re:act
the boom of digital books Apple’s long-awaited iPad poses new competition for existing e-readers, as Aimee Steen finds out
H
ave you ever read a novel without paper? E-books have been around for several years and, as thousands of books get transferred into digital format, yet another electronic giant has developed a device for displaying them – Apple. After months of speculation, the company that developed the iPod has unveiled the iPad. A touch-screen tablet device, Apple claims it is the definitive stop-gap between smartphones and laptops. As well as allowing users to browse the internet, play games and manage photos, it also functions as an e-reader and will be stiff competition for current providers. Following on from the launch of Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s range of e-readers, it is the latest in a string of machines to display books digitally, and will be accompanied by an online iBooks store. Resembling a large iPhone, the iPad will cost between $499 and $829 in the US, but price details for the UK are yet to be released. Its 9.7-inch colour display puts it above other, greyscale e-readers currently available, raising the bar for developers and adding fuel to the
debate on the future of digital books. Many retailers have faced dwindling business after online book stores’ growing popularity, with plenty disappearing altogether as a result – the recent closure of Borders, despite its attempts to keep up with digital developments, dismayed book-lovers everywhere. E-readers pose another threat to the survival of traditional books, but some stores are exploiting the trend rather than fighting it. Waterstone’s launched its e-book site in 2008 and now has over 24,000 e-books available. Rather than seeing e-books take business away from physical books, they have experienced something different. “The fact that somebody has bought an e-book reader hasn’t meant that they’ve gone on to buy fewer physical books,” says Jon Howells, Waterstone’s representative. “We’ve seen that they’ve gone to slightly older buyers, heavy duty book buyers.” Indeed, they sold 80,000 e-books over the Christmas period. Sales figures from online retailer Amazon tell a different story, though – for the first time ever, sales of e-books overtook print orders on Christmas Day last year.
Photo: Apple website press shots
How do e-readers measure up to actual books? We take a look at a popular Sony model to find out what they’re really like As a successful provider of e-readers, Sony is one of the iPad’s main competitors. Coming in touch and pocket editions, their readers bear the strongest resemblance to the iPad in on-screen interaction and book-like size. The Sony eReader PRS-600 Touch Edition retails at £259.95 and comes in three colours. With a 6-inch touch sensitive display, it is smaller than the iPad and comes in greyscale rather than colour – not a huge problem given its primary function as a text-reader. It’s similar in size to a book, but not being able to open it
feels strange, though an optional jacket makes it feel slightly more comfortable. Navigation is via a combination of both on-screen and physical buttons. The home screen splits into seven sections, allowing you to browse, continue reading or access audio and picture functions. Pages are turned with a scroll button or by swiping the screen, but the level of sensitivity is far lower than on other touch-screen devices. It can hold around 350 e-books but has room for a memory card, which takes that total to around 13,000.
While some hail the benefits of e-readers – portability, accessibility, convenience – others support the charm of a good old paperback. Andrew McGeachin, manager of one of the UK’s oldest bookshops, Sotheran’s, says, “I think people will always like the physical attributes of a book, how it feels and looks. If you look on the bus or the tube going into work, you see people reading books – I don’t see many people clicking on e-readers.” Though he feels that the advent of electronic books may help to curb the tendency of publishers to over-print books, he champions the printed page as a positive thing: “At work now, we spend so much time in front of a screen; if you’re looking forward to reading something as pleasure, it’s nice not to be looking at a screen.” Whether or not e-readers are a good thing, the advent of the iPad signifies that they’re here to stay and will develop even further. It’s not as cheap as a charity shop paperback and feels rather different, but, on the plus side, you can carry thousands of books in one small device. Just don’t take it in the bath. To combat glare in strong sunlight, the screen is not back-lit and uses electronic ink rather than a standard screen. The only slightly disconcerting product of this is that, as the next page loads, the screen turns black and produces a negative image of the text before displaying the next page. There is no doubt that an e-reader could be useful to serious word-addicts, but there’s no escaping the fact it is a piece of technology and not a book. It’s a data-collation device rather than a feet-up-by-the-fire companion, and though its benefits are clear, there might have to be developments in design and dips in cost before it becomes widely popular. AS