iPad Can the iPad replace ebook readers?

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by Graham

It's been interesting digging into this as it's given me a different perspective on the iPad. The cleverness of the device seems to be derived more from what they've found they can leave out while still delivering the desired features, to bring down the thickness and weight, and increase the battery life, than in anything particularly revolutionary that they've put in.

Yep, that's exactly what's unique about the iPad.

They've created something that's missing a lot of features a full tablet PC has, but is much thinner, lighter and has much better battery life.

And it may well catch on as there may be a lot of people like me who just want a media consumption tablet and don't need or want full computing ability in it--especially not at the trade off of size, weight and battery life.

The other unique thing is just how fast and intuitive it is. Lack of multitasking didn't bug me much (aside from not having IM prorgrams in the back ground, pandora radio playing in the back ground etc.) as it's so damn fast in opening and closing programs.

And many things are just more intuitive with the interface. Scrolling around a PDF is much better than with a mouse, keyboard our touchpad on a laptop. Zooming in and out with the pinch method is the best zoom feature I've ever used.

As I've said, it's much better than I expected. I'll hold off and see what Android tablets come out etc. as I don't really have the cash for an iPad right now. But the bar is set pretty high and the other tablets will really have to knock it out of the ballpark to beat the iPad for my needs.

[volwrath]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

Yep, that's exactly what's unique about the iPad.

They've created something that's missing a lot of features a full tablet PC has, but is much thinner, lighter and has much better battery life.

And it may well catch on as there may be a lot of people like me who just want a media consumption tablet and don't need or want full computing ability in it--especially not at the trade off of size, weight and battery life.

The other unique thing is just how fast and intuitive it is. Lack of multitasking didn't bug me much (aside from not having IM prorgrams in the back ground, pandora radio playing in the back ground etc.) as it's so damn fast in opening and closing programs.

And many things are just more intuitive with the interface. Scrolling around a PDF is much better than with a mouse, keyboard our touchpad on a laptop. Zooming in and out with the pinch method is the best zoom feature I've ever used.

Actually according to leaked specs, the HP Slate has comparable dimensions, is lighter, has GPS, and runs a nice version of Win7. I'd much rather have chrome than safari for mobile surfing. Granted battery life will be worse.

The good thing is you dont have to pay for every single thing like you will on the ipad. Want a decent pdf viewer? Pay for it. Want to view word documents or spreadsheets? pay for it. Multitasking to me is big. If I am wanting to stream slacker radio and surf, forget about it on ipad. This will probably be changing when os 4.0 comes out however.

I guess I am holding out for the slate, although I played with an ipad today and was enthralled by it.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by leebase

Obviously, the ipad can replace eInk readers. For some people. Heck, my iPhone replaced my desire for an eInk reader.

Lee

How well does it work for reading on the beach?

Any overheating problems, oh and that pesky wi-fi thing....

[forcheville]

Originally Posted by searcher

Google Library already offer millions of books for sony reader in EPUB format and the purpose of the project was to scan and make available 18 million books.

Have you looked at any of those books?
The OCR is generally so crappy that they are pretty much unreadable unless you are very tolerant of large slabs of googldygook.

Having resisted going to the the Apple store over the weekend, tonight I went to Best Buy to check the iPad out. I already have a Macbook Pro so my interest was primarily as an ebook reader.

I spent maybe 20 - 30 minutes with it. It had numerous applications already installed but I searched for the iBook app. (BTW if you think it tough finding your icons on the iPhone or iTouch wait till you see the iPad.) I opened it up and was greeted with the nice wood bookshelf. I chose Winnie, of course. The opening and illustrations were wonderful but when I reached the beginning text I stared for a minute, then closed by eyes thinking something was wrong, hoping to clear whatever must have gotten into them, the opened them again. But the page hadn't changed. What I noticed is that the fonts were, well, crappy. No they were horrible.

I thought to my self "No this can't be right. The settings must be wrong." I checked the settings, what there were, but couldn't see how to improve them. So I began changing the font types. Baskerville, Palatino, Times, Verdana. All the fonts were horrible: blurry, unclear, parts of them disappeared like the horizontal part in the letter e. Then I began to change the font size. Remarkably the fonts did not get better as the size increased.
(There is a close-up of the iPad's display versus the Kindle DX in the excellent Ars Technica review which illustrates e-ink's vastly superior fonts.)

I am relieved now that I don't need to or want to spend the $ for this toy. But I am also disappointed that the iPad is not a good ereader, at least for me. I demand good font clarity in these devices. It is very slick and would be great for games and web surfing. Two handed typing was easier than I thought it would be. But for books it would be taking me in a direction away from where I want to go, namely a pleasant reading experience. The iPad's font presentation has killed [most of] my desire.

So my search continues...

[Ervserver]

iPad will definitely replace ebook readers, quite an amazing device

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by volwrath

Actually according to leaked specs, the HP Slate has comparable dimensions, is lighter, has GPS, and runs a nice version of Win7. I'd much rather have chrome than safari for mobile surfing. Granted battery life will be worse.

