That’s the thrust of an
article at Computerworld
. Here are the reasons, the details are in the article, that are set forth as a result of an interview with Gartner’s Allen Weiner:
Price of devices: Weiner thinks they should be $100 or less
Price of ebooks
Smartphones: display technology could make an ereader superfluous
Apple’s rumored tablet computer
Popular authors aren’t sure about ebooks
Digital rights
Open, or not open, publishing standards
Librarians and small bookstores not enthusiastic about ebooks
Well, I definitely agree with him about pricing. People really don’t want to pay >$100 for a small, single usage device, and they will want to even less once respectable LCD tablets start going under the iPad price point, which they probably will in a year or two.
Seriously? Of his eight “reasons dedicated readers could fail”, five have nothing to do with dedicated readers, two are pure fantasy, and the last is one price drop away.
This whole discussion is a little like asking someone if pocket calculators will fail, ca. 1980.
eBook reading devices are a temporary thing, until we have displays that combine the advantages of eInk and LCD (fast, contrasty, easy on the eyes, colorful, energy-efficient).
Until then, eBook readers can not fail, because they have already succeeded. In case anyone did not notice: Amazon has sold millions of them.
What is meant by the “rumored” Apple tablet computer? iPad anyone?
This article was posted 19 Nov 2009 … http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140955/Eight_reasons_e_readers_could_fail
It’s a bit late to discuss it now, isn’t it? That was a world nearly six months before iPad, the Nook 1.0 was just launching, Kindle 2 had just launched Internationally, and Kindle 3 wifi was practically a year away,
Next.
I wondered about the date, too. All this sounded very old.
19 Nov 2009 ? …… Paul ? 🙂
As-an early Kindle user, e readers are already dead for me. I use the Kindle app on my iPhone/iPad. Worse for e-readers, I use Audible apps to LISTEN to books I used to read.
Old article from a year ago. The world changed.