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Editorial
In the wake of Apple's announcement of iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and the latest version of iTunes U, I'd like to take a moment to step back and look at the technology they all look to replace: paper. There's not much of a question that from a business and from an educational standpoint, the textbook industry is ripe for disruption. The high prices of books, the inordinately strong influence of large buyer blocks like the Texas Board of Education, and even simpler issues like how much a paper textbook weighs all speak to a need to rethink how we distribute and interact with academic texts. I look forward to these disruptions and hope they make education easier and more broadly distributed.
Before we get too far along in this discussion, I want to lay my cards out on the table. I am not against ebooks — I believe that their mass use is not only inevitable but will change the ways that we think and learn. I am, however, deeply concerned about ebooks when compared to paper as a technology. Make no mistake, paper is a technology just as much as an LCD screen is, and as a technology it has several important advantages over e-readers that I am loathe to see disappear.
It's only within the past few years that our gadgets have advanced to the the point where it's even reasonable to consider devices like the iPad and other e-readers as viable replacements for the traditional paper book. As fast as technology moves, it's important to remember that previous changes in reading technology took literally centuries to spread. This current change is happening much more rapidly, and we need to think just as rapidly about its repercussions.
So while much of the coverage of yesterday's announcement focuses on the exciting new ways that e-readers enable students to interact with texts, we should also be sure to give paper books their due. This isn't a Luddite rant about how gadgets are destroying our inherent humanity and it's not an ode to the wonderful smell and feel of an old book: it's a clear-eyed look at how well paper technology has served us for millennia and how we need to be careful in our headlong rush to replace it.
If you take a moment to think about a paper book as the technological object that it is, you can quickly see plenty of advantages over e-readers. The list of "specs" for your standard paper book gets surprisingly long when you expand your definition of technology to include elements that don't require a computer chip.
These features and specs are either unmatched or poorly matched by most current e-reader technology. While e-readers obviously offer many advantages over paper books, I would argue that most of the above specs are essential to how most people think of the act of engaged, active reading. More importantly, many of these "specs" are vital to how most cultures have historically preserved and disseminated knowledge for thousands of years. The phrases "most cultures" and "thousands of years" sound awfully hokey, I know, but those are the stakes. If we are to replace this powerful and durable technology, we need to think in those very large terms.
The user interface of the bound book has remained relatively stable for a few centuries now. Paper pages are bound, usually horizontally, and text is printed on them in such a way that you can move from one page to the next in linear fashion.
Compared to LCD, OLED, and e-ink, regular ink on paper offers superior contrast and better readability (especially over the long term). It requires a separate source of light, of course, but light is pretty easy to come by these days. Paper books are also generally regarded to be more immersive than e-readers — there are no pop up alerts, notifications, or background tasks to contend with. Learning the user interface is easy for most people and there are few if any options to fiddle with. Paper books don't crash (though they can physically deteriorate) and they never run out of battery power.
An e-reader can replicate some of these features by dint of stable software, options to improve readability, and intuitive interface decisions. For the most part, we are quite close to replicating many of the basic reading specs of a paper book or coming close enough as to make the differences unimportant when compared to other advantages. We're at the point where it's more about tradeoffs than deal breakers. It's near-impossible to read an iPad in bright, direct sunlight, but it's also impossible to read a paper book in total darkness.
There are many who cling to the idea of a nice, good, heavy book and the feel of turning a paper page instead of swiping a screen or pressing a button. For anybody my age or older, there's a romantic (and increasingly nostalgic) attachment to the smell of a book and the look of its tattered pages — but when I'm truthful with myself I have to admit those impressions are more cultural and generational than essential to the act of reading.
Paper book technology is also much less flexible than ebook technology. Ebooks can include video, audio, and even different navigational systems beyond "next page" and "previous page." The web has become deeply ingrained enough in our collective culture to make it second nature now, but I still remember the excitement over the basic idea of HTML and linking — of creating narratives and knowledge that aren't linear. The best paper book technology can give us is something like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Though there's less attention given to non-linear e-reading experiences now than there was in the heady days of multimedia CD-ROMs in the mid 90s, e-readers can blur the line between reading, watching, playing, and experiencing.
The method you use for your marginalia is limited only by your imagination, the space on the page, and whatever level of OCD drives you to systematize your notes
With active reading, you're doing much more than simply scanning words. When you find a passage that needs your attention and engagement, paper book technology provides you with a huge number of options for marking it up. You can directly underline it with a pen, highlight it, circle it, write up a note in the margin, take a note on a separate pad of paper (or laptop or whatever), fold the corner of the page down, and so on. The method you use for your marginalia is limited only by your imagination, the space on the page, and whatever level of OCD drives you to systematize your notes.
With e-readers, your markup options are much more limited. You can highlight the text directly via whatever interface is made available to you, you can apply bookmarks to a "page," you can take notes on a separate device, and sometimes you can type notes in directly. These options are chosen by the e-reader manufacturer and are not often customizable, though you are free to create a system within the (relatively strict) confines of the interface. iBooks 2 has the best interface I've seen so far for note taking. Highlighting and adding notes is quick and easy, offering multiple highlight colors and quick note taking.
The second part of active reading is coming back to your notes, bookmarks, and highlighted passages. In this regard, e-readers clearly have more potential than paper books. Paper books offer a visual and spatial system of physical bookmarks and folded pages, but e-readers can offer searchable text, all your highlighted passages in a single interface, and (ideally) exporting. In this regard, iBooks 2 does offer you the ability to email your notes to yourself. On the iPad itself, however, they are otherwise siloed off from other iOS apps.
For myself, I feel the experience of active reading is inferior on e-readers. With paper books, applying your marginalia is immediate and direct — you write on this page and underline this word using a technology that you learned quite early: a writing utensil. However, I'm fully aware that I have a generational bias towards the tools that I use to actively read. Marking up text with pen and highlighter feels natural because I learned how to use them at such a young age. Somebody who learned an e-reader interface at an equally young age (and let us assume for the sake of argument that interface would stay the same for this person's lifetime) would find via those methods to be equally direct. I don't think we're anywhere near that interface yet, even with iBooks 2, but I believe in principle we can be.
Paper book technology for searching text is almost entirely spatial. You find a passage by looking for a physical bookmark or simply remembering the approximate place in the book where it was located. If you're lucky, your book will include an index to key passages within it, but really it's a primitive system. With e-readers, though we have yet to arrive at a standard interface, you can usually perform a text search, look at a hyperlinked list of bookmarks, and if there's a touchscreen you can user a slider to arrive at a random page.
On the whole, paper books are not as accessible as ebooks when it comes to navigation. I generally prefer the spatial navigation a paper book affords, but I can't say it's inherently superior — just different.
As for referencing particular passages within a book, currently paper technology is just a little better than ebooks if only because the standards are more widely understood and accepted. With paper books, you cite a page number after you've specified the edition of the book you're referencing. There are standards for referencing the virtual "page number" for ebooks that are somewhat similar, but given the multiplicity of ebook formats and editions it can be a bit more complicated. I believe this should be solved over time as ebooks become more common and their formats more standardized. It's a hassle, but by no means an insurmountable one.
Storage and transport makes for an easy comparison. I can carry thousands of ebooks on an e-reader. I can carry no more than, say, three or four textbooks in a backpack. Sorry paper, but you're really heavy and I only have so much shelf space.
Now we are beginning to delve into the thornier issues of ebooks. Paper book technology has many advantages here simply because of the fact that it was created at a time when ideas surrounding digital rights management, copyright protection, and second-sale were either nascent or nonexistent.
With a paper book, if I want to lend it to you I simply give it to you. I won't have access to it while you have it, but the physical act of handing you a book is a "technology" that usually doesn't afford intervention by higher powers. The same applies if I want to sell you a book I've read: I give you the book, you give me money, and we're done.
An ebook, on the other hand, is more virtual and less portable in this regard. The core issue is that we have to replace physical actions with digital equivalents — and the companies doing the replacing aren't worried about the future of human knowledge. Systems for lending and reselling necessarily involve intervention from the distributor, the company that makes the e-reader software, and other interested parties. I could lend or sell you the entire e-reader, but in practice that's not really a viable option (for obvious reasons).
