https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mclbVTIYG8E&feature=player_embedded

http://www.apple.com/icloud

When Apple launched the iPad, it made a big deal about the new iBook store and the iPad’s use as an electronic reading device. Here’s the marketing blurb on Apple’s site…

Reading on iPad is just like reading a book. You hold your iPad like a book. You flip the pages like a book. And you do it all with your hands — just like a book. The high-resolution, LED-backlit screen displays each page beautifully.

The iPad is an astounding piece of technology in many ways, but a good device for spending hours reading electronic books does not count among them, because of the backlit LCD display is uses.

A few weeks ago, Samsung announced that it’s backing out of the electronic ink panel production, instead to concentrate on LCD displays for their dedicated reading devices. Also, there are rumours of a smaller, cheaper iPad which no doubt will be designed to take a take some of Amazon Kindle’s share of the eReader market. So, given the marketing power of Apple, and the likes of Samsung turning their back on the technology, the odds seem stacked against a bright future for electronic paper.

Electronic paper displays mimic the high resolution and reflective quality of ink on paper. Compared to LCD technology:

• it is more energy efficient; battery life is on a scale of weeks rather hours, which surely preferable on a device meant to be read for hours on end
• it is much less bulky allowing comparably thinner and lighter devices
• it is more comfortable to read, not only because of its higher resolution, but because it reflects light like paper; the more light hitting the device, the more legible it becomes. The opposite is true for LCD displays like the iPad’s (not helped by its glossy screen). After all, it’s much easier to control light on a device when it needs illuminating in a darkened room. When the situation is reversed, the light from that big fiery thing in the sky is not as easily controlled, and the brighter it is in relation to the LCD backlight, the harder it is to read.

Of course, electronic ink displays aren’t with out their issues. They are restricted to monochrome for a start. Then there’s the glacially slow display refresh when interacting the device. For some people I’ve spoken to this is a barrier to buying a device; for that brief second, the device looks broken, and in our Jobsian world of user experience perfection, that will never do.

There’s the thorny issue of Digital Rights Management which seems to hang over the e-reader market like a grey cloud. I have issues with this but as this piece is about the merits of the display technology only, I’ll leave that for a future post.

There’s no argument that the iPad is a revolutionary device for consuming digital media, and its LCD display is ideal the multi-purpose nature of the device.

No doubt the next iteration of the iPad (and its rumoured smaller sibling) will have the much hyped ‘Retina Display’ but no matter much Jobs talks about pixel density, the reading experience will be inferior to that of  electronic paper simply because of the necessity for a backlight.

Update: I originally posted this on a computer without sound and was unaware of the annoying music. Apologies for that.

It’s a small device that plugs into a dynamo hub (in my case a Schmidt SON) and converts the AC output to DC at adjustable voltages. It comes with a large number of cables, including a variety of standard USB plugs and DC charger plugs that allow you to power your phone or charge up a dSLR battery while on the move.

At £140, it’s not cheap. But then, being made in Germany, this is not a device made by under-paid, over-worked employees in a far-east electronics factory, and for the time saved while not hanging around wall sockets waiting for things to charge, it’s very much worth it.

I’ll write more about it once I’ve got it up and running!

With the iPad, it’s like Jobs picked up a five year old magazine article about what Apple might have in store for the future, and based their new product on that. It’s even called iPad.

Many of us who are underwhelmed, however, may remember that the iPod was met with similar disappointment (and derision for its name) when it was first released.

Or maybe we’re all just Apple obssessed idiots.