The best thing I have noted in reading about speculation of the next gen Apple iPad3 is not what is being wished for but who is doing the asking.
No one wants an eInk iPad screen but eBook readers hell bent on looking like they know what is best for everyone except the people who actually have and use an iPad but they are not making Apple any money so who cares what they say. It’s the gamers that have Apple’s interest and they are the ones they are gearing the next gen Apple iPad3 for when they made a more powerful A5 chip set for iPad2 and when they added the gyroscope stuff in there so what does that mean for eBook readers.
Well with the iPad2 that meant a faster lighter more nimble graphics engine built into the hardware and what I think will follow will be a higher resolution LCD screen 2048-by-1536 pixels for Apple iPad3. Not eInk you idiots games games games.
So what that means for eBooks a brighter more defined reading experience and a faster less jerky more page like viewing experience. So anything that adds greater visibility to the screen or makes it stand out will be in place.
Keep your eye on the gaming money that is where the industry tends to go. Because who cares about eBooks at 5 bucks a pop when games can make four to five times that money in Apple iPad development easy peasy. Follow the big bucks not the crazy shit stirrers and you will find the best damn eBook Reader with the most options and the greatest choices already is gonna rock even more very very soon.
Amazon who? Kindle what? Sony made a what? Oh please, the only techweenies not expecting better Apple product and soon are still hoping Blackberry will make a decent cellphone that does not keep shutting itself down when the battery drains out constantly. The Storm was supposed to be the iPhone Killer! Oh and how is that HP tablet going for you since it should have been on the market by now?
Want some extra Apple Sauce with your haters pork chop lunch special? I heard the green with envy jello is divine!
Tags: iPad
Justacat wrote,
I really believe everyone has the right to his (or her!) own opinion, so I generally don’t bother to comment when I read your ebook reader posts; you believe what you believe and that’s fine…but I finally decided to clear up one misconception: there *are* those of us out here who like e-ink, who even prefer kindles to the ipad for reading ebooks. I have both, and I am a prolific reader – I read easily 500-1000 books a year – and yet I never, ever read ebooks on the ipad unless I have no other choice (i.e., I don’t have my kindle with me). I like the kindle much, much better for ebook reading and continue to use it for that even owning an ipad as well, for a variety of reasons – that I could go into, but I don’t want to be a bore. And if you go search around, for example, the calibre forums, or many of the goodread forums, you’ll find plenty of people who are devoted to their kindles (or sometimes other e-ink based ebook readers), for lots of good, solid reasons.
Which is not an attempt to convert you or to say you’re wrong. It’s just to present a different perspective and to point out that there are all different types of people with all different types of reading preferences and priorities. As valid as yours might be for you and others like you, we don’t all share those. So I at least am quite glad that there are other devices besides the ipad out there and hope the variety continues! :)
Link | April 10th, 2011 at 11:37 am
TeddyPig wrote,
Calibre is a hobby kit of a freebie app with no profit potential and a lot of issues that I find no value in since I use both ePub and PDF and they are both native to the iPad. I just click and drag my file in iTunes and it’s all done for me no mess and no fuss of Calibre bullshit and no need for a third party app to understand what I am doing and why.
As I said in the post here it is not about eBooks or screens it is about market and who makes the money and who has to learn to accept where the market is going to go. The Kindle was sold at bargain basement prices but the iPad never was.
Technology is not dictated too by the past or the use of a book or files formats or subscriptions sold by a magazine or your DVD collection or your local newspaper it is adapted by those who learn to use it to their benefit.
Just like people would never have dreamed of how we are buying and reading things as of this moment on the internet I do not see the Kindle as a viable option for anyone but those willing to be left behind because it is a closed experience with no real participation in the internet as of right now.
That is why I do not spend time on old technology anymore unless it provides that ongoing connectivity.
The best advice is buy something you can hold in your hand right now like a large screen Android cellphone or an iPad it does not matter you will still end up using that in the long run to read your ebooks on because it is what is going to be sold on the second hand market for years to come.