All of which leads us into the horrifically complicated area of DRM and formats. The analogy for formats is relatively simple when comparing ebooks and paper books. Though there are things like folios, quartos, scrolls, and whatnot in paper book technology, there is really no confusion with paper books. The form/format is literally physical and the only incompatibilities, such as they are, come into play when you're trying to fit them all on a shelf.
We have to replace physical actions with digital equivalents — and the companies doing the replacing aren't worried about the future of human knowledge
It's not fair to say that paper book technology is a completely free and open paradise of availability and access. There are competing distributors, selections limited by your local bookstore or library, and out-of-print editions. Yet these issues have had many hundreds of years to sort themselves out and the systems for managing them are established.
Ebooks, by contrast, come in an array of digital formats that are beset by issues of device compatibility, DRM, money, and corporate interests. It is a wild west of competing and frustratingly incompatible formats laden with DRM, all controlled by companies vying to provide the dominant standard.
I find the situation nearly intolerable. It's not just that I want to be able to choose my e-reader device and then have free and easy access to any book, it's that what we're discussing here are books, the very things that have created and sustained our culture over generations. To allow them to be encrypted and inaccessible without specific software is to limit the dissemination of human knowledge. Imagine if you couldn't read Aristotle or Confucius because the DRM format their publishers chose wasn't compatible with your iPad. It's insanity
I understand that free and open access to paper books isn't available everywhere, that various hegemonies have stifled and do stifle dissent. Books can be burned, banned, and censored. But if we are going to be putting our collective knowledge into digital formats with DRM, we are adding another layer of possible censorship on top of the layers of control we already contend with. This isn't (entirely) paranoia that Apple or Amazon will control access to human knowledge, it's also a practical concern founded in the experience of being blocked by poorly designed DRM.
As just one example of the problematic issues of DRM and corporate control of ebook formats, look no further than iBooks Author, the software used to create iBooks under Apple's new system. This software requires that anything created and sold via the software can only be distributed by Apple:
IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a "Work"), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.
iBooks sold for money can only be distributed by one company, in a format that will only work on its products, under a rubric that legally prohibits the author from selling printed copies of the book (or perhaps even filing them in the Library of Congress!). If I wanted to ensure that my book would have a shot at mattering, I wouldn't risk distributing it on such a limited and controlled system.
Paper book technology works whether or not the company that sold it to you wants it to. Paper books can't be remotely changed via a cloud update and can't be whooshed into a memory hole because of a DMCA complaint (Amazon, I'm looking at you). Paper books aren't rendered inaccessible if this or that corporation didn't hit its quarterly numbers and went out of business.
It's important that we find ways to prevent piracy and ensure that authors receive proper payment for their work, but those issues pale in comparison to the importance of ensuring access to our collective writings. I hope that it won't be too long before the competition between iBooks and Kindle and Nook and [insert DRM book format here] resolves into a single standard. That standard, however, should not include DRM if it is to be the basic format for academic knowledge.
I've slowly been raising the stakes over the course of this article and now we come to what I consider to be the highest stakes of all: ensuring the longevity and persistence of knowledge. If DRM and ebook formats are about access, the thousand year view is about existence.
When it comes to the longevity of paper book technology and virtually any digital technology, there is simply no comparison. Assuming that the paper a book is printed on isn't too acidic and it's well-kept, it will last for literally thousands of years.
Digital formats have evolved quickly and it's likely they will continue to evolve for the foreseeable future. Even if we assume that digital storage formats won't ever change again and we'll always have access to computers than can read them, the physical media itself simply breaks down in a matter of years. There are some solutions (like Millenniata), but few if any that are widespread, well-known, and standardized.
If you're not convinced yet, I can make this point very quickly. I'd like you to read an ebook stored on a 5.25-inch floppy disk. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Solutions to this problem from Apple, Amazon, and others seem to be based on their cloud services. That is a lot of trust to place in these corporations and their costly servers. I'm not saying that preserving paper books is free, that the work of that preservation hasn't been manipulated by powerful interests over the centuries, or even that they're immune to catastrophes (pour one out for the Library of Alexandria). What I am saying is that we've developed a system of libraries and universities that work to ensure that books are preserved for the long haul. Those same institutions and many more are trying to do the same for digital media today — but they need help and I don't see evidence that the ebook industry is collaborating with them in any meaningful way.
Before I am willing to say that ebook technology can measure up to paper book technology, I need to see the companies developing ebooks lay out a clear plan to ensure that their books and any notes we take on them have a legitimate shot of still being around and readable in a thousand years.
The thousand year view is simple: if you're going to commit knowledge to writing in some form, you need to ensure that it will exist and be readable in a thousand years. I can tell you that I've personally gained insight and understanding about our world by reading a lightly-distributed instruction manual for rural, parish priests in England — written in the fourteenth century. Will an independently-created iBook 2 textbook be around in the thirty first century?
Pour one out for the Library of Alexandria
The most important specs are the ones you take for granted
Is paper book technology superior to ebook technology? Yes, when you take the long view. Paper books can last a thousand years, aren't encrypted with DRM, and don't depend on the largess of corporations which are more focused on short term profits than long-term archives.
When you take the short view, though, e-readers are clearly better. Lugging books is a chore, searching through them is tedious and manual, and as much as I enjoy the old ways of active reading, I know that technological solutions will mature into usable replacements soon enough. Yet despite all their advantages — which are rightly pushing broad adoption — ebooks don't measure up to the specs of a paper book.
With ebooks, we're still looking at the equivalent of the day after Gutenberg printed his first Bible. We need to decide which paper book "specs" are important and ensure that they get recreated in our new digital world. We also need to ensure that these digital equivalents are at least as free and unfettered as paper books are now. We've already surpassed paper technology in a number of areas. However we are not giving nearly enough attention to the very things that made paper books flourish in the first place. The most important specs are the ones you take for granted.
Comments
Readable with any form of light This positive is a negative in and of itself (i.e. a requirement of light to begin with).
simon.ly - January 20, 2012
Apart from Braille, what type of reading doesn’t require a light?
_mustafa - January 20, 2012
I would assume he meant “a requirement of a secondary source of light.”
MayorBloomberg - January 20, 2012
Infra-red, for instance. Useless for reading a paper book.
Aaron Traas - January 20, 2012
You forgot about ultraviolet as well. Unless it was printed to be used with black lights.
crackedcactus - January 20, 2012
Light was implied to be understood as “visible light”. Let’s not try to be smart-asses for the sake of it.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
Apple copied LG but while Flash, until you suck hardly fact is, phen375 where to buy I can get a better laptop for less moreover death-grip I would say that sucky ass due to brainwashed for one thing you don’t know anything, in the beginning Apple didn’t invent anything so that Apple are nothing without Steve Jobs
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What I mean is that when it’s dark, you cannot read a paperback book. Conversely, at least in the case of tablets, and some e-books, you can in fact read in any form of light – that is to say, there is no need for an external light.
simon.ly - January 20, 2012
But who reads books in complete darkness anyway? I prefer a secondary light source for the sake of my eyes.
tw_ - January 20, 2012
My sister. She has to put her kids to sleep and stays in the room with them reading a book while they fall asleep.
FirewaveZ - January 20, 2012
Reading. Light. It’s no more obnoxious to the other people in the room than a tablet’s screen.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
I disagree. My wife reading a tablet in night mode (white text black background) is not noticeable to me. A reading light is. I bought my wife a tablet purely for this reason.
Denarius - January 21, 2012
I’d rather watch Jersey Shore than read white text on black background. Horrible.
Budo - January 22, 2012
hahaha so is mine, what a small world and yes it is paper all the way.
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I do.
NigelTufnel - January 21, 2012
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phen375 - April 18, 2012 via mobile
I have very dim lighting in the bedroom at night, it helps me relax. I can still read on an LCD but would require brighter light to read from an analog book. Digital books also allow me to not disturb anyone else.
darwiniandude - January 22, 2012
Yes, but except for 13 year olds staying up late to read forbidden magazines under their sheets, this doesn’t really apply to very many people. When was the last time you said to yourself, “Man, if only there was some form of light. Then I could read this piece of paper!”
