Amazon Kindle flunked by college students

Re-inventing paper?!

1. Fire

2. Clothes

3. Ink

4. Paper

5. Wheel

Amazon trying to re-invent paper? Whatever next?

Battery life

Let's have a race. A Kindle, an iPad and my copy of "XML in a nutshell". Let's see which one runs out of power first. :o)

I still think, to a large extent, these tablets are an answer looking for a problem. I am sure some people will find them very useful and fnabois will wax lyrical about how they will save civilisation as we know it, but like the Segway, they will remain niche/luxury products for a long time.

I'm not so sure.

The flaws mentioned seem to be centred on limitations with the various eBook formats (ePUB, etc.) rather than inherent hardware problems.

If "Brushes" (on iPad) is anything to go by, circling text and highlighting it is easily within the scope of the hardware. The faster and smoother reaction time of the display will also help with leafing through pages. Both devices have keyboards (one virtual, one not). So perhaps the future of textbooks may be like the future of newspapers: sold as dedicated apps, rather than as e-books intended for linear reading.

Why not spend ~$500 on books?

I thought about getting a Kindle, then realised I could just spend all that money on books. Sure they take up rather a lot of space in my house but they're a lot easier on the eye and don't need recharging all the time.

"easier and more intuitive to thumb through, search, and scribble on"

That's a user interface issue. A really well designed ebook ought to be easier to use than a paper book, not harder. Unfortunately, very few companies are capable of designing a good user interface. However, one of those companies is Apple, so don't be surprised if the iPad makes ebooks a lot easier to use.

Someone (B & N ?) has a "lend a book" option now-ish.

Probably a reader's annotation system can be bolted onto Kindle. I'd either dock to a PC or put a mono LCD touchscreen on the reverse of the device, so that you just flip it over to get a live editable display.

How to display reader notes... maybe underline words or phrases and use footnotes. But different modes might suit different users. And I'm thinking about text, how about pictumres or diagrams? Numbered footnotes still could work...

I wonder if we should start interface-designing now for colour/touch versions of these devices?

missing the point

i've been toying with the idea of a kindle DX or an iPad for a while (i've already got a Sony PRS 505). I love the sony to bits but I want access to the wider range of titles available already for the Kindle and almost certainly shortly available for the iPad.

I watched the iTunes store's video section grow from nothing to the place where i now buy all my tv episodes and most of my films in the space of a couple of years. I've got no doubt they will do the same with the iBookstore.

to me it's a no brainer in terms of carting around an iPad or kindle in my uni/work bag, compared to the half dozen 1200+ page textbooks i need with me EVERY day. I totally agree that there are some user interface issues that need to be resolved before hitting the textbook market and I happen to know there are a couple of publishers working on that as we speak for the kinds of textooks I buy. let's face it, with the iPad it's a software issue only... the hardware is more than up to the task with the large clear screen, speed of response and the multi-touch interface... it's more or less going to be a case of either the iBook application being modified to support the needs of textbook users, or textbooks being released as stand-alone specialist apps for the iPad.... I think in the long run the kindle will lose this battle because it has fundamental hardware problems that aren't surmountable without a re-design on the hardware in regards to the way that a student or similar USES a book I would definitely agree in the main with the earlier comment that textbooks are used, not read, I do however also read some textbooks in a linear fashion, but that might just be me.

I'm more inclined to say that in my particular field (not computer related) it's more than likely going to go down the specialist app route as I already have a couple of apps for my iPhone that are invaluable in terms of ease of use and speed of access to information (they both replace books that have a 500+ page large paperback format). In addition to speed of use they are also regularly updated with new information, as opposed to having to shell out twice a year (@ £52.99 a pop) for the paperback versions just to have the latest info (which IS a necessity).

No surprise there, then.

I've just had to check a file for correct data. In theory this could all be done on computer.

In practice? Print out the list of check data. Search file for check data. Use pen to scrub off item on check data.

It could probably be done with multiple windows, multiple monitors or a tablet PC, but a printout and a biro is effective and requires little faffing around. Writing a script to do the comparison would work for multiple jobs, but takes too long for a one off, especially as it requires a lookup in non computer friendly format.

E-Readers

I've had a Cool-ER e-reader for about a year now and it was well worth the money. I've used it for both entertainment and studying and have found it to be fantastic for both. However, I am not the kind of person who makes notes in books. If I was, then I can see how it would be annoying to have that basic function taken away.

Searching through a volume should be easier on an e-reader than a normal book. In fact, it is. The space I am saving by having around 120 books (and room for more) on my reader rather than in my study is more than worth it. Plus the millions of out of copyright books, completely freely available books on the internet have actually saved me money, even when you take into account the initial £180 for the device.

