Is the ereader dead?

[happyjon]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

I think it's ridiculous to argue that the ereader is dead because the users of ereaders don't buy replacement ereaders every year or two like people tend to do with smartphones. I've basically upgraded my ereader 3 times, from the original Nook, to the Nook Simple Touch, to the Kobo Glo HD, and I'm happy enough with my Glo HD that I don't expect to upgrade again soon unless there's some sort of major advance in screen technology, like full color e-ink, 300 DPI, for under $200.

It seems some regard having the latest phone as a status symbol, and with each upgrade new apps appear that don't work on previous versions. If you buy an e-reader it reads e-books, so unless it packs up there's not a strong incentive to upgrade.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by LordP

I lay down sideways in bed. Very awkward.

I do not think I could read comfortably in that position for any length of time. That's what makes the world a magical place. So many people can find so many ways to do the same thing and none of them are wrong.
Apache

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by latepaul

At some point someone figured out how to combine these functions, and others, well - and we got smartphones. I think it was partly design and partly that the technology had to catch up - touch screens and faster mobile CPUs. Once they were good enough a watershed was reached and the market for PDAs went from being massive to niche.

Basically Handspring/Palm killed their own PDAs by combining a Palm PDA with a phone. The Handspring (then Palm) Treo is what killed the PDA.

But I don't see anything on the horizon in smartphones or tablets that would displace an eReader for reading. I don't (currently) see a tablet or smartphone innovation that would cause me to drop my eInk eReaders. As an "emergency" reader my smartphone works okay. Tablets, on the other hand (and speaking just for me) are too heavy, have too short of a battery life and have an inferior screen. And they're too big and usually shaped wrong. I like the shape and size of the current 5" and 6" eInk eReaders.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Fbone

This possibly means that the heavy readers are reading more books (for the reasons you mentioned above) but they are not enough to offset the decreases elsewhere.

It is possible since Agency pricing *is* driving sales to print.
But...
The "gains" in print aren't terribly big, compared to the BPH ebook declines, and the market as a whole is still growing. Just in areas that appeal to avid readers instead of casuals. What Agency is doing is disincentivize casuals from sampling ebooks so, yes, the number of people reading one or two ebooks a year is almost certainly declining. But heavy readers gain too many benefits from ebooks to ignore the format.

What we're seeing is a sorting of readers as avid, regular readers move to digital and casuals stay with print. The divide is already hardening, as reflected in the declining sales of tradpub frontlist. With avid readers spreading their buys around to backlist, midlist, and indies, even tbe big name authors are seeing big declines in launch window sales.

Avid readers are big drivers of the buzz that spurs casual reader purchases.
Their migration is reshaping the business in ways that are only noticeable if you pay attention to the author side of the supply chain. The media pays too much attention to the middlemen like Amazon and the publishers and nowhere near enough to the actual producers, the authors.

That is where the future of books is being shaped, by their distribution choices, not by the number of ereaders or tablets. After all, content consumption devices are just a means to an end. And the endpoint is the stories.

In the end, ebooks mean more books and more reading.
Everything else is making sausage.

[fjtorres]

I see these "ereaders are dying" articles as establishment attempts to limit ebook adoption by casual readers and younger, newer avid readers, by pretending lower ereader sales imply a shift away from ebooks. This particular piece may or not be inspired by the other articles by tradpub mouthpieces like Shatzkin but it treads the same falacious ground.

The simple truth is there *was* an ereader sales spike back in 2012; ereaders were a novelty and they suddenly got cheap enough to be impulse buys. And like many impulse purchases, some went to people who didn't read enough to justify the purchase. Within months, there were all sorts of articles about ereaders living in drawers. By 2013 the meme was live.

These pieces pop up reguarly, usually citing the same sources, all pretending ebook sales are solely tied to ereaders. Too simplistic. Just like the articles fretting over declining iPad sales are simplistic. Media consumption devices don't stop working just because they get old, only when they die. And most are solidly built and durable. So they go on and on...

Multipurpose devices thrive on short, 2-3 year, upgrade cycles but optimized single function devices have much longer life cycles. Often a decade or more. In that ereaders are more like cameras, TVs, and monitors. What they did when new is what they do when old and it takes years for incremental features to accumulate enough to justify an upgrade.

Bottom line is ereaders are by nature niche devices.
They are by design optimized devices and optimization means focusing on what the device is used for and what it is used for. Optimized devices are more akin to chefs' knives than swiss army knives. They do one thing exquisitely well and that is why they sell.

Today's ereaders are the result of a decade of evolution and anybody who thinks tbere hasn't been progress needs to look at the first Sony, the first Kindle, the first Hanlins and Netronixes. Build quality, stability, readability, usability, those are the proper yardsticks to measure ereader progress, not feature creep or goldplating.

Ereaders are doing fine.
They do what they need to do which is provide access to stories with the least amount of fuss.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by rcentros

But I don't see anything on the horizon in smartphones or tablets that would displace an eReader for reading.

On the horizon? No, neither do I but then again I don't spend time hanging out in the R&D departments of major electronics manufacturers.

Anyway I'm not saying this is imminent merely that it's probable. It could be 5 years away it could be 20, maybe it'll never happen.

The fact remains the thing that makes a dedicated ereader different from a tablet is the screen. Longer battery life is a consequence of the screen. Being lighter is a consequence of not needing so large a battery, because of the screen.

