Skip to main content

E-ink begins to sink

A Kindle - be honest, does that look exciting?
There are reports about that e-book readers are in decline. Apparently Amazon has significantly cut orders of its Kindle e-book reader. This seems strange news, when you consider how we are always hearing that e-books are taking over the world, but I don't find it at all surprising.

I'd say there were two factors at play here. One is that people have increasing availability of other devices like phones and tablets (particularly iPads but also Kindle Fires etc.) that work perfectly well as an e-book reader. It's true that a Kindle has some benefits - it's lighter and it has the e-ink screen which is easier to read outside, and less of a strain on the eyes (not that I find an iPad a strain). But multipurpose mobile devices have become the norm. We no longer want a pure e-book reader, any more than we want a pure mobile phone.

The other factor is that e-ink is dull. I'm sorry, it is. Not only does it show you the world in black and white, it just looks rubbish. Comparing an e-ink screen with an iPad or iPhone screen (* other tablets and smartphones are available) is like comparing reading something printed on an old dot matrix printer with laser printer output. It looks old and tired and grey.

E-readers were the triumph of practicality over style - but consumers are fickle and rarely stick with pure practicality for long. E-ink has begun to sink.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Peter Cook8 March 2012 at 08:37

    At one level, we should not be so surprised. Everything in life has a much shorter half life - see my post on business fads Brian http://humandynamics.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/business-fads/

    On the specific of style over substance, I conceived of something that modelled some of the stylistic benefits of real books about 18 years ago. IBM turned it down as an invention. Sadly I could not afford to convert it from an idea to an innovation ... http://humandynamics.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/kindling-innovation/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...
118 comments
Read more

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5.  However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...
25 comments
Read more

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...
6 comments
Read more