I think not being able to read in bright sun light (with the iPad) is a much bigger problem.
Luis_de_Camoes - January 20, 2012
Just because you don’t use a feature, doesn’t mean the feature shouldn’t exist. Isn’t this the argument that Android users have levied against iOS all this time? And iOS has responded (e.g. notifications, hard key camera shot) to allow for this.
simon.ly - January 21, 2012
You do not really make a cogent argument. For book reading, there are hardly any use cases where you will be in total darkness, while there are many where you want to do that in direct sunlight. A very large proportion of books are read at the beach during the holidays, and e-Readers are neither suitable for the sandy environment nor for the lighting.
msl86 - January 21, 2012
^^ What she/he said….
Luis_de_Camoes - January 21, 2012
With regard to the specific situation of beaches, I agree that it may not be suitable.
However, being unable to read in darkness (which is the case of paperback books) is different to it being hard to read where there is sunlight (which is the case of tablets).
For mine, I’d much prefer a situation of something being difficult, as opposed to something being impossible.
simon.ly - January 21, 2012
So yes, your argument lacks cogency, too.
simon.ly - January 21, 2012
….and you are to be the future of Law? What kind of case is that for a law student? LET THERE BE LIGHT. Horrible defense Sir. the fact is that we humans are always creating something to help us use something we have already created.. EX: we are unable to drive a car without gasoline therefore WE ASSUME the creation or use of gasoline will go hand in hand as the WAY we are able to USE the car. Did you see how i just did that Simon? IF SOMEONE IS TRULY IN COMPLETE DARKNESS THEN I ASSUME READING A BOOK WOULD BE THE LEAST OF THEIR WORRIES. However you must understand that we ARE able to read in the dark if we turn on a light, use a book light, use a flashlight or of course use our ipad to light the way…..therefore it may occasionally be HARD to read in the dark , but Simon let’s be real for a minute- who does that anyway? Nobody! People do however actually try to read outside in the daytime which of course is dam near impossible even with the greatest of umbrellas and Circus tricks! Everyone reading this knows how hard it is to see the screen on laptops and smartphones in direct sunlight!
theMediator - January 21, 2012
I like the point you made about how I’m questionable unfit to be studying law.
simon.ly - January 21, 2012
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What is it you’re talking about? o.0
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
I’m 18 and I like to read on my iPod touch in total darkness in my bed until I get sleepy enough to turn it off and sleep. And I don’t read forbidden magazines, of course.
SilverPanda - January 21, 2012
I read in the dark on my iPad each and every night. It’s not that I don’t have light, but I feel it’s easier on the eyes with total darkness and a very darkened screen setting. Also it helps me fall asleep – I never have problems with that after reading for 15-30 minutes.
thehatisonfire - January 20, 2012
Actually it’s bad for your eyes to read like that. Having ambient light will soften the sharp contrast for the background. If you notice you start getting headaches, you might consider turning on that bedside lamp again.
And I guess what Dieter meant in the article was that a book performs really well outdoors, in direct sunlight.
Hans Pedersen - January 20, 2012
People have been telling me that for years. They tell me a lot of stuff is bad for my eyes like staring at the CRT (now LCD) for all hours of the night in a spaceship-dark room. I’m 28 years old now and I’m the only one in my family that has perfect vision. I think the eyes need to be regularly trained if anything, rather than strained on the odd occasion by someone not accustomed to extremer conditions.
If anything it’s reading a book with a poor light source that’s bad for you, because I’ve been using computers since I was 8 and I have a lot more comfort reading a self-lit screen than I do reading a book with a desk lamp (don’t even have one). Furthermore, reading a white page in bright sunlight is probably really bad for you.
FinnK - January 21, 2012
I’m not telling you this because I’m personally worried about you, :) It is your choice of you prefer a bit of a headache and strained eyes. But don’t come and tell lies that it’s better for you than reading books with a light on.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060425015643.htm
Hans Pedersen - January 21, 2012
I don’t get headaches or strained eyes, I feel perfectly comfortable doing what I’ve done for 20 years. The only time I’ve ever felt strain on my eyes, honestly, was staring at white pieces of paper reflecting intense sunlight, or on cloudy mornings looking at the sky.
I’m a graphic designer and I probably stare more intensely at the smallest portions of a screen than anyone. I am plainly stating that my firsthand experience contradicts the old wives tale and your link isn’t sufficient enough to prove anything about the specific conditions of reading books, or sitting up to view screens like the iPad or monitors at the distance you usually would.
FinnK - January 21, 2012
You may simply have exceptionally strong eyes. Or it may be that you won’t feel the negative effects until you’re older. In any case, a sample size of 1 = not generalizable. I’ll stick with the scientific findings, thanks.
CameronH - January 21, 2012
I actually kinda agree with you. Back when I was 20, my parents made me take an eye exam and I was prescribed reading glasses. So I started using them because it was suppose to lessen the strain on my eyes. Well after a couple of months I started noticing that I was needing the glasses more and more, I couldn’t even make out street signs anymore without the glasses. So it freked me out and I forced my self not to use them and after a while my eyesight began to get better again and 8 years later my eyesight hasn’t gotten worse, I’m not 20/20 but close.
Fernandez21 - January 22, 2012 via mobile
I quote from that study you linked to “Philips Innovative Applications provided project funding, as well as an Ambilight flat-screen television that was used during the experiment.”
I’d rather have scientific studies without just an obvious conflict of interest, thanks.
This one is meaningless since the study would obviously not going to find that Philips Ambilight feature is useless, if they get funding from it.
Learn to be a bit more critical of what you read.
ath0 - January 21, 2012
Black environment dilates your pupils, because your brain thinks it needs to take in more light to see properly. Instead you’re flashing them with a very bright light bulb from 12 inches away. Very, very bad. Don’t do it. At least keep the light on in your room at some low level.
sonicmerlin - January 21, 2012
Yes, but to be fair, the eyes should readjust to the screen’s light emission. Of course, rapidly changing screen content could present an issue.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
You CAN’T read a tablet in any form of light, though. They’re unusable in direct sunlight, and e-paper is just as unreadable in complete darkness as a paperback.
Dorek - January 20, 2012
You still require a form of light. It might be a backlight e.g. a tablet, or just like most current ereaders – an external light.
Books and ereaders with no persistent backlight might be better because you can use any source of light, not be limited to one in your device.
Tams - January 22, 2012
I propose a change to “many forms of visible light.” Unless Dieter can read by the glow of infrared.
alainiala - January 20, 2012
ha!
Dieter Bohn - January 20, 2012
So, can we assume you prefer paper magazines to websites too? You know, like the website your article is written on.
kurt_hagins - January 20, 2012
I’m sorry to inform you that you seem to have entirely missed the point.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
Do you know what happens when you assume? You make an ASS out of U and ME (me in this case being Dieter). The points he made throughout the article don’t translate to a magazine vs website argument in any way that I can see.
baclap - January 20, 2012 via mobile
I can see ways to make the argument that the magazines of today are better of catalogued in museums than stored on servers that might not be alive forever.
Limbero - January 20, 2012
Most magazines can be recycled for the paper without any loss for mankind.
tw_ - January 20, 2012
I don’t know if that outweighs the benefit of being able to publish and deliver a story within moments of it breaking.
baclap - January 21, 2012
Guess what smart guy….a few years ago the records of over 200,000 people were physically stolen from the Veterans Administration giving thieves access to an abundance of Identity theft and draining these poor old folks of their bank accounts…it took ALMOST THREE years to get back only 30% of what was stolen! Why? NO PAPER COPIES, NO BACKUPS – the thieves took the servers as well as the disk therefore your point is also moot.
Not everything is on the Internet: believe it or not everything you see on the web has to actually be STORED some where physical in order for you to access it.
