This is a great overview of the Sony Touch e-reader from Emma Newman at Post-Apocalyptic Publishing (also a previous guest blogger at my own Write for Your Life).
I particularly like the following paragraph. It highlights the need for us to stop comparing e-readers to books. They are not books. Yes, they provide the same content, but they are not the same thing and to constantly compare and contrast does both a disservice.
Here’s that paragraph:
There’s an implicit comparison between an e-reader and a book which I have come to realise (having done that myself) is useless. They are incomparable. Yes, both deliver books into your brain, but the sensory experience shouldn’t be equated. Why? Because an e-reader has different functionality, is made of different materials and I think is doomed to failure if all you want it to do is replicate the experience of reading a paper book.
The other thing I found interesting about Emma’s article was her initial reason for buying an e-reader in the first place:
The need didn’t have anything to do with e-books, it was all to do with my voice work. I was printing out manuscripts to take into my recording booth and the cost was becoming prohibitive (I have a rubbish inkjet printer) in ink cartridges and paper, not to mention the need to recycle the materials afterwards. I couldn’t get away from the need to have something to read aloud from, but figured that having an e-reader would mean I wouldn’t have to keep printing out all the time.
Much of the talk is about how the current generation of e-readers perform as straightforward reading devices.
I wonder if, when the manufacturers and publishing industry have collected more usage data, whether it’s for tasks like Emma’s voice over work that will help e-readers become mainstream more quickly.
I believe the iPad will continue to do its own thing. It’s not an e-reader. It’s a tablet. It’s a computer. And that’s just dandy.
But the true e-readers, like the Kindle and the Sony Touch, if they can get the fine details just right - if they can provide simple, but faultless functionality - then they will move from give it a try to must-have at quite a rate.