That technology is here and the reading experience is what you want to make of it I am simply commenting on what may be happening next to make it a little bit better.
Calibre is used by people who think you have to jump through hoops to do what I do in five seconds or less usually. I do not want to waste my time converting files I should be able to buy without DRM or any other problems I can imagine needing Calibre for.
I want that work done for me by a respectable ePub not someone to make me have to do it for them.
Link | April 10th, 2011 at 11:47 am
Justacat wrote,
First, Calibre: unless you’re a real user of it or at least know what it is and what it’s for, you aren’t really in a position to criticize it, and your comment about it indicates you aren’t. You seem to mistakenly view it as a conversion and/or anti-DRM tool. In fact, conversion is only ancillary to its main purpose, and the developer refuses to do anything relating to DRM. It is an ebook library management program and is incredibly powerful; I use it for keeping track of my ebook (and print book) library. It’s a great program, and you certainly can’t do anything like what it can do on an iPad at all, much less “in five seconds or less.”
But I’m getting off point. The only reason I mentioned Calibre was as an example of the fact that there are lots of people out there using and loving the kindle as an ebook reader. Calibre really is independent of kindles, iPads, or any other device.
But anyway, once again, I’m not attempting to change your mind about anything or convince you of anything except the fact that I, and others like me, prefer my Kindle to my iPad for reading ebooks, even after having experienced both. Just to pick up on one thing you said, I can hold it in my hands far more easily; the iPad weighs way too much for me to hold comfortably in my hands for long. I like the reading experience better – I prefer simplicity, don’t need all the efforts to replicate a “real” page-like experience, prefer clicking a button to swiping to turn pages (easier for me to do with one hand, the same hand that’s holding the device), and generally hate reading for extended periods from backlit screens. The iPad is portable, but too large and too heavy for me to throw it into a purse or small bag just on the off chance I might want to read if I have a moment of free time during the day. I can’t see the iPad screen in the sunlight. My iPad needs charging just about every day; I can take my Kindle with me somewhere for a week without the charger.
Those are just some of the reasons. The iPad has lots of great uses (and if I were reading the WSJ or magazines or graphic-heavy materials, I’d definitely go to the iPad) – but as a pure, dedicated ebook reader, I prefer the Kindle. (And I buy almost no books from Amazon, so DRM isn’t an issue for me. DRM-free mobi books are available everywhere.)
Just to be clear, I am extremely tech proficient and very capable and knowledgeable, certainly not “being left behind” – I can, and do, learn to use every new technology out there to my benefit. And yet I like the Kindle better. And there are others like me out there.
In other words, those of us who prefer the Kindle are not necessarily idiots or dupes or backwards-looking. We just like different things. I’m looking forward to the next-gen Kindle, but I don’t want it to be a mini-iPad; I like the things about the Kindle that make it unique. I like e-ink. I like the smaller size. I like the simple graphic. I like having a separate device that is dedicated and oriented to ebook reading; my Droid Incredible and my ipad and my ipod Touch allow ebook reading, but they aren’t specialized enough for my taste – they don’t do it the way I like it.
So there is more than one perspective, and not only one right or best way of doing things for everyone, and no one can actually predict the future. You don’t have to believe that or take that into account in writing your own blog posts – but it’s true nonetheless.
Link | April 10th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
“First, Calibre: unless you’re a real user of it or at least know what it is and what it’s for, you aren’t really in a position to criticize it, and your comment about it indicates you aren’t. You seem to mistakenly view it as a conversion and/or anti-DRM tool. In fact, conversion is only ancillary to its main purpose, and the developer refuses to do anything relating to DRM. It is an ebook library management program and is incredibly powerful; I use it for keeping track of my ebook (and print book) library. It’s a great program, and you certainly can’t do anything like what it can do on an iPad at all, much less “in five seconds or less.” ”
Calibre sits in the exact spot most people use Adobe Digital Editions for so why not criticize it for not providing anything really that unique or useful unless you use obscure hardware and that is just necessity through obscurity where I would expect the vendor to support with the proper software not some third party hack I would not depend on to change a light bulb.