I believe the point the writer was making had to do with HOW this so called “digital” information is actually shared and saved and reloaded over and over again to compensate for new formats of ever evolving technological tools and their interfaces. Look at it this way: your cell phone company exists and eventually camera phones are invented which evolve into smart phones (which currently contain sim cards) …..Try uploading the pictures from the first camera phones without simcards or ANY outgoing connectivity into your smartphone or anywhere for that matter! The point is that if ebay or facebook are shutdown where does all that information go? Every Corporation In the United States is required to keep PAPER backups of vital information….and by their own choice the smart ones keep two sets of backup records: computer and paper!
theMediator - January 21, 2012
I could not find any mention of the ability to use Text-To-Speech (TTS) to have paragraphs read out.
Studies have shown that
- it is more effective to listen and read to textbooks at the same time.
- It is also very helpful if you have tired eyes or simply want to listen to paragraphs while eating, cleaning your room or exercising.
JohannesZ - January 20, 2012
Sadly, though, TTS is difficult to understand because it doesn’t mimic real speech. Now it would be fascinating to have the audio read be a real person and mapped to the text—and then to use that data to make better TTS.
But yes, I totally agree—as someone who remembers audiobooks far better than just reading, this is a area that, if combined with ebook text, trumps plain-old paper any day.
azulum - January 20, 2012
Well, TTS voices have made significant improvements in the last years. I have compared dozens of companies providing TTS voices and found some really good ones. Have a look at “Ivona TTS voices” which is my personal choice!
JohannesZ - January 20, 2012
If you use TTS, you get a computerized voice that often mispronounces words despite the significant advances (try listening to a sciency non-fiction book with TTS- it’s infuriating). This problem of mispronunciation is solved when listening to legit audiobooks- but then you have to pay over double the price to listen and read at the same time.
Chikn - January 21, 2012
it was a very “Deiter-ish” thing to say… very euro snob
Evan Carrigan - January 20, 2012
Except most readers don’t go out of their way to be pretentious and “clever”.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
Ok.. for all the people taking this article seriously, please read it again. There are plenty of valid points and views here but it’s obviously tongue-in-cheek.
RobotPi - January 20, 2012
No, it’s just a case of sour grapes.
kurt_hagins - January 20, 2012
You need to lighten up, man. Its an opinion and a tongue-in-cheek one at that. Why so grouchy on a Friday?
RobotPi - January 20, 2012
This is not tongue in cheek.
It would be if e-books were superior to paper books in every way. But they’re clearly not.
Good article. Really puts things in perspective.
For example, people love Apple’s “Retina Display” screens. Dense PPI, good viewing angles, dark blacks, accurate color reproduction….
…but when you think about it, if you buy a magazine from a news stand, it can beat the iPad/iPhone at all of those specs. Your eyes don’t care whether it’s digital or not.
Wasabi - January 20, 2012
Don’t you ever tell that to a photographer. We hate how prints look in most magazines and newspapers, looking at them on a display is infinitely crisper, brighter, etc. Obviously, really nice printing trumps everything aesthetically, but displays > mass prints.
iservin - January 20, 2012
Garbage. When you are distributing images through the web you can’t control the monitor of the person viewing your image. I entirely disagree that image quality in the average magazine is lower than image quality on the average monitor in use today.
[DISCLAIMER: The vitriol in the comment I just made is not directed at you personally, iservin. I like photographers, photography and people who appreciate colors that are crisp and bright. Furthermore, I like Linux and from your avatar it appears that you do too. Thus, there are four things I like about you and only one tiny one (your comment) that I don’t. In total, I’d say the probability that we would get along in real life is pretty good. Say, 68%? So, lets be friends, okay?]
Luis_de_Camoes - January 20, 2012
Sounds like a plan, and the monitor calibration problem is certainly a real one. I guess I was speaking on a personal note as a photojournalist with most of that experience in newsprint. I think that newspapers are worse than the average digital display, however magazines can and some certainly do succeed at displaying their images very well and toning nicely for their particular printing process. I guess my comment was really for me and my calibrated monitor even though when I shoot something that goes online, I try to tone it so that most monitors display it nicely calibrated or not which usually involves a lot of emailed photos opened on LCD’s, TFT’s, CRT’s etc. But I can’t control every display scenario, so the consistency with print is certainly a plus. But the printing has to be good.
iservin - January 20, 2012
I agree with everything you’ve said. I guess it has been such a long time since I read a newspaper, that I neglected them entirely. Now that I think back to the images on a newspaper, I believe you that a $100 Dell monitor probably offers a much nicer display than your average newspaper, even when the monitor is poorly calibrated.
Luis_de_Camoes - January 20, 2012
Plus, the poor quality newspaper ink actually rubs off on your skin as you’re reading it. When I read on a tablet, my finger only leaves a greasy trail that’s virtually invisible as long as the display is on.
Chikn - January 21, 2012
So what you’re saying is no one here reads with nighvision goggles? jkjk
shriek - January 20, 2012
Considering your sight is entirely based on light, I don’t understand your point.
Brwnkid - January 20, 2012
It’s amazing how narrow minded you have to be to reply to a well argued article by clinging to utterly irrelevant, minor point.
Urobulos - January 20, 2012
Thank you, thats exactly what i thought
coletrain - January 20, 2012 via mobile
We are all less intelligent for your meaningless comments about light! It is ignorant to assume one can ever read WITHOUT light(besides braille) and this point should be common sense. It is also very obvious to understand that that EVERY type of ebook reader (in 2012) will have its own light source. Ever hear of a book light? I think i may use my ipad to light my real book as I love it but the mistake you people are making is that you just cant have multi mediums can you? It;s not good enough to have another way for SOME people to read is it? Nope you just plow right through ready to replace everything from paper books and naturally grown fruit. Why can’t we just have both?
theMediator - January 21, 2012
Bril…..wait for it….liant.
SpeedVX - January 20, 2012
I think buying a book should be like buying a movie. When you buy a new movie you get the digital copy, a dvd, and a blu ray. When I buy a book I want the physical copy, iBooks 1/2 copy, and a kindle copy. Books and eBooks can live in harmony this way.
kweazy - January 20, 2012
I have thought the same way for a long time.
DaHui623 - January 20, 2012 via mobile
Of course, then they’d just jack up the price of books so you were essentially pay for each of those copies. Who’s going to convince any bookseller to bundle multiple e-book formats with a hard copy when they currently can charge equivalent prices for each type? To them, that’s just leaving money on the table.
Not saying you’re wrong, just that it would require some significant intervention to make booksellers do this.
CameronH - January 21, 2012
Buy book, pirate ebook.
Wait, I mean buy both of course ;-)
Tams - January 22, 2012
I’d love for books to be bundled the same way that Blu-Rays are, but then you have to compare the prices for Blu-Ray editions of movies to their DVD counterparts. . . . then to their VHS counterparts down at Goodwill.
If books were bundled the same way as Blu-Ray movies are, we’d have to see a similar three-tier pricing scheme:
$30+ – Physical book, audiobook, Kindle/nook/iBook
$10-15 – Physical book, Kindle/nook/iBook
under $10 – Physical book only
Of course, there are tons of books over $30, just as there are things like TV seasons that cost more than a single DVD. This tiered pricing scheme would have to adjust to these larger forms as well.
Chikn - January 21, 2012
Audiobooks are different. There is the same content, but a reader has to be paid for. As most books are now digitised somewhere, ebooks don’t really require that much extra cost.
Tams - January 22, 2012
After reading through this, I have come to the conclusion that you have never read an e-book in your life.
BrianAnderson - January 20, 2012
And you’d be wrong :) . I’ve been reading ebooks since my first Palm III
Dieter Bohn - January 20, 2012
From… The Dark Ages.
Good_ole_Pinocchio - January 20, 2012
Then I suppose I just disagree with you on virtually every single point you made.
BrianAnderson - January 20, 2012
I’d write a proper rebuttal but it would probably be as long as the original article and I’m too busy at work for that at the moment.
BrianAnderson - January 20, 2012
Riiiiiight.
techee44 - January 20, 2012
What, exactly, are you doubting about my post? I’m at work and don’t have time to write out a giant counter-article… that seems like a pretty reasonable explanation.
BrianAnderson - January 20, 2012
So you’re going to write it later? I mean we do have a Forum you know.
Good_ole_Pinocchio - January 20, 2012
Well it’s going to be Friday night so tonight seems unlikely. However, if people were actually interested in reading it, I’d love to put something together.
