iPad

[bolson]

I'm not going to buy an iPad, it's not the device for me, but it may change the way I think about user interface design. This is an option now. This is something I'll think about. Is there something different and better I could do on iPad? I've had a couple game ideas rattling around in my brain and in toy programs since college, and now when I think about them half of the fun is imagining the iPad interface.

I want a book reader - for $100 with $5 books, not $250 with $10 books or $500 with $15 books.
I want a image-backed graphics tablet - I like to draw but not seriously enough for the $900+ things.
I want something super-light to take everywhere, but I still think the full sized hard keyboard of my laptop is going to be key for the kind of creating I'd want to do on the go in random places.

I want it, but not $500 worth, but it's out there and it makes me think.

Comments

[cos]

I might want a book reader, if the books I put on it were actually mine, and I could choose to allow a service provider to manipulate them only when I wanted to. Of course they worry about the fact that books could then become as easily copyable as music is now, but we're going to have to figure out how to deal with that one of these days.

[beowabbit]

I know Baen Books sells DRM-free ebooks in epub format, readable on pretty much any modern ebook reader that makes the slightest pretension towards industry-wide standards. (I mention them because they’re the one I happen to know about, but I imagine a bunch of other smaller publishers do, too.) They’ve got a pretty substantial library of free stuff available, too.

I confess I get most of my ebooks (directly or indirectly) from Project Gutenberg.

I used to use a Nokia 770 as my ebook reader; to my mind, that was just about the perfect physical form-factor for reading, since I do a lot of my reading standing on the T. Now I use my G1, which is a bit small but still perfectly comfortable. I think an iPad would be too large and too heavy; for reading on the T I need to be able to hold and use the thing comfortably with one hand.

[soong.livejournal.com]

I don't mind buying DRM things if they're cheap and convenient. I still get convenience and my own small value from the thing. But given their cost savings that the should pass along to me and the lesser uses of a drm thing, it should be cheap. $2 might be a good price for a locked down ebook that only I can read in some limited way.

By my reasoning, kindle books for more that the paperback price is dumb. But they seem to be making a business of it. Either the world is dumb or I am wrong. Hmpf.

[chamois.livejournal.com]

My big concerns with DRM are
a) bit rot. If it has magic protection bits, it will be hard to transfer data I own to new digital formats as the old ones become obsolete.
b) data revocation just like Amazon did.

[fengshui.livejournal.com]

I don't think they're going to be able to figure that one out. The analog hole will always exist, and OCR will only get better and better as time goes on. Unless we replace our eyes with digital DRM-compliant viewing devices, there will always be someone who's willing to scan the text into an un-restricted form. In some ways, books have it even harder than music, as the total data content of a book is much less than a song.

[cos]

Exactly. So, as I said, "we're going to have to figure out how to deal with that one of these days." It cannot be prevented indefinitely.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

for $15 I can buy a REAL book that 1) allows me to patronize a local brick and mortar bookstore. 2) allows me to lend it to anyone I want 3) Allows me to not worry TOO MUCH about getting water or food on the book 4) allows me to leave the book at the table when I go up to the counter for a refill of my coffee without fear of theft and 5) Allows me to not panic about accidentally leave it at the coffee shop...

The advantage of e-books (for me) are that I don't need any shelf space, I can get new books while on the T, and it's wicked cool.

Just not enough of an advantage... Having a really good graphics tablet, OTOH, would be really really nice.

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

Leo Babauta suggested on Twitter that the purpose of the iPad is really to consume information rather than to create it, and that this separation could be valuable for people who spend a lot of time doing both, as it might help them separate the two activities. I'm not 100% sold on this, but I think it's an interesting idea, at least.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

nom nom nom nom.

[fengshui.livejournal.com]

I want to see pricing for e-books be like pricing for video games. High when initially released, inexpensive afterwards. Distribution is free. If you offer to sell me for $2 a book that I could get at a used bookstore for $1, I'll pay the extra $1 for the convenience, even if it's DRMed.

[flexagon]

heisenbug pointed out to me yesterday that the iPad would probably be fantastic for reading while on the elliptical machine we have at home. To be fair, so was the Kindle DX.