This seemingly inocuous question holds the key to the future course of publishing. And I’m really not sure which way the fight will go.
In the blue corner we have the incumbent screen display technology, LCD – used in laptops, smartphones, and a mythical tablet device from Cupertino. On the plus side it offers great colour and it works beautifully for moving displays (ie screen-scrolling and video streaming). But it has two major drawbacks – it drains batteries something rotten, which is why a cute little iPhone rips a whole in your pocket and begs to be recharged before the day is done. And it has a backlit display, which for reading text soon leads to eyesore and fatigue.
In the read (ho hum) corner we have the challenger, eInk – and its various cousins. Its defining features are precisely the opposite of LCD; whilst we can assume that the next 12 months will bring us reasonable colour eInk displays, the very reason that eInk displays are so battery-efficient (and therefore lightweight) is that they only consume energy for screen refreshes. So even though today’s sluggish refresh times will surely improve, eInk will never be able to cope with video or screen scrolling. And every effort to finesse this drawback will compromise their basic advantages – ie lightweight & long-life. So their current use in eReaders – the simple, page-by-page transcription of black-and-white books – is pretty good.
However, if eReaders are going to move into the mainstream, won’t they have to be capable of a lot more than simply reproducing B&W books? They want to take on newspaper and magazine content, as well as textbooks. Let alone being capable of general web-browsing. And each of these media are inexorably becoming fully interactive, drawing on both static text/images alongside video.
So what are the implications of either side winning? Either eInk’s advantages in term of weight and visual acuity will win the day, and we’ll see a platform which preserves, as a sort of digital apartheid, the basic division between print and broadcast media. Or the world will choose to lug around eyesore-inducing LCD devices, triggering a genuine revolution and convergence between print and broadcast media.
And of course the corporates are lining up on either side of this revolutionary divide too, with Amazon/Sony/Plastic Logic on the one hand, and Apple/Microsoft on the other… who do you think will win?
Great assessment – but misses a key point for me: I don’t really believe that a single-use device is going to be the long term winner. This means that it HAS to be LCD devices triumphing over eInk… unless I’m missing something in the pipeline that eInk will suddenly be able to offer.
I strongly believe that for ebooks to get their iTunes moment, they need to transcend the flat, written page. The combination of eInk and the increasingly frustrating DRM implementations mean that we’re going to need a reinvention in this business that doesn’t look like it’s coming from Sony, Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Can’t wait to see who it will be.
Rank outsider Microsoft just MIGHT be the answer with their rumoured new take on the tablet… that’s what I’m hoping for.
As per sandlines comment, I think that the key question isn’t really the technology implementation at all, it is how we digest content, now and in the future.
For my part, I still read a lot of “textual” content, both on the internet (I often use readability to help with this) and in books that I still lug around with me pretty well anywhere I go. Can I see that all replaced with interactive / video / non-static content? No I can’t.
So assuming I’m not unique (YMMV) I could imagine taking books and “static” content with me on a reader that I knew would be charged and available. But why not my phone? With white text on black background it doesn’t seem to strain my eyes, and the display quality on the Hero / iPhone is good enough to make reading easy. I charge it each day anyway, so why have a reader as well?
One thought towards the answer is this: most historical content (take the novel as an example) was written for its likely publication format (which tended to be a one-to-one relationship). Reading a novel printed on bigger pages (even A4) is odd, just as it is odd reading them on smaller pages (e.g. my Hero). For that reason, I can see an eReader being a great substitute for novels (especially the 1000 page ones I seem to be digesting at present). Given the immense amount of content written for that sort of page size and the likely future content written for it (must have something to do with our average head size / eye distance, etc), eReaders should have a future.
The ability to write interactive content has been with us for a while: there are hyperlinked D&D books I remember from my youth. That said, it will take a while before we know what the preferred mode of consumption is for the new interactive content, and indeed for the critical authors in that space to emerge.
Final thought: when we can all have heads up displays attached to us discreetly, won’t we use those to read? I guess that means there might be a short window for eReaders, but still enough time to sell a reasonable number of them.
The Dynabook was envisioned decades ago when eInk didn’t exist. At the time trees were everywhere and toxic ink had been replaced by soy-based ink. The Dynabook is still an elusive product whatever the technology underpinning it. When books are written for free, the delivery mechanism will become immaterial. Thought books seem to be the way it’s all going. Mental publishing, no wasted resources of any kind unless you lose your train of mind.
Possibly not a related question but I have been wondering and researching on the durability factor of these e Readers. What if I drop it?
Durability is definitely an issue with most eReaders at the moment. However, I am confident that this will change over the next couple of years. First, new technologies such as Plastic Logic’s, which, as the name suggests, involves using plastics instead of traditional ICBs. Second, this will be quickly followed by plastic-based alternatives to glass-screens, making the entire device flexible; Plastic Logic already has working prototypes of roll’able screens. Third, I think that eInk-based eReaders will soon become pretty commoditised – ie more about low-price and high-durability, rather than iPhone like beauties of design. By being lighter and ‘tinnier’, they will actually be designed to withstand being flung around. Which I think is a good thing; reading a book, more than any other form of media, is about substance over style, and long may that remain the case!
Nice blog. Iam folowing you from my mobile rss reader.
I work for a company that makes two lines of eBook Readers.
There are at least two paths for eBook Readers. The main path seems right now to be 5 and 6 inch eBook Readers. The benefits to using E-INK on them are many: no eye strain, enough battery life to read 4 novels on one charge, and more. What seems to be the path now by most in the industry is to LOWER the cost. There appears no problem with staying black&white on such sizes as books are black on white. Reading magazines on these size screens does not seem important at all to most.
The second path is larger sizes to accomodate periodicals and magazines. There color comes into play. 9 inch devices are now becoming the size of choice for most manufacturers because PVI and SIPix screens are coming in that size and economy of scale makes them less expensive. Early reviews of E-INK color have been accurate and the color is far less than intense. While E-INK swears they are solving this… manufacturers are not seeing it yet. LCD there MAY gain a foothold (witness the iPad). BUT… using a device with 6 hours battery charge life to read eBooks is not a viable option.
So… 9 inch devices are initially starting to roll out with B&W E-INK. IF reading books and nwespapers is your desire… this will be great. If you are looking to read Motor Trend… you may be far less pleased.