BrianAnderson - January 20, 2012
I’d love to see it and have a nice friendly debate :) Have plenty of other thoughts that got left on the cutting room floor
Dieter Bohn - January 20, 2012
For the record, I still love reading paper books. I think a good part of it is the shopping experience, smell of the book, etc.
However, I think there were a LOT of really great benefits of ebooks left out. I’ll write something up tomorrow :)
BrianAnderson - January 20, 2012
You never get the smell of a new book and the feeling of holding a good book, anywhere else..!!
Lalith - January 20, 2012
I actually prefer the smell of old books. I’m not sure if that’s weird, but I looove dingy old used book stores and browsing through the imperfections of books that have already been loved.
BrianAnderson - January 20, 2012
I remember, in my childhood, we used to smell each new page of the notebook while taking notes. And I completely agree with the author that there are numerous things to distract when you try to read on iPad, which is critical to a student.
Lalith - January 20, 2012
I disagree with that last point, but I’ll cover that in my reply tomorrow :)
BrianAnderson - January 20, 2012
Please follow through, don’t let us down
thereddestdog - January 20, 2012
I plan on it. Honestly though, I doubt anyone will remember tomorrow that I said I planned on writing it. I enjoy writing though, so I’ll try and throw something together regardless.
BrianAnderson - January 20, 2012
http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/21/2724421/re-sorry-ibooks-paper-books-still-win-on-specs
BrianAnderson - January 21, 2012
This. This a million times. I can’t read on a tablet, phone, or PC without getting distracted… errr that reminds me, I should get back to my homework.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
Am I the only one that never smelled their books growing up? Or even now?
Fernandez21 - January 22, 2012 via mobile
Ah, but a different advantage doe snot necessarily make up for a disadvantage.
Take DRM for example. To me, the ability to carry many ebooks over a few books does not make up for DRM threatening the access of future generations to our texts.
Tams - January 22, 2012
http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/21/2724421/re-sorry-ibooks-paper-books-still-win-on-specs
BrianAnderson - January 21, 2012
(tomorrow)
BrianAnderson - January 20, 2012
Subscribed.
VergeOC - January 20, 2012
http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/21/2724421/re-sorry-ibooks-paper-books-still-win-on-specs
BrianAnderson - January 21, 2012
How come this comment says it was already recommended by me? I never read this comment until now. It also did that with Dieter Bohn’s comment. Methinks there’s a glitch going on here.
walropodes - January 21, 2012
I’d say battery power is the hardest one to counter. Actual books never need one. Even with no artificial light, one only has to wait until daytime to read an actual book.
laserfloyd - January 20, 2012
You’re not the only one.
jaggedspike - January 21, 2012
" I’ve been reading ebooks since my first Palm III"
So have I. And on an HP iPaq. And a iPhone. And an iPad.
I notice you also managed to skip a few negative points, like just how bulky and heavy books are. How they’re easily damaged by water and humidity. Susceptible to fire and theft and food spills and other miscellaneous mayhem.
Copies of all of my ebooks, however, are on a thumb drive, on my phone, on my tablet, and stored in the cloud. Single device gets broken or stolen, and I just replace it and setup my Kindle and/or iBooks account, and I’m good to go.
On my last move, I donated about 1,000 paper books to the local library. All electronic now.
isights - January 23, 2012
seriously – i really like deiter usually.. well i would say i like him enough. anyways, i really dont see how paper books “win on specs” – it implies that print wins on all aspects or many aspects which they dont.
Evan Carrigan - January 20, 2012
To be honest, Dieter did say these were the “specs” that the average reader of any form of book would car about. Just because a e-reader does other cool thing doesn’t mean it is the ideal reading platform.
revlayle - January 20, 2012
yeah however this article was written as a respone to the ibooks 2.0 announcment – which focused on textbooks. In that context, a pure “reading” experience isnt really the most efficient.
Evan Carrigan - January 20, 2012
“To be honest, Dieter did say these were the "specs" that the average reader of any form of book would car about.”
The average reader doesn’t care about bulk, size, and weight?
isights - January 23, 2012
“Though vulnerable to some worms” Loved it :)
apcesarz - January 20, 2012
Fun read, occasional chuckles made me appear as a mad man in Taco bell.
youtube10 - January 20, 2012 via mobile
Eating Taco Bell makes you appear mad.
ohjoey - January 20, 2012
You are dangerously close to being flagged for spouting this kind of nonsense.
Battlesnake - January 20, 2012
Have you SEEN what Taco Bell is passing as beef these days? Or more accurately “beef product”?
crackedcactus - January 20, 2012
Seen it? I just ate it. And you know what… it was delicious. Besides, you need to read the followups to those stories. That lawsuit was dropped, because they were making some false accusations. Even if it was only 35% beef, the other 65% would still have tasted pretty damn good.
Battlesnake - January 20, 2012
This is so sad.
Dorek - January 20, 2012
+all internets to you. I fully agree.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
ruh roh.
Laura June - January 20, 2012
your ebook run out of battery?
Thomas Houston - January 20, 2012
As long as my exams all require that I bring no electronic devices into the room, all of my textbooks and notes I am allowed to bring in will always be paper.
Elliot C. - January 20, 2012
Since exams are rarely “open” book, what are you losing? You still have the ability to take written notes if your text was on a eDevice. It simply changes the way the text is presented to the student.
crackedcactus - January 20, 2012
Many of my college exams were open book. Just depends on the teacher and the kind of exam he/she writes.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
Wish I had gone to your college. I got ONE open book exam, in a fresh level class. And my point still applies. If it’s open book, your notes are STILL more useful then trying to look through a hardback. I would rather use a iBooks textbook that had all the whistles and print out my notes that I would take while reading it on an iPad.
Besides, 3-D models of molecular chains are much easier to understand if you can manipulate them.
crackedcactus - January 21, 2012
that’s just your preference
james dot heck - January 24, 2012
Do you know what iBooks does better?
While you reading, you make notes and highlights of the text. When you finished – you have a shortened version of the book, so you don’t need to search inside book again for some notes.
artysx - January 20, 2012
not only that, but most textbooks in high school can’t be written in. Hello iBooks
kris.prince - January 20, 2012
Use a pencil you moron.
thisismynextname - January 20, 2012
You’re the idiot who wrote “james <3 rosy 4evers” all through my textbooks weren’t you?
crackedcactus - January 20, 2012
I heard they didn’t make it.
jonmilani - January 20, 2012
Use a…
…
wait for it…
..
notebook.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
You can’t write in the text-books you are lent in high school. If you bought them like you’d have to buy these books you could write in them as much as you like.
Vinnie555 - January 26, 2012
Searchability of notes was mentioned in the article. Read it.
keverson42 - January 20, 2012
Index. Post-its. If you didn’t use things like this before, it’s not likely you’re going to make use of competing features in the future.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
This is brilliant.
I’ve got a kindle but I regularly buy paper backs and hardcovers. Kindle is great when I’m travelling but turning pages while drinking a hot cup of coco is an entirely different experience. One that I am not ready to part with. I grew up reading books and the holding a book in my hands is a whole another experience.
BumpyClock - January 20, 2012
“Kindle is great when I’m travelling but turning pages while drinking a hot cup of coco is an entirely different experience.”
You mean trying to turn pages on a propped up book that’s forever trying to flip itself closed? That experience?
isights - January 23, 2012
ebook or paper..publishers will still try to rip you off.
travisonfire - January 20, 2012
When it comes to eTextbooks, if you don’t see a stylus and you can’t write in the margins, they blew it.
AlexH86 - January 20, 2012
Both of which could technically be done on the iPad. Or any other capacitive touch device and a capacitive touch pen.
crackedcactus - January 20, 2012
If only the Kno tablet was still around, Thinkpad Tablet didn’t suck massively, and the HTC Flyer and Jetstream were waaaay cheaper. . .
Oh, wait, you could just buy a tablet PC and enjoy all the benefits!*
*until the battery dies 3 hours later
Chikn - January 21, 2012
You’re right. I’d take a 7 lb, 1.5" thick tablet PC over my iPad all day. I’d also look completely normal walking around and reading with that.
