As a result of the predicted slow down in sales of dedicated ereaders  such as the Kindle and Sony this quarter (as opposed to tablets), it is being said that the time of the simple ereader is nearing its end, and that the future lies with the multifunctional tablet.

Not a view that I share:

As I have written in earlier posts on this particular topic, and what has led friends to accuse me of being a Luddite is that I believe firmly that to be pleasurable, reading is perhaps the one solitary activity we still have in the extremely noisy and distracting world we live in that has to be done in peace and quiet, with no distraction, a total immersion experience, which the multi-functional gadgets such as the Fire and iPad make impossible.

Tried it, but too many distractions.

I have tried reading on such gadgets, and found the endless pings and nudges they gave me, to inform me that I have a new email, or simply seeing (or knowing) that a click of the mouse will bring me to YouTube and some great video of a band I haven’t seen since 1972 really interfered with my pleasure in the ebooks I was reading on them.

When I sit down with either my Kindle or my Sony ereader, open the ebook I am reading at the time, and lose myself in the world the writer has created, with no outside distraction, I experience the true pleasure of reading.   I know, there are other distractions in the world than a machine telling you that an email has arrived…  Kids, friends, barking dogs to name but a few.  But these one can control by simply removing oneself from them.

An article in the New York Times quotes Allison Kutz, a 21-year-old senior at Elon University in North Carolina, who bought herself an iPad in 2010, who says her reading habits have never been the same since buying the iPad:

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In the first quarter of 2012 the world wide sales of ereaders is expected to only be about 2 million units, as opposed to the 9 million that were sold in the last quarter of 2011.  This is being heralded as an indication that people are moving massively over to tablets to read their ebooks on, rather than dedicated ereaders, such as the Sony or Kindle.

Missing the point:

I feel that this interpretation of the reason that ereader sales have shown a slow down – in comparison to the sales of tablets of one sort or another is rather missing the point or several points actually.

Firstly, the first quarter of the year is always a time of slow sales, people have spent all their spare money on Christmas gifts, and are not inclined to buy  much in the first few months of any new year.

Secondly, the advent of more tablets on the market, particularly much cheaper ones than the iPad, such as the Kindle Fire and the much sued Galaxy to name but two models, is still a real novelty for many people, and it has to be said that they are extremely useful devices for almost all computer based activities for people who are on the move a lot.

So, for my part I am not at all surprised to hear that ereader sales are down in comparison to the sales of tablets, and do not find this a discouraging phenomena for lovers of dedicated ereaders.

Multifunctionality is what many people want:

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Every year all the makers of ereaders produce new models, but are they actually “new” enough to make it interesting for us to go out and replace our last year’s ereader with this year’s model?  I think not.

In the beginning was the Sony ereader:

In the beginning (he said in his best Biblical voice) we had a range of ereaders, which were all quite distinctive in one way or another.  A Sony was different to a Kindle and so it went.  But as time went by, and more and more people bought ereaders, and the basic technology developed, the dedicated ereaders all began to resemble each other in almost all respects.

From the point of view of one such as I, reviewing the latest ereaders has become a pretty dull business.. they are all so similar really, it is like reviewing portable DVD players…..

We now have the situation in which I think that there is not really any room for serious development for the dedicated ereader.   After all, they all function beautifully and fulfill their basic requirement (enabling us to read ebooks comfortably) pretty well perfectly.

Sure, some might wish to have beautiful colour screens, which we now almost have, and a faster start up, but that is about it really on the hardware side.   So I feel that in about another six months or so, once full colour e-Ink type screens are available, we will reach the end of the hardware development of the dedicated ereader.

New Firmware for ereaders… But is it relevant?

I am equally sure that the makers of dedicated ereaders will try and find useful, or at least useful sounding new software tricks to give us the idea that the latest ereader is worth trading our older models in for, but really I don’t see this as a really useful thing.  I know people who are still perfectly happy using ereaders they purchased years ago..

How many of you are still perfectly happy with your old Sony 505, or Kindle1 out there?  Lots of you I reckon.

Dedicated ereaders or tablets?

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An out of the box thought about this newest Tablet, is it merely a new form of shop?

On a Forum on Linkedin Kevin Cronin suggested that the Kindle Fire shouldn’t be seen as a Tablet, but actually as a shop, specifically and uniquely an Amazon shop.

Huh?

When I first saw that comment I was unsure of what he meant, but then suddenly the bulb lit up and I realized how accurate he was in calling the Fire a shop rather than an ereader or Tablet.

Think about it for a minute.   Amazon are selling the thing at a discounted price, so will loose money on every unit sold we are told.  Not something any company would normally consider doing.   We all knew this to be the case, and all solemnly told each other that “Yup, Amazon is all about selling content, not hardware” and left it at that.

But in fact Amazon have gone much further than that here, they are placing what in effect is a complete shop to sell all their product range into the hands of millions of people.

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A little while ago I wrote a short piece (link to that post) in which I wondered what advantages the newer ereaders and tablets gave me over the older and simpler dedicated ereaders out there, such as the Sony and Kindle.

In that post I stated quite strongly that I had a personal preference for the old fashioned sort of ereader, such as the Sony 505, or the earlier Kindles, and that I saw no real added value for me in the more modern and multifunctional devices, such as the Nook Colour or iPad.

But, as always, there is more than one side to any discussion on such devices, and there are many folk out there who definitely prefer to have all their desired digital functions in one device, so they only have to cart one such gadget around with them wherever they go.

It is interesting to look at the genesis of these devices, as they have evolved from relatively simple and humble beginnings and are now amazingly complex and useful gadgets, capable of so many functions that it is a bit overwhelming at times.

Way back in the dark ages of computers around the 80’s and 90’s of the last century, if one wished to read a book on a digital device, it was simple enough, we only had two devices that could do this, our computers, huge, desk top monsters generally, or on our PDA’s, which in many ways can be seen as the precursors of the true ereader in the sense that they were small enough to fit in our pockets, were capable of displaying ebooks – yes, there really were ebooks back then.

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Nick Rego, one of our trusty band of occasional guest writers, has been observing the usage patterns of his fellow commuters yet again, and has come up with the following thoughts and observations.

Read on, the word is with Nick:

For most people that I know, they have taken up residence on Planet Apple – I have to admit that the IPAD2 is an awesome device – but is not a reader.  It is a portable video arcade and web browser, as well as a stereo system.

On that note, I have something to say about my observations:

I continue to commute from New Jersey into New York City by boat.  On any given boat, there are approximately 250 people, many who are reading with a device.  As of late last week, this is what I see, unless I am blind:

Apple Ipad & Ipad2:  at least 40% who are using a device are using this one.  Why not, it works better than anything else if you want to play.  The ferries also offer WiFi, so that is another reason for the ipad – free internet, shopping and email.

Kindle:  Kindle’s are still popular, but the small ones.  I have not seen a DX 9.7″ in over 6 months.  I guess everyone has super vision, which is something that I do not have.  What I do see is that they are reading content that they purchase from Amazon.

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