The iPad - I'm not a lover of the thing but surely the limitations in the article can be overcome by some clever software, and I'll bet that Apple have the intuitiveness to do it.

In other news: the sky is blue

I really like my Sony eReader Pocket Edition for reading books when commuting, but for reference material, physical books are a lot easier and better:

* you can browse through them,

* open the book at a point you think the information is, and usually you are only 1 or 2 pages off!

* You can keep your fingers between your current pages and at the same time flip to another section and easily switch back and forth

Eebooks are great for just reading, for reference: no, give me a physical book everytime (a computer or device with a real keyboard is a great second if it comes to looking up info)

Isaac Asimov got there first

It must be at least sixty years ago, but Isaac Asimov conducted a thought experiment on whether an e-book or whatever he called it then, would ever replace a paper book. He described the required characteristics (some of which, IIRC, have been called out by both the article and the comments) and lead the audience all the way back to paper.

I can't remember the title of the essay.

This isn't it, but is in the same vein "http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/funtheyhad.html"

I like ebooks, but not for textbooks

I read novels and such exclusively on my Sony reader, and love the thing, but I will admit, it's pretty useless for text/reference books, and also for poetry; things where you want random access.

This will probably be solved when we get rapid refresh displays, so that we can thumb through dozens of pages quickly, but on the 1 second per page turn now, it's just not at all viable. It may never really work for these purposes.

UI

As several people have pointed out it is a UI issue but one should not read into that that the issue would be solvable.

For one thing, it is easy to pick up a book you use a lot and turn to approximately the correct page within half a second (frequently even to the exact page in a 500 page book - I've done it many times). It is also easy to flick through a book extremely quickly. You show me a computer screen where you can flick through 500 pages in a second.

There are undoubtedly some big advantages to ebooks (eg the ability to search) but some of the UI issues are inherent in a non-physical format and won't be solved ever.

Add to that the DRM issues, fragility, battery life and I think that we shan't be seeing the back of the (real) book for decades to come.

No reason why

There's no reason why an e-book reader shouldn't allow you to: dog-ear pages; scribble & annotate; stick on post-it notes and so on. You also have search - which is hard to do on large paper books lacking indices. Having two books open? Maybe not side by side but again, no reason why you couldn't have multiple books or pages open and thumbnails to navigate between them. Flick through in a hurry? That could be done too (at least on LCD displays) - with touch responsive acceleration/deceleration.

Text book purchases will be a thing of the past. Universities will just purchase a site license and pass on the cost through the fees.

All of which is to say that e-books will take over. The future of paper books is as desireable objects, like vinyl LPs.

I agree

That fits with my experience using (HTML and bookmanager based) manuals on computers (not good) and browsing news papers and blogs (great).

With manuals and text books, you want to be able to easily markup and make notes in margins, and tape tabs to frequently used pages. And you don't want those notes and tabs disappearing.

Eventually e-books and will have colour and they will have markup and tabbing features.

The other thing you get with paper manuals and text books is a physical feeling, heft, and ability to locate the page by feel. e-books can never have that.

Kindle can do notes

I have one (if it makes you feel better, it was a prize, I didn't buy it). You hit the Menu button, pick "Add a Note or Highlight," and go from there. It has a little keyboard that you can use to enter your note. Then you can use "My Notes and Marks" (next item down in the menu) to jump back to it later on.

Having said that, I think textbooks would have to be re-thought to work better as an etextbook. If that were done, I think high schoolers would love them — with lockers too tiny to be useful these days and too little time to get to them between classes, kids around here regularly carry a 30-lb knapsack full of textbooks most of the day.

Never going to fly, even MBAs can tell

I agree with most of the article, but would like to point out 2 things that will keep me from probably every trying any sort of electronic text books:

1) I can grab a physical text book, and open it to approximate sections based on memory, wheras I'd have to recall a phrase and search to do something similar in an ebook. If I can't randomly check pages based on their position in the book, I start to feel kind of claustrophobic.

2) I rarely use one text book at a time - I can balance 3 on my lap, with various pencils and postits and other books as bookmarks in each. When I really get into a project I'm liable to cover an entire table top with some combination of text books, reference books, and assorted printouts. I can then simply walk around the table to switch between different portions of the project, which my mind tends to do pretty frequently. I can't even imagine dealing with my design process on an 8-10" screen.

I must say though, text books can make a smallish moving box surprisingly heavy, and every time I move I do wonder why I'm hanging onto all of them (And yeah, I sold back the ones that I didn't actually think I'd need in the future.)