AlexH86 - January 22, 2012
2:47 minutes later here. =(
Tams - January 22, 2012
I sometimes use a tablet PC. It’s alright, but for some reason reading PDFs is horrible and with an active digitizer (far better than a capacitive pen) writing still feels ‘wrong’. Thus I still prefer to print PDFs off (where they look fine) and write on them. The only problem is that they aren’t searchable.
Tams - January 22, 2012
The Sony PRS-600 came with a stylus, and you could write on top of book pages to your heart’s content.
Pity the resistive layer made the screen all but unreadable.
Topher Allan - January 23, 2012
I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other, yet. However, I am absolutely tickled that you essentially wrote a hands-on review for the paper book, and applaud the effort. :)
mlhope - January 20, 2012
lol. Where’s the score card!!!
RagingTyrant - January 20, 2012
Bravo.
brockorr - January 20, 2012 via mobile
So you want to keep diminishing the amazon rain forest and displace all those native tribes?.
Haha jk, Nothing can replace the feeling of 1,000lbs backpack as you walk to your classes or try to run away from bully’s. eBooks does not have that fun scribble story to tell.
sosickitzill - January 20, 2012
I don’t have the link for you but I read and interesting piece once comparing the environmental impact of books vs. “green” eReaders. They concluded that unless you read and purchase brand-new books at a very very high rate, paper books are almost always more eco-friendly. This is because the plastic on the eReader will stay in a landfill for centuries, the batteries eventually rupture and leak into the landfill/water table and because of the impact needed to mine the rare earth minerals that are used to make the eInk displays. Interesting read.
AlexH86 - January 20, 2012
i’ve never thrown a cell phone, much less any computer away. I always end up reselling them. the “research” that goes into saying how an ebook will effect the environment is highly improbable
kris.prince - January 20, 2012
Regardless of how long you keep it, pretty much everything is going to ultimately end up being recycled or in a landfill. The person you sell it to, for instance, may end up throwing it away at some point. Even if you kept it for the rest of your life, there is still a certain environmental impact caused to obtain the materials for the device, ship and market it to you.
AlexH86 - January 20, 2012
I still feel that as they are “forcing” the probable outcome of each e-reader and that it’s exaggerated.
kris.prince - January 20, 2012
The initial resource extraction for an ebook reader is still probably higher than quite a few books. If you take into account the electricity needed for an ereader over it’s lifespan as well as the fact that the battery will need replacing at some point, you could probably get quite a few paper books for the same amount of resources.
Add in the differences between rare metal extraction and the production of plastics compared to paper production (yes, I know it does use chemicals) as well as trees regrowing far faster than metals and oil are formed and you have quite mess to work out environmental impacts from.
Tams - January 22, 2012
Not sure about that. E-recycling is getting to be a pretty big business (here in the Bay area at least). From what I understand, mainly they want to extract all the little bits of gold, copper, and rare earths, but they still grind up the plastic cases into little chips and sell it all to niche manufacturers who make recycled park benches and so forth
::er - January 20, 2012
I see what you are saying. I guess I’m referring to the “research” that was done. It’s hard for me to believe in such research.
kris.prince - January 20, 2012
You have to admit that the recycling rate for such devices is going higher and higher as outlets such as BestBuy now accept your old devices. Frankly, every single eReader that I have had went back and got recycled through either hand-me-downs or back to BestBuy/Amazon.
BestBuy even accepts all types of batteries. Got a bag full of old AA and AAA batteries due to go back there now. Especially as I switched over to Eneloops for almost everything. Specially as my Turtle Beaches/360 controllers love to eat through batteries.
crackedcactus - January 20, 2012
And you forget the bajillion kWH that are burned up each year running the server farms supplying the ebooks to all those people, the plastic in those computers, and the massive amounts of rare-earth minerals that are in every blade of every server.
That said, I still would rather carry a tablet than a backpack of flat dried wood pulp.
Chikn - January 21, 2012
Once I chased away a pair of attackers on a subway by clocking them with a briefcase full of paper books.
fluffydyke - January 21, 2012
Paper books can not be stolen from the comfort of your couch as ebooks can :)
markiz von schnitzel - January 20, 2012
Great piece. As a literature student I go through roughly 100+ books a year, and to be honest I couldn’t replace paper with an e-reader simply because there simply isn’t enough books (for my subjects) changed into the ‘e’ format yet. Another problem with e-books is the pricing, since there’s no ‘second hand market’ prices are all mostly set as though the works are brand new, which of course they aren’t. Amazon’s doing a great job with their Kindle idea, but it just doesn’t hold a candle to a well stocked (and beautiful) bookshelf.
ElliotJGuest - January 20, 2012
The lack of a second hand market for ebooks is a huge issue, IMO.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
Why? Most used book sellers have gone by the wayside. The only chain left is Half-Price Books, and they mostly have publishers remainders. Unless you’re looking for antique books, the only really good trade program is book mooch.
crackedcactus - January 20, 2012
Many bookstores such as Hastings buy back and resell used books. Plus, chains are not the only book stores, you know. There are many thousands of independent bookstores strewn across the world. Not to mention private sales like yard sales, ebay, craigslist, et al. Most of the books I accrued as a kid came used, and if my parents had had to pay full price I wouldn’t have had nearly as many books growing up.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
As far as college textbooks go there is still a huge market. That’s where local (and school affiliated) booksellers make their real dough.
dcsfoyle - January 20, 2012
Powells does a lot of business in used books as well as half.com. If a book is more than six months old I always go used. I think you are a bit off the mark.
Terb83 - January 20, 2012
http://amazon.com
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
Not really an issue, music went digital and people continue to buy it. Because it’s cheaper because it did.
jaggedspike - January 21, 2012
Think of it this way, if we move into a world where ebooks where dominant, and second hand sales were not available, the authors might be able to rely on an income stream that had a much longer tail, which might lower the costs of books altogether. Obviously that hasn’t proved true yet, but this seems like the type of idea that could only go into affect with near universal adoption, and enough time for authors/publishers to trust that it is true… Or it could just be complete bs.
Battlesnake - January 20, 2012
One could only hope that the price would go down, but I have big doubts that would happen. Ebooks are insanely cheaper to produce as they don’t have to be printed, binded, and physically shipped out, but has that lowered their prices much? No, they still cost nearly as much as their paper counterparts.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
Lower prices or more profit? Which would you choose? Take greed and shareholder pressure into account.
I think it would be a small drop in price and a most of the saving going towards profit. Always more profit. ;-)
Tams - January 22, 2012
You can also burn paper books when the impending zombie apocalypse occurs. Try that with your iPad.
tranceformer978 - January 20, 2012
Didn’t iPad’s catch fire in Japan or something?
kris.prince - January 20, 2012
I thought that was the 1st gen iPod nano.
tranceformer978 - January 20, 2012
Yeah, I think you’re right.
kris.prince - January 20, 2012
Actually you can pit them AGAINST themselves with Zombies vs Plants.
laserfloyd - January 20, 2012
Your piece was well written and like you there is something of having a paper book in my hands and as a new owner of a tablet I am curious to start reading on that to truly compare the two.
eTextbooks have a lot of potential but when you lock it down to one platform, you take away a lot of the advantages it did have. I am just nervous about this direction, it will be interesting to see how all parties involved react to Apple’s announcements.
sknuts - January 20, 2012
Fantastic read. I wish I could replace my physics textbooks with an e-book but there simply is no replacement that matches the convenience, other than bulk or weight, of a real paper book.
2003aaa - January 20, 2012
That right there ^
I know ebooks are awesome and interactive learning is amazing but it’s not THE entire solution. Learning is multifaceted and having a hard copy print is invaluable. You don’t have to charge it or power it up. Page 371 you say? Done.
eBooks will have a role but I don’t think it’ll dominate.
laserfloyd - January 20, 2012
The Verge should write a book on editorials. These editorials are incredible, thought out and are one of the many things that continue to put your site in a league of its own.
westonp - January 20, 2012
Excellent points about the value of print books. One point that I feel that was missed in this article is that once something is printed on a page, it can’t be easily edited. Whatever was printed on that day, warts and all, is what the reader will receive. For those of you who fear Orwellian futures, replacing all printed books with digital equivalents is the first step.
christophermx4 - January 20, 2012
This slate has excellent battery life but the limited storage kept it from transforming education.
chesterharry - January 20, 2012
Actually I’m quite sure that that slate did indeed transform education at one point in time.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
It most likely did, I should have gone with my first instinct and commented about poor color representation and marginal resolution.
chesterharry - January 20, 2012
Not to mention the poor multitasking.