The whole mentality of Calibre is to sit between you and the eBook file formats and hardware you use and ingrain itself into your process. At least Stanza provides you with an Apple iOS application that supports their formatting of the eBooks.
Which is a process that I would rather have done through iTunes or other better equipped software.
Link | April 10th, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Justacat wrote,
Well, okay, so it’s clear you’ve made your decision about Calibre without using it or knowing what it does – it really isn’t even remotely intended to be anything like an analog of Adobe Digital Editions or Stanza, as I know very well, since I have all of these.
I find your blog interesting and entertaining to read, and like I said, I believe everyone is fully entitled to his own opinion – but your opions lose a lot of credibility for me when they don’t have fact and experience behind them, or when you express things as fact that you’ve inferred without bothering to find out the reality. You seem to use apple products, so I am interested in what you have to say about them, but it’s clear to me that you’ve never attempted to use or understand Calibre, which makes me wonder what else you discuss that you don’t actually know about and so I should take with a grain of salt.
I’m not sure why you have your mind so dead set against certain things and are so determined not to hear other viewpoints that might actually offer additional interesting information and from which you might learn potentially useful things. What would it hurt to be more open minded or to acknowledge other perspectives, or that others might know more about some piece of technology? I didn’t know what Calibre was; someone told me and I went to explore it, and now I love it – if I’d read a few one-line opinions here and there and decided in advance that I didn’t need it and wasn’t going to bother, I’d have missed out on one of the best and most useful and most amazingly featured (certainly more than iTunes!) pieces of software, free or paid, I’ve ever used – and programming is my background; I’ve been using software since the early ’80s. It might not be for everyone, but it is my most-used piece of software – it sure does more than “sit between me and the ebook file formats and hardware and ingrain itself into your process.” – I don’t even know what this means. What process?
But hey, that’s your prerogative. I had hoped with my comment just to let you know that there are people out here, informed people, who like kindles, and perhaps to open a discussion about it. I held out some hope that maybe you’d be interested in learning why that was, and maybe acknowledging it instead of treating kindle-users like idiots, even if your own mind didn’t change. I didn’t really expect that, and it didn’t happen, but I gave it a shot!
Link | April 10th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
TeddyPig wrote,
“but your opions lose a lot of credibility for me when they don’t have fact and experience behind them,”
Why do people come on my blog and act this way? Not even a “could I disagree with” something you said. Nah, they just come right in and tell me flat out I am lying to them personally because no one else matters really.
I don’t need Calibre because I know how to use my top of the line iPad correctly to do what it was built to do display PDFs on it’s screen without lame software solutions. What is so difficult to understand you idiot. I don’t need junkie free software like Calibre I don’t buy into magical solutions for everyone’s use because I carefully buy non-DRM PDF formatted files so as to not depend on duct tape solutions to do what should be done easily.
I already know Calibre sucks at translating files anyway and I find it useless for even the most simple tasks so please quit with the inane robotic spambot like blathering about junk software and cheap ass bargain bin eBook Readers because you sound like a tool.
It’s like some stranger I never talked to before barging in and telling me repeatedly I need a full Microsoft Office for Mac install to read a text file. No I don’t I am fine really I know what I am doing despite self important people like yourself.
I don’t want your validation I don’t particularly care if you own a Kindle many non-technically inclined people such as yourself tend to since they are so cheap and easy to run but they do not yell at me and say I am lying to them about things being better on an iPad with more options and capabilities which is just the plain truth of the matter and I will spend my time and money the way I think is best for me thanks any way and sorry to seem dismissive but I am being dismissive go bother someone on that Calibre forum you seem to think is so important while talking in circles about nonsense about eInk and such things.
This is the type of deal where I should have just called a troll a troll a few paragraphs ago and simply ignored the rest of this wasted wordy space.
Link | April 10th, 2011 at 7:04 pm