Lol, reading eBooks is something I find awful in the first instance, never mind on an iPhone. The Sony eBook readers look let they would work, but on a tiny screen like an iPhone, squinting eyes say no!
posted by Sam Spade at 2009-07-27 20:57:50 
I love ebooks. It's all I want anymore. Once I'm in the story, the medium becomes transparent. The device needs to fit in my pocket to get used though. And be my phone/camera/everything.
posted by Eric at 2009-07-27 23:03:46
Isn't that the iPhone, Eric?<br /><br /> <br /><br /> I *love* Nicholson Baker, and while I haven't read the essay yet (just instapapered it) it seems obvious -- why have a Kindle, which does ONE thing, when you can have the iPhone, which does any and everything.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> Also: who wants to bet that the Apple tablet matches "these specs":http://buildingsandfood.com/how-to-make-an-e-reader, except with a touch-sensitive screen rather then stupid little keyboard? TechCrunch is working on one of these devices, too (tho I think they should have released it before these Apple tablet rumors began, because their market just got a whole lot smaller).
posted by alesh at 2009-07-28 08:04:07
I'm jumping up and down and cheering for Baker. The list of books not available on Kindle seemed a touch unfair, and it should be obvious that books with illustrations would translate poorly (the fact that Amazon is selling e-books that rely on illustrations is actually sort of criminal). I also fell asleep around the middle when he digressed into the history of e-ink. But the rest of it was exactly spot on, especially the stuff about the closed format. Damned right.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> Champion's criticism is that Baker is being elitist, which sort of leaves me scratching my head. It's elitist to write a negative review of an expensive electronic gizmo? Even if he had made fun of the people writing the 5-star reviews (not my reading at all) I don't see how that's elitist -- aren't those people rich early-adapter gadget hounds?<br /><br /> <br /><br /> The music industry debacle demonstrated that physical media is dead, but it also demonstrated that open formats are the only ones that will succeed. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> I'll buy the Kindle when it can surf the web and when Amazon starts selling e-books in PDF format, and for WAAAAY less then they're selling paper books. DUH.
posted by alesh at 2009-07-28 16:58:39
Yep, alesh. That's what I'm saying. As opposed to a big Kindle or whatever Apple is releasing. There's a market for Kindle, but it misses people who don't want multiple devices and don't want a device they can't carry around everywhere. I view it as one of those terminal spurs on the evolutionary chart. Fine for now, but not the future.
posted by Eric at 2009-07-28 22:01:41