Battlesnake - January 20, 2012
What are you talking about??! It has TWO sides!
dcsfoyle - January 20, 2012
As this has limited storage, we remembered the stuff in our brains. Now-a-days I am not memorizing anything, searching for it when I need it. Somewhere down the time line, we become dumb without the gadgets.!!
Lalith - January 20, 2012
Hey Socrates, I have to ask if not in your brain where did you remember “stuff”? /DP (Douchey Pedant)
chesterharry - January 20, 2012
We’d probably be dumb without paper too.
Steev182 - January 20, 2012
Level up! Ironically, none of these options really improved much on the original despite significantly higher price tags. . .
Boogie Board $40-130
http://www.improvelectronics.com/us/en/
iLiad (went bankrupt in 2010; ~$345 on eBay)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILiad
NoteSlate (not yet released (and doubtful if it ever will be; supposedly $99)
http://noteslate.com/
and a tiny chalkboard is . . . $5.99. Technology FAIL
http://www.amazon.com/Slate-Chalk-Board-Double-Natural/dp/B00456GFW2/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1327187625&sr=8-10
Chikn - January 21, 2012
I believe that Apple’s main focus is pushing towards K-12 now, where students can’t write in books and have to take notes on separate piece’s of paper. My brother works at a high school in Texas and they currently lease iPads for all High School students and the interaction between students and teachers is amazing.
kris.prince - January 20, 2012
Its texas one of the worst education states there is but yea ipads are doing wonders
binglut9 - January 20, 2012 via mobile
Since Texas is nowhere near the bottom, I don’t see how you can say it is the worst
kris.prince - January 20, 2012
I think there still needs to be a mix of formats. Some of my co-workers and I prefer e-Ink book over traditional paper books but e-Ink still has a ways to go to catch up to what the iPad offers in terms of interact-ability. Having lugged my share of books around (I had one year in Junior High where I never used my locker) I’d be willing to go the route of the iPad as long as it offered an option for desktop reading like the Kindle has rather than being an iDevice option only. I’m very surprised that Apple still hasn’t gotten around to making a desktop book reader. With that said I’d favor a Kindle option based on that alone.
crichton007 - January 20, 2012
Most of the disadvantages you associate with eBooks are pretty negligible. For example, people harp on the sunlight issue so much but the reality is that most of the time we read or try to read under lighting that is also suitable for LCD screens. Sure, I can read in the sun, but who honestly does this? Most people I know who end up reading on the beach or at the pool go out of their way to sit in the shade. No one wants the sun beaming onto their page whether it’s paper or not.
While it’s true that paper books still carry a number of advantages I don’t think this is a good way to think about the medium. The writing is on the wall, paper books are going to continue to be less important to our lifestyles and digital books more so. That is the future.
I will say that I think it’d be cool if paper books offered a digital version when you bought them, especially if I’m buying an expensive hard cover. That’s one way to keep that spectrum alive, and it would give customers more choice.
Luph - January 20, 2012
What about the lack of a secondary market and the thousand year viewpoints mentioned at the end of the article? Those are the biggies.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
Which one would you prefer?
1) Knowing that your children will learn well and will actually enjoy learning with interactive content that encourages exploration.
2) Knowing that your children’s textbook could be found intact and readable thousands years from now?
Would you honestly choose 2) over 1)?
Preserving physical, not technology dependant copies of human knowledge is certainly admirable goal and we should definitely do it. But we really don’t have to save milions of copies of each textbook available today for future generations. Couple of copies in every major library or in some sort of “future proof knowledge vault” would do nicely I think.
Elrol - January 20, 2012
I think it’s important retain knowledge- I’d be ok with your future proof knowledge vault.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
I’ve gone through my grandfathers textbooks a few times and still keep a few next to my desk for handy reference when doing my coursework.
Yeah, I like that books last.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
If textbooks are pegged at $15 each, a secondary market shouldn’t really be too much of a concern.
Steev182 - January 20, 2012
Interesting you should use the phrase"the writing is on the wall"—a reference to an ancient story that is available to us today precisely because it was written down on paper or the equivalent thereof. That, for me, is the major failing of ebooks and of all digital media: they are extremely fragile.. Look at what happened just yesterday. Megaupload, in addition to allegedly aiding and abetting media piracy, had paying customers you used the service for legitimate, legal purposes, and those customer suddenly have lost access to the files they had stored on Megaupload’s servers. Odds are most of them had copies stored locally, but I’ll bet there are more than a few people panicking today because they don’t. Until the digital media industry can come of with a format as stable as ink on paper, it’s always going to come up short on that one metric.
jheaton416 - January 20, 2012
Paper can burn. It can get wet. Ink can run.
We have managed to get over those technical issues with paper when posterity is an issue.
How do you think publishers keep master files of books now? I won’t bother to give you a hint…
Why anyone would pay for megaupload’s services for legitimate means when they could see perfectly what their bread and butter service was escapes me. Using them as an example isn’t great. I’d have gone with the old 5 1/4 or 3 1/2 floppy disk argument myself…
Steev182 - January 20, 2012
Your purported inability to understand why people would do it is irrelevant; the point is that people did do it and and they no longer have access to the files they stored there, which is a risk of any customer of any cloud storage provider.
The problem with floppies is not really the same, though just as problematic when it comes to archiving. Quoting from a recent Variety article about the fragility of digital filmmaking: “‘The main difference between analog and digital is, analog was store-and-ignore,’ said [Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Science & Technology Council member Milt] Shefter. ‘Digital has to be actively managed.’ Such active management is expensive, however, vastly more expensive than putting film in a vault.” (source: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118048861?refcatid=1009) There is a very real risk that unless someone develops a reliable and stable method of storing digital media and does so soon, the late-20th/early-21st century will be a black hole to future generation—with the exception of the stuff that’s been committed to analog media.
jheaton416 - January 20, 2012
Gadgets can burn/melt, get wet, screens can crack, batteries can leak or catch fire or just lose all of their ability to hold charge.
I’ve dropped a lot of books, the worst thing that’s ever happened was that a book’s spine partially separated from the pages. I took it to a local library and they fixed it for me free of charge. I’ve also dropped some phones (similar to e-readers). The phones don’t hold up as well, and the repairs certainty aren’t as cheap.
Yes, publishers keep master copies of books (as you call them) in digital form, but we don’t directly read the data file, do we?
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
“Sure, I can read in the sun, but who honestly does this? "
You’re right. I never go outside, and I keep all my windows closed, all the time.
Dorek - January 20, 2012
Still, the percentage of my reading time spent outside in direct sunlight is very low. Maybe it’s higher in warmer climates, but still… I think most reading is still done indoors, or like the OP said, if outside and it’s sunny, in the shade.
darkcrayon - January 20, 2012
One of my favorite places to read is on the beach… in the sun. At campsite… in the sun. On a hike… in the sun. On a boat… in the sun.
Okay the way I wrote that was annoying. But, you are discounting being able to do one of my favorite activities in my favorite places. It may not be as often as at work or at home but, I think it is a valid mention.
Terb83 - January 20, 2012
I’d say that the percentage of most peoples reading time spent outside in direct sunlight, or at least sufficiently bright to wash out an LCD or similar display is significantly higher than the time spent reading in situations without sufficient lighting to see a printed page. Of course if you use an e-ink based device this point is entirely irrelevant.
Vinnie555 - January 26, 2012
so what your saying isn’t we need to keep print books… but that apples initiatives to make there products recyclable is bad and we should start making iPads out of pvc so they last forever… right? right?
djdont - January 20, 2012
Paper definitely has its advantages but I don’t think it’s ideal for textbooks.
Readable with any form of light
Sure, but it also requires light.
Immersive and non-distracting user interface
Unless you’re a visual learner. Interaction, real-time responses, video, in addition to text and images can be helpful to learning.