The good thing is you dont have to pay for every single thing like you will on the ipad. Want a decent pdf viewer? Pay for it. Want to view word documents or spreadsheets? pay for it. Multitasking to me is big. If I am wanting to stream slacker radio and surf, forget about it on ipad. This will probably be changing when os 4.0 comes out however.

I guess I am holding out for the slate, although I played with an ipad today and was enthralled by it.

Yeah, the slate looks promising if you want a full tablet PC. The battery life is touted at around 5 hours from what I've seen, there's no way windows 7 on it will be as slick and super fast to open stuff as the iPad OS is etc.

The slate and other tablet PC's will be a nice device for those wanting Tablet PCs, I'm just not one of them. I just want a fast, slick, easy to use media consumption tablet.

Buying apps doesn't bother me much as if I took the iPad app all I'd probably pay for is Goodreader (99 cents), iAnnotate ($7) and Pages ($10). Maybe some games or other random apps, but I buy games and programs for PCs and would on the slate as well, so no difference.

Multitasking is something I wish the iPad had (and part of the reason I want to see what Android based tablets offer). But it didn't bother me as much as I expected as the iPad is so damn fast in opening programs, closing programs etc. Still a bummer to not be able to have Pandora radio playing while doing something else, or to have an instant message app running in the background etc.

But it's not the huge deal breaker I thought it would be. Same with lack of flash, the Netflix and ABC player took care of a lot of my video needs, Hulu app will solve most of the rest when it's out. And I was surprised that sites like ESPN would start with the "install flash player" icon in the video spots--but then it loaded and played the video. So I guess they've switched to also support HTML 5 or something. So lack of Flash isn't the detriment for my web surfing experience that I thought it would be.

Originally Posted by kennyc

How well does it work for reading on the beach?

Any overheating problems, oh and that pesky wi-fi thing....

Everyone has their own needs. I hate the beach, haven't been in ages and never, ever sit outside and read in the sun period.

The iPad doesn't get hot from what I've seen. Wifi problem would be annoying though.

Originally Posted by akira28

All the fonts were horrible: blurry, unclear, parts of them disappeared like the horizontal part in the letter e. Then I began to change the font size. Remarkably the fonts did not get better as the size increased.

I didn't notice any problems with readability in iBooks, the Kindle App or the Free Books App.

But I also don't give a crap about fonts or what books look like as long as the text is easy to read, and I found it was for sure. But to each their own.

Originally Posted by Ervserver

iPad will definitely replace ebook readers, quite an amazing device

I don't see that happening. It's a great device and I'm likely to ditch my Kindle 1 for an iPad or Android (or other tablet) in the next year or so. But there's plenty of room in the e-book market for dedicated readers, e-ink screens, pdas, smartphones, tablets, PC/Mac apps etc. It's not some zero sum end game where only one method of reading e-books will survive.

[Magnesus]

iPad has two great things: 4:3 proportions of the screen and S-IPS LCD - other tablets mostly have wide (unusable in portrait mode or for photos) cheap TN LCDs.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Magnesus

iPad has two great things: 4:3 proportions of the screen and S-IPS LCD - other tablets mostly have wide (unusable in portrait mode or for photos) cheap TN LCDs.

I doubt that a widescreen display is unusable in portrait mode or for photos. Items may not fill the screen, true, but then neither does widescreen video on the iPad.

As always, consumers can decide which is more important for their own needs.

Graham

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ervserver

iPad will definitely replace ebook readers, quite an amazing device

Well that's an opinion, do you have any facts or logic to back it up?

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Ervserver

iPad will definitely replace ebook readers, quite an amazing device

Yes, on weight alone it could replace four Cybook Opus readers.

[grega_g]

I want my ereader to have eink not lcd display. The difference after reading a few hours is staggering. Sure some will use iPad as reader (and the way it is selling that means a lot of people) but devices for eink fanatics will survive attack from apple zombies

[rbarhat]

I bought the reader because i wanted a device that would simply replace book reading.. I have even given up the touchscreen thing because it caused glare issues while reading.. For my computing needs i use my netbook or smartphone..

When i want to read i don't want to get interrupted in the middle by new messages that i have mail, xyz is online etc.

Also i travel a lot and would prefer carrying a reader with battery life as long to last for my few days stay without carrying all the paraphernelia..

So for a person like me, i'm happy with just my reader.. I believe there will be some like me.. But if someone does not have a netbook and ebook reader, the ipad will come in handy...

[dmaul1114]

Yep, that's where it's a different strokes for different folks thing.

I'm a very casual reader, my Kindle was an impulse buy that probably wasn't needed in hindsight.

So I'm better off with something that I can surf the net, watch videos (movies, stream TV shows etc.), play games, surf the net, do my e-mail etc. etc. AND read books, newspapers etc. on.

I'm wanting to resist and wait and see what Android tablets come out, maybe wait for the 2nd gen iPad etc. But I'm still tempted to see if I can sell my Kindle 1 for $100 or so and just pick up an iPad.

[JSWolf]

To answer the question raised in the topic, the answer is, the iPad is not yet reader to replace your reader. The apps just are not ready yet.