Jerry Pournelle on ebooks

[Penforhire]

Converged devices are the future and the ideal. But the iPhone 'aint it. So far they are always too much compromise. I had a converged Palm/Phone but my current separate devices each do the trick better for me. Do I want a single device? Sure. But, again, the iPhone is just another step in the right direction.

[nekokami]

It's funny, I was talking with my 13 year old daughter about this today while we were waiting together in a bank office. She just got an iPod Nano for Christmas. She's a big reader (currently using my eBw 1150), but is saving her money for an iPod Touch. I joked with the banker that I don't have any kind of iPod, I have an ebook reader instead, and my daughter said she wanted one device that she could do both on-- and surf the internet, too. I mentioned the Kindle to her, but she'd also like to be able to watch videos, so I think she needs to wait a bit longer for the "perfect" device. She didn't have any problem with the idea of reading a screen full of text on the iPod Touch, though. It would drive me crazy, I think. I'd rather lug around a slightly larger device and be able to see a full page at a time. (But then again, I also read journal articles on my iLiad.)

Unfortunately, most of what my daughter likes to read isn't available yet as ebooks (from any source). She likes shoujo manga, and some of those can be found online (mostly not from legal sources, though), but the other books she likes best just aren't being distributed as ebooks yet, and I guess the scan & swap party hasn't quite started amongst readers of "teen angst" fiction.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by nekokami

She didn't have any problem with the idea of reading a screen full of text on the iPod Touch, though. It would drive me crazy, I think. .

Actually for text based books, (and hacked iTouch so you use Books.app which supports txt/html) with arial 19 (since the sans that I prefer on my 770 is not available) you get 22 lines of 40 characters each. It's true that Books.app is not yet polished as Fbreader, so it does not support hyphenation, so in practice you get less, due to empty end lines for long words, but still it's quite nice.

On my 770 with sans 22, I get 23 lines of 35 characters each, and since I have hyphenation the lines are pretty much identical with the iTouch in the same book, with one extra line and nicer looking text.

[nekokami]

Is that in a portrait orientation? I just checked a paperback chosen at random and got about 50 characters per line, about 29 lines. Also, how's the font size compared to a typical paperback? And how's the battery life (for either the 770 or the iTouch)?

I still need my iLiad for journal articles, but one of these devices might work well for my daughter.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Is that in a portrait orientation? I just checked a paperback chosen at random and got about 50 characters per line, about 29 lines. Also, how's the font size compared to a typical paperback? And how's the battery life (for either the 770 or the iTouch)?

I still need my iLiad for journal articles, but one of these devices might work well for my daughter.

Yes, portrait; battery life is about 4-5hrs on the 770 for reading, maybe more, depending on brightness settings, if you keep your wi-fi off as I do and use it only when you need it...(the current and better devices are 800 and 810 and when my 770 dies - hopefully not soon , I intend to get one of those)

On the iTouch I read pdf's mostly and of course play music and movies, text based only when I do not have my 770 with me. Battery life is comparable to a regular iPod, so a lot (10-20 hrs easily if you do not play movies and 5 hrs if you play only movies)

Regarding fonts, it's hard to say; a lot depends on resolution, and 770 has about 230 dpi 800x480, while the iTouch something like 200 dpi 640x400, so unelss you see them it's hard to compare with anything.

In physical size, the 770 screen is probably about half of a mmpb effective print area, and the iTouch maybe 1/3-2/5

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Yes, portrait; battery life is about 4-5hrs on the 770

Regarding fonts, it's hard to say; a lot depends on resolution, and 770 has about 230 dpi 800x480, while the iTouch something like 200 dpi 640x400, so unelss you see them it's hard to compare with anything.

In physical size, the 770 screen is probably about half of a mmpb effective print area, and the iTouch maybe 1/3-2/5

I don't know about the rest of your specs but the iPod Touch is no where near as good as you say. It is 480x320 or about 160 dpi.

Dale

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I don't know about the rest of your specs but the iPod Touch is no where near as good as you say. It is 480x320 or about 160 dpi.

Dale

Yes you' re right about the Touch; the 770 is however 800x480 for sure since I put tons of 800x480 jpg's of scans embedded in html on it and they showed exactly page to screen. And for the dpi, I am also pretty sure is about right.

The big advantage of the iTouch is speed; I never could navigate an unmodified pdf that fast on a small device, while on the iTouch with Safari and pdf's below 10MB it's remarkable how fast the navigation is (both scrolling through the book and finger resizing to your needs) and that allowed me to read about 6 math books already on it, with going back and forth as much as I wanted. I heard the 810 with the 2008 OS is much better at rendering pdf's than 770 or 800 but I never had a chance to try it.

