I saw my first Kindle the other day. I must admit I found it hard not to laugh out loud. Amazon, and to a lesser extent Sony, obviously hope that e-Readers will become the iPod of the printed media. I don't and here's my rationale.
1) It's a one trick pony - eReaders use clever technology to make the screen easy on the eyes when reading for long periods. Unfortunately this means it takes a second or so to refresh a screen. That's fine if your turning a page but not for other media content. The soon to be released tablet computers are multifunction and whilst technically inferior for reading printed material their multifunction nature will win out.
2) It doesn't improve on the original - The iPod was a great device becuase you could carry your whole musical collection in your pocket. This is great because based upon mood and whim you can select music. This accessibility advantage was big enough for people to accept inferior music quality over the CD's that were replaced. Do we want or need to carry out libraries in the same way. In my opinion no.
3) Welcome to the 1950's - Black and white may be fine for books but it just doesn't pass muster for online content. Maybe if this Philips technology had been around it would have had a chance -
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/10/philips-develops-color-e-paper-wants-to-skin-your-gadgets-with/
Maybe I'll be proved wrong, but I don't think so.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment