As you may have noted on your favorite tech sites, Barnes and Noble now has its own e-reader with downloads, e-ink screen, all that jazz. It’s generated quite a debate on /., since B&N was in this biz once before, and left their users high-and-dry when they stopped (with a buncha useless ebooks and readers due to the DRM). Of course, these days the whole portable computing application device market is totally different, and everyone’s got some sort of real-life “tricorder” of one sort or another. Nearly ubiquitous Wi-Fi and cellular network coverage make getting books trivial.
Someone mentioned that they thought the iPhone was a perfectly good platform for reading e-books, and that it made the Kindle and the “Nook” (Nook e-book reader… Nooke-Book reader…. Nookie Book Reader… and you thought the stick guys were just being random pervs today…) irrelevant. I assure you, this is not the case. The iPhone does many things well, but it is a horrible device for reading long works. The screen is too small, the form-factor doesn’t really fit into your hand in any way that resembles long-period ergonomics, and the glossy screen makes reading anywhere but a dim-to-dark room very difficult. No thanks.
Hopefully, this will result in some competition in the e-reader market and lower prices for everyone. Of course, for my part, I’m still waiting for manga to show up on the e-readers. That’s my killer app. I don’t think it’ll happen though (even though the e-ink has a high enough DPI to make it worthwhile).
Outtie.