I’ve been reading e-books since about 2001, first on my several Palm machines, and more recently on my iPod Touch. I appreciate their compactness (GoddessJ and I already have to devote an entire spare bedroom to our library), the fact they don’t wear out, that I can read them in the dark, and that (depending on the software) I can customize the font, colors, and backlighting as I wish. At the time, my only complaints were that only a fraction of titles were available as e-books (that has changed dramatically), and that pricing an e-book the same as a physical one was ridiculous since there are no printing costs involved (that hasn’t changed much).
I didn’t realize that e-books had become so mainstream until GoddessJ got her iPad for Christmas and discovered the e-book apps for it, and convinced me that we should get her mother an e-book reader as well. Our library even has a good number of e-books available for loan, and now I discover that e-books are outselling physical books in the US.
Science fiction has long predicted that we’d be moving to electronic books. Star Trek is probably the most popular example, but I’ve seen references to that sort of thing in several hard-SF books, though I don’t recall any specific titles.
I guess I was just ahead of the curve again.
Yeah, it’s a pity that with each new release of the Kindle hardware or software, Amazon succeeds only in making the Kindle less than it was. If I could do it over again I would not upgrade from the original Kindle to the new (current) version.
The new version has a few features going for it, more display contrast, more memory, a back button on both sides, and Wi-Fi. But I’m not sure those are worth the features that have been lost, number keys on the keyboard (numbers are now accessable through the symbols key), the status bar doesn’t stay at the top of the display, the go to value has been removed from the progress bar at the bottom of the display.
Maybe Amazon thinks it’s better this way, I disagree, there is plenty of room for the numbers row on the keyboard, the only reason that makes any sense to me for removing the row is that it lowers the cost of manufacturing the keyboard. The status bar and other software features should be options settable by the user, rather than solely Amazon’s choice of how they should work.
And then there’s the experimental section with the browser and the MP3 player. What a waste! I’d much rather see them spend time improving the reader rather than wasting it on this junk.
I have thought of upgrading my original (1st gen.) kindle, they reportedly have lowered the price of the cheapest 3rd gen. Kindle to $99 – probably in preparation for a new 4th generation Kindle. (This is Amazon’s pattern) but if they got rid of the “goto” status, that could be rather annoying. Also the 1st generation Kindle has an SD card slot, while all subsequent Kindles are limited to built-in storage. That having been said, it would be nice to have much better contrast… I use the Kindle app on my phone to read the ebooks more frequently now anyway, so I can’t really justify upgrading the Kindle.