Regarding text based books, the 770 is clearly better, but the iTouch will do. The problem there is that Books.app is not that well developed the way Fbreader is, but I am sure that will come in time.

The only negative for the Touch is the 7.5 Gb storage which means I have to be very selective in what I keep on it (usually 2 movies so about 2.5 GB there, 1.5Gb of books mostly pdf's and 3.5 GB of music).

I am now very intrigued by Archos 605 which has 80 or 160 Gb and a larger and better screen, but I do not know how good is its pdf rendering, how fast it is since ultimately that's what counts for me; I intend to try one when I get the chance

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Yes you' re right about the Touch; the 770 is however 800x480 for sure since I put tons of 800x480 jpg's of scans embedded in html on it and they showed exactly page to screen. And for the dpi, I am also pretty sure is about right.

The big advantage of the iTouch is speed; I never could navigate an unmodified pdf that fast on a small device, while on the iTouch with Safari and pdf's below 10MB it's remarkable how fast the navigation is (both scrolling through the book and finger resizing to your needs) and that allowed me to read about 6 math books already on it, with going back and forth as much as I wanted. I heard the 810 with the 2008 OS is much better at rendering pdf's than 770 or 800 but I never had a chance to try it.

Regarding text based books, the 770 is clearly better, but the iTouch will do. The problem there is that Books.app is not that well developed the way Fbreader is, but I am sure that will come in time.

The only negative for the Touch is the 7.5 Gb storage which means I have to be very selective in what I keep on it (usually 2 movies so about 2.5 GB there, 1.5Gb of books mostly pdf's and 3.5 GB of music).

I am now very intrigued by Archos 605 which has 80 or 160 Gb and a larger and better screen, but I do not know how good is its pdf rendering, how fast it is since ultimately that's what counts for me; I intend to try one when I get the chance

I think the 705 or even the 704 Wii they currently sell as refurb would be an awsome pdf reader. Nice big screen and adequate resolution.

Dale

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I think the 705 or even the 704 Wii they currently sell as refurb would be an awsome pdf reader. Nice big screen and adequate resolution.

Dale

I intend to test one soon. Speed and ease of navigation are very important for me.

For the iTouch, I saw a video online of someone reading a Wovio pdf on it and I was impressed, so I went to an Apple store around here and used an online math pdf to test it and I really liked how fast it renders it and how fast you can move within it. Also you can have up to 8 pdf's open at the same time in Safari (in fact 8 Safari windows irrespective of what's on them)

[nekokami]

I suppose if the SDK for the iPod Touch really does come out in February, the suitability of the iPod Touch (or the iPhone, for that matter) as an ebook reader could change very quickly. As I understand it, a stock Touch can only read books served from a web server through wifi, but I would guess that will change with the release of the SDK. And if FBReader (with new ePub support) is ported to the Touch, I think it could be quite a contender. I'm pretty sure my daughter (the ebook and web page junkie) would want one. Badly.

I would think Mobipocket would want to consider porting their reader as well, as they've got a Java version, but Amazon may block that.

I wonder if Apple would consider buying or partnering with eReader? That could be a very powerful combo. eReader doesn't sell its own hardware, and Apple doesn't already have a supply of ebooks to pack into the iTunes store. There is already a version of eReader for OSX, so it shouldn't be too troublesome to port to the iPod Touch/iPhone environment. I would think a deal like that could make both Apple and eReader buckets of money.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I suppose if the SDK for the iPod Touch really does come out in February, the suitability of the iPod Touch (or the iPhone, for that matter) as an ebook reader could change very quickly. As I understand it, a stock Touch can only read books served from a web server through wifi, but I would guess that will change with the release of the SDK. And if FBReader (with new ePub support) is ported to the Touch, I think it could be quite a contender. I'm pretty sure my daughter (the ebook and web page junkie) would want one. Badly.

As someone put it the iTouch is the iPhone without the phone and the camera . Regarding the sdk, that is my hope too, since then applications will be more polished; already in the hacked state and there are tons and tons of applications.

This is where the difference in popularity between the iPhone and say Nokia is very clear; Nokia 7-800 series is open and in the 2.5 years since appearance there are some cool applications that appeared and were ported between OS 2006, OS 2007 and now OS 2008; but the Iphone in several months and hacked at that and generated more applications already...


Fbreader on the iPhone/Touch would be definitely nice.