And combining those strengths of eInk - low power consumption and visibility in all light conditions - with the strengths of LCD is something tablet manufacturers would want even if no reader ever bought their device. So I have to believe people are working on it.

[latepaul]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I see these "ereaders are dying" articles as establishment attempts to limit ebook adoption by casual readers and younger, newer avid readers, by pretending lower ereader sales imply a shift away from ebooks. This particular piece may or not be inspired by the other articles by tradpub mouthpieces like Shatzkin but it treads the same falacious ground.

Well in this case I hardly think "Tom's hardware guide" is "the establishment". Also this article specifically states at the top that ebooks are doing fine, so it's not covering that particular ground.

[Frenzie]

Originally Posted by latepaul

And combining those strengths of eInk - low power consumption and visibility in all light conditions - with the strengths of LCD is something tablet manufacturers would want even if no reader ever bought their device. So I have to believe people are working on it.

They've had reflective color LCDs for years:



And of course color E Ink, too:



It must either be really expensive or they just think that reflective LCD doesn't "pop" in the store like your typical oversaturated "who can tell if this is any good with these settings" display.

Supposedly this thing will enter mass production soon:



That and some people think that because you need a light on the side a lack of backlighting is a bug, not a feature. I wonder if frontlighting could work on those reflective LCDs…

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Frenzie

They've had reflective color LCDs for years:


And of course color E Ink, too:


It must either be really expensive or they just think that reflective LCD doesn't "pop" in the store like your typical oversaturated "who can tell if this is any good with these settings" display.

Supposedly this thing will enter mass production soon:

That and some people think that because you need a light on the side a lack of backlighting is a bug, not a feature. I wonder if frontlighting could work on those reflective LCDs…

It worked fine when Compag and Dell did it in their PDAs.

https://www.mobiletechreview.com/Dell_Axim_X50v.htm

Transflective LCD has the avantages of saturated color, direct sunlight visibility and fairly good battery life.
Problem is nobody manufactures it in enough volume to make it cheap enough to use in a tablet or ereader.

As for sidelight, lots of cheap thin TVs up to the 70in range use sidelighting.
It's a common approach. Backlighting is nominally better but really only if used for local dimming. And not too many people can tell the difference.

The problem with LCD-alternative displays isn't the tech per se but the economics. It has infrastructure, scale, and history behind it. That makes it cheap enough to swamp out would be competitors.

I wouldn't hold my breath for anything to displace it any time soon.

Even OLED has a tough row to hoe and that's the best candidate out there.

[John F]

Originally Posted by latepaul

...

The fact remains the thing that makes a dedicated ereader different from a tablet is the screen. Longer battery life is a consequence of the screen. Being lighter is a consequence of not needing so large a battery, because of the screen.

...

Is weight still an advantage with eink? A Voyage (with 3G, 6") weighs 188g, a Galaxy S8 (5.8") weighs 155g. I'm guessing the S8's battery mah is twice that of a Voyage?

[Rand Brittain]

The dedicated e-reader isn't dead, but I suspect it's going to remain dormant until the next major upgrade in e-paper technology, which may wind up killing it.

It basically depends on whether we ever get e-paper screens that can duplicate all the functions of an LED screen without drawbacks, because if we do, phones and tablets will have everything the e-reader has and will replace it completely. If they get better but can't actually play videos or most games, then plain paper devices will still have a niche just for themselves.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by latepaul

Well in this case I hardly think "Tom's hardware guide" is "the establishment". Also this article specifically states at the top that ebooks are doing fine, so it's not covering that particular ground.

Tom's is owned by Purch Group, "a digital publisher and marketplace platform..." Which, in my opinion, basically translates to "click bait" marketing. Click bait sites work best by posting controversial headlines to draw in "consumers."

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Rand Brittain

It basically depends on whether we ever get e-paper screens that can duplicate all the functions of an LED screen without drawbacks, because if we do, phones and tablets will have everything the e-reader has and will replace it completely. If they get better but can't actually play videos or most games, then plain paper devices will still have a niche just for themselves.

I don't buy that. Widescreen video requires different screen dimensions, and one of the big draws of an eInk eReader to me (and I think to many others) is that it IS a single-purpose device. I have a tablet. It's currently sitting in my drawer, I can't think of anything to do with it. My eReaders (on the other hand) are in constant use.

[Alpha o]

I don't want an all in one device. I have a tablet, it's used for birding, nature identification, clouds, weather and astronomy. I watch At Bat baseball and play solitaire. Wifi only.

Also have phone, does all the above plus calls and texts. Can disable quite a bit of built-in unnecessaries.

If I want to read, I want to read. I don't want to text, answer the phone, tend to email, play a game. That's why I like the inkBOOK. Just read although internet is available, but since there is no Google on the device, I can ignore it. I buy books from Indies, mostly.

The other half is the same way. He's enjoying his Kindle Paperwhite immensely. He uses a flip phone so you can tell what he thinks about new tech.

[Conan46]

It is for me. Last summer I sold my remaining 3 e-ink devices: Paperwhite 3, 4th gen Kindle, nook Touch. A 6" screen was just too uncomfortable to read on as I need large print. Not enough screen real estate. I now read on a 10" fire tablet.