If only the bosses at the associated businesses knew this. My wife works at a bookstore that pushes e-readers, and they are adamant that they can meet arbitrary e-reader sales figures each month, despite the fact that they never reach them.

Call me a Luddite-esque backwards technophobe, but I will never own an e-reader of any stripe. I greatly prefer physical books--I can write in them, buy, sell or trade them, drop them in the pool, and no one tracks what I'm reading.

*the management is adamant that the staff can meet the arbitrary sales figures, I mean.

The only plus of e-readers is they can run for two weeks on a charge.

But developers are fleeing from them, and the iOS platforms continue to garner the lion's share of dev, with MSFT and Droid maintaining share.

(source: many, including InfoWorld, do your own fsking research)

Reminds me of that short window of time when GPS devices were popular... right before every smartphone in the world had that capability built in. A device that does only one thing can't compete with one that does that thing + a dozen other things, provided it does them all reasonably well.

@6,

provided it does them all reasonably well.

That's the problem. Many of those multi-purpose devices do not do ANYTHING reasonably well. Cameras in phones are horseshit compared to pretty much any cheap single purpose camera out there.

But you are right. The single purpose devices, even though superior, apparently don't compete very well.

I'm STILL encountering abysmal editing and navigation errors in major books on Kindle. Stupidest example: in Robert Caro's recent "The Passage of Power", one of the most heralded books of the year, with a massive ad campaign and reviews in every conceivable outlet, still has grotesque errors in the Kindle that would never pass muster if a real editor was in charge. For instance, in the early going, there is a discussion of the 1957 civil rights bill's notorious "Part III", which granted equal rights in public accomodation, and was thus unacceptable to the segregationists in the South, and removed from the final bill. Every mention of this Part III is a link -- but not to anything about Part III of the bill. They are all linked to the completely unrelated "Part III" of this book!

This probably sounds trivial to all of you, but to me it says that the Kindle version is an afterthought, created out of automated tools with no intelligent oversight or checking -- no editing, in fact. Which is to be expected with some 30-year-old piece of trash, but in a brand new major work? Embarrassing.

And yes, it does turn me off the Kindle. I still use it, especially when it comes to some of these ten-pound doorstop books, but it's really annoying, and makes the Kindle version more of a "reading supplement" to the real book than a substitute for it. Kindles are still worthless for navigation; and search is still almost unusable.

@5, "dev"? What kind of "dev" do you need on an e-reader?

@10 I don't know, I'll email one of my friends using their iPods.

GPS devices are more popular than ever, but we call them cell phones.

I'm a big e-ink fan because I stare at a computer all the time and especially now with the Paper White magic, I can read comfortably at any light level. But I'm not interested in a tablet, so an e-reader makes more sense for someone like me. If the pricing on ebooks wasn't so absurd, I would go digital exclusively.

I like my e-reader, mostly because I can adjust the size of the text. If I could afford it, I would upgrade to the paper white, mostly because it has a built-in light.

I have no use for a tablet - I use my laptop mainly for work and school, and typing on a tablet is ridiculously hard. And iPad for me would just be an e-reader that costs three or four times more than a Kindle.

I'm still using my old non-touch Kindle. Love it for reading, especially outside. No reason to upgrade, other than gradually shortening battery life.

#12

The Kindle eInk ($59) is still ideal.

Super light, throw it in a backpack.
Readable in bright sunshine.
1week battery life.

I use my reader...for reading! And the eInk gives me clear crisp text. I'd provide my own light, thank you!!

As far as licenses, I've noted that publishers are offering eBook upgrades for a small fee to turn a DRMd version into an unlocked PDF. Completely legal stuff.

I still like my two-year-old Kindle better for reading than either my Kindle Fire of my Nexus7. So clearly I'm gadget-inclined.

But I don't care enough to buy a *new* Kindle with whatever-they-call-it-now screen when my current one still has amazing battery life and a good reading experience.

Started off with the last Kindle that had the real key pad and loved it. Then I updated last year to the Kindle Touch that fucking SUCKS!! The page turning isn't very intuitive and searching for books on the newer Kindle is a pain.

This last week I bought the iPad mini and have to say..I am pretty impressed so far. I do miss the e-ink though but not that much

I don't want to give up paper books, but e-readers aren't all bad. There are benefits, one being that out-of-print books can be resurrected. Also, like @13 commented, you can adjust the print size (& font) which is extremely helpful to me as I need different levels when I switch from contacts to glasses. I am a huge fan of e-ink, but I must say, I've learned to like my color Nook (very useful for reading in dim light). Also, a lot of authors now have novellas or short stories (some free or very cheap) published as e-books only (some originally in anthologies, some original). And yes, I find myself buying huge books for my Nook, though I am also buying them in physical book, too.

All that said, I probably would never have bought a Nook except I work for a bookstore and I need to have the knowledge of an e-reader. There are definite advantages to e-readers, and since so many have come down a lot in price, it makes sense if you need the above mentioned capabilities, or if you travel a lot or just don't have room for physical books but want to keep everything you've read. I do think it is true that e-readers don't get upgraded like cell phones, plus people aren't as hard on their e-readers as they are on cell phones.