Offers a spatial layout for immediate access to random information
No search in a textbook can be brutal.
Conforms to the standardized “page number” spec for easy reference
Uh, ebooks can also page numbers.
Supports direct interaction via pen or highlighter
You highlight ebooks too, also you can remove highlights. Apple let’s you create automatically.
DRM-free for easy lending and resale
True for reseal, but initial sale is disgustingly expensive. Its DRM is built in, in that once you lend it you have to access to it.
Crash-proof and immune to viruses (though vulnerable to some worms)
Not really a problems for ebooks either.
Easy to learn user-interface consistent across most manufacturers
It’s definitely simple but, perhaps, limiting.
Supports very large number of colors and also black and white images
ebooks can support and many more diverse options.
Russell Bell - January 20, 2012
Right. Although well thought out, many of the points make it look like the author is comparing paper books to PDFs. The whole point of iBooks is the interactivity and tools that the authors can place in the product. I agree with many of his points in comparison to aregular ebook, but not against the potential of an iBook2 type of book.
deepcover - January 20, 2012
Right, most people don’t think of PDFs as being ‘upgradeable’… but iBooks ARE upgradeable. Overtime, the iTextbook can be updated, and the 5 year old damaged/dogeared Textbook goes in the landfill.
21tiger - January 20, 2012
Let me know when ebooks become noticeably cheaper than their hard-copy counterparts. Keep in mind there’s no materials/transportation cost involved with ebooks, either, yet still they’re rarely more than 10% cheaper.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
I remember Editorials outlining the advantages of a real letter compared to eMails.
This reads like one of those editorials.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oysFmSVzCnM
Sebastian.de - January 20, 2012
Because of all things to be bragging about compared to an Apple product, it’s specs? You act like you’re new here. (and yeah, I’m willing to bet the iBooks textbooks win on experience, which is Apple’s forte.)
thenewperson - January 20, 2012
Time will show how wrong this article is.
jaggedspike - January 21, 2012
This isn’t quite accurate. An eBook specifically made using iBooks Author can only be sold via iBooks. If you write your novel using Microsoft Word or Apple’s Pages, you can sell it wherever you want, including iBooks. The stipulation is specifically about how one turns a profit using the free tools in iBooks Author.
MayorBloomberg - January 20, 2012
Excellent piece Dieter, really got me to think about ebook v. treebook.
This reminded me of a feature I’ve been wishing would come to notifications of my iPhone/iPad for quite some time. I want to shut off all distractions on an app by app basis. If I’m watching a movie, reading a book and now also when working in a textbook I’d like to be able to switch off all forms of distractions for the duration of using that app. So far this kind of granularity isn’t available for notifications but perhaps now that the iPad is supposed to work replace textbooks there will be a need for “Distraction-Free Mode”.
albooher - January 20, 2012
Seconded. If Apple is so willing to remove distractions on desktop computing (via full-screen apps), I don’t see a reason not to implement such a feature across iOS.
simon.ly - January 20, 2012
Ones who read can and will read in any medium!
PS: Burning sensation using LCD screens is something which limits its usability, specially for someone who has sensitive eyes like me.
vikas.programmer - January 20, 2012
Related: Introducing the book [2:39]
DrTechno - January 20, 2012
In the section on passive reading, you left out a major advantage of e-books, especially for older readers: the ability to increase the font size. My father is ridiculously happy with his new Kindle Keyboard because he can set the font size to something comfortable to him, rather than whatever tiny mass market paperback type the publishers chose for the latest Clive Cussler novel.
In fact, you gloss over accessibility in general. eBooks are capable of adapting to the capabilities of the reader, through font size, color choice, text-to-speech, even compatibility with braille-based screen readers. Paper books are pretty useless for blind people, and hard to use if your eyesight is failing.
Also, books can have color illustrations too, not just black-and-white.
WilliamF - January 20, 2012
Quite wrong, he talked in-depth about accessibility with ereaders.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
Would you point out where, exactly? I did read the whole article, and upon seeing your comment, went back and scanned it. Can’t find anything about accessibility for disabled users.
WilliamF - January 20, 2012
My mistake- you’re talking specifically about accessibility for disabled readers. He didn’t mention that. You do know that braille exists on paper though, right?
lundsh - January 20, 2012
Yes, but how many printed books actually get published in braille? I’d imagine only a small proportion of the whole total due to the labor involved. Whereas ebooks allow automatic conversion and compatibility with braille screen readers.
You could also get someone to read a paper book to you, like a TTS, but again, labor intensive.
You can also use a magnifying glass or more powerful reading glasses to attempt to make small type more readable, but nowhere near as convenient as the font size toggle in an ereader.
So sure, paper books do offer some accessibility features, but they’re either labor intensive or inconvenient compared to the ebook methods.
WilliamF - January 20, 2012
I agree wholeheartedly. However, I still think ensuring the longevity and accessibility (in the general sense of the word) of books is more important than handicap accessibility.
As long as a book isn’t lost to history, it can be adapted to blind or visually-impaired readers. If a book gets lost to history, or even just locked down with DRM with no availability in a library or secondary market, it becomes either nonexistent or prohibitively expensive for most people, visually-impaired and sighted alike.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
I did my best studying by writing and summarizing everything in the margins. It’s basically a book referential method of loci, because every page is it’s own physical place. Every idea has a place, whereas with digital texts every idea is in the same place; every idea is a percentage with no permanent reference markers.
Kilgore Trout - January 20, 2012
Amen, brother. I’m especially pleased you looked at the long view. I always remember the line from Max Headroom – “Books! Non-volatile storage media!”
I think most folks look at information as transitory these days (news, tweets, blog posts, etc.), but really, what will happen to that ebook you published in even 100 years?
FredPatton - January 20, 2012
The article is the exact reason why despite my deep affinity for technology, I have yet to buy an eBook. The biggest concern on my list is the format/DRM issue which is a complete deal-breaker for me.
r3loaded - January 20, 2012
I have a kindle and use it for lots of public domain stuff, but same thing. I refuse to actually purchase DRM’d books, cause I don’t trust that I’ll be able to read them 20 years from now. If they were a third or even half price, I might risk it, but as it is, it’s a non-starter.
RagingTyrant - January 20, 2012
I have a collection of scripts for stripping DRM from ebooks that I purchase, so I can archive them at home without fear that the company hosting the DRM servers will suddenly disappear.
WilliamF - January 20, 2012
Sure, that’s always an option for us geeks. But it’s the principle of the matter that’s at stake – we shouldn’t even need to hack the DRM in the first place.
r3loaded - January 21, 2012
I’m tempted to print this editorial and read it by candle light.
Funderful - January 20, 2012
Tech site shooting for the title of the best around the web advocating paper books…makes you wander…
Aesar Leao - January 20, 2012
Stop wandering, get back here and share your thoughts with us.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
“This isn’t a Luddite rant about how gadgets are destroying our inherent humanity and it’s not an ode to the wonderful smell and feel of an old book:”
and later
“There are many who cling to the idea of a nice, good, heavy book and the feel of turning a paper page instead of swiping a screen or pressing a button. For anybody my age or older, there’s a romantic (and increasingly nostalgic) attachment to the smell of a book and the look of its tattered pages "
keverson42 - January 20, 2012
Dude. You ignored his point in the last sentence: " but when I’m truthful with myself I have to admit those impressions are more cultural and generational than essential to the act of reading."
Here clearly acknowledges that tradition makes us emotionally attached to physical books, but that we don’t have any inherent need for them. He NAILED it in that passage, as he did with the rest of the article. Some minor points differ on opinion, but he makes an incredibly important argument here.
RagingTyrant - January 20, 2012
No, I wasn’t ignoring it. I was just pointing out that he violated part of the thesis of the work in the body almost verbatim. I don’t disagree that the article was thought provoking and worth talking about. I made a separate post where I talked on a more philosophical keel about my thoughts on the subject. This post was just my gut reaction, which I won’t deny, is occasionally to “rules lawyer” as gamers say.
keverson42 - January 23, 2012
Sweet child of baby Moses and Abraham. This article is so fantastic, I just pooped