E-book readers are doomed

I’ve tried hard to like the current crop of e-book reader devices. I wanted to believe that e-ink was the next big thing in readability and usability of screens. And I needed a rationale for explaining the resurgence of interest in all things ebook.

I just can’t do it. I’ve lived with the iRex iLiad for a year now, and despite my best attempts to integrate it into my daily routine its just not happening for me. The biggest thing is that I just can’t handle carrying another device. And I think that’s going to be an issue for many other people too. I’ll call it device fatigue, for want of a better name.

I was interested to learn that downloads of the Stanza e-reader application have topped sales of Amazon’s Kindle e-book device:

IPhone Stanza Downloads May Top Kindle Sales | Epicenter from Wired.com

What this says to me is that readers are escewing the far more legible e-ink screen of devices like the Kindle, instead preferring the small backlit LCD screen of the iPhone. And the reason seems transparently clear; device fatigue.

And then there’s the question of software quality. The iLiad for one could take a leaf from Apple’s book. And the Kindle has not been immune from criticism either. These devices can feel disturbingly like winding the clock back to the vintage windows era. These devices are not going to win users for their sexy user interfaces, or their form factors for that matter.

Can any of us cope with another device to port around? Two seems to be the limit for me. I don’t want to carry anything more than my smartphone and my laptop. And on the occasions when I don’t have my laptop, the iPhone really does fill the gaps.

This is entirely consistent with the rise of the Japanese keitai novel genre, design to be read and, in some cases, written entirely on the mobile phone. It would be easy to dismiss this as some kind of minority interest, technophile fad it it were not for the sobering fact that half of the top ten selling novels were written for mobile phone form.

Japanese embrace the mobile phone novel – Asia, World – The Independent

Whence the rise of applications like Stanza on the iPhone. And all of this goes without deploying the clear cost argument. Given that I’ve invested in smartphone and laptop devices, do I really want to part with £200 for the Sony reader or £390 for the cheapest iLiad? At that price point I am seriously asking myself whether I wouldn’t rather use the devices I already have. And the runaway success of the keitai form shows that we’ll trade a huge amount of usability against the convenience and portability of the devices we already have.

So, is there a gap which these devices can fill? Or are the devices we already have more than functional enough to take on the task? My money’s not on e-ink at the moment.