamp on right now just so as to avoid the problem with my laptop screen)

That being said, I understand a new transreflective kind of technology will be coming out this fall that will allow LCD displays to be used in bright sunlight just like e-ink. It supposedly will revolutionize LCD technology because it will combine the advantages of e-ink (low battery use, etc) with LCD. If this is the case, we won't have to decide between one or the other in the future.

That would be the 3Qi technology from PixelQi. Which does appear to be a major improvement over existing transflective LCDs. Though by their own admittance it still consumes more power than eInk... of course eInk uses absolutely no power other than during a refresh, which also means that the rest of the hardware can enter a suspended state until the next time a button is pressed... and lags slightly behind in contrast.

[dmaul1114]

I'm with spinoza on that. Due to hating heat, bugs and having allergies I pretty much never sit outside and read in the sun. So LCD does have that advantage. I do have a clip on light for my Kindle and it does work.

But I also don't get much of an eyestrain problem with LCDs--sit at a computer or laptop for 8+ hours everyday so I'm pretty used to it. Plus I seldom ever read for more than an hour or two straight. So that wouldn't be much of a factor to make me resist ditching e-ink for an LCD tablet once battery life is improved to at least 10 hours or so of usage. Fair trade off for the benefits that come with having an LCD screen--stylus writing, video, games, PDA functions, full featured web browsing etc.

But more hardcore readers would feel differently and e-ink is a bigger advantage for them--so there's definitely a market for e-ink readers and LCD tablets IMO. Pretty much separate markets.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by spinoza

People seem ready to point out that LCD displays do not work well in in direct sunlight, but these negativistas don't seem as ready point out that LCDs work infinitely better than e-ink in low or no light. I much prefer the advantage of being able to read without ambient light than with reading in direct sunlight, since I don't do the latter near as much as the former.

That being said, I understand a new transreflective kind of technology will be coming out this fall that will allow LCD displays to be used in bright sunlight just like e-ink. It supposedly will revolutionize LCD technology because it will combine the advantages of e-ink (low battery use, etc) with LCD. If this is the case, we won't have to decide between one or the other in the future.

I bought two LCD based PDAs specifically for reading eBooks. I now own an e-ink device. If I get the spare money I may buy an iPod Touch, but it's unlikely in the near future. If I do get it, it won't replace e-ink on my primary reading device.

Even if we ignore the fact that e-ink is easier on my eyes, there are two factors which put e-ink far ahead of portable LCD devices. Battery life and screen size. I used to run out of power all the time on my LCD devices, and I don't on e-ink. I also have a 6" e-ink device, and it's hard to get LCD devices in a tablet form factor with a similar or larger screen size.

So for me it's not that e-ink is necessarily better than LCD, but that current e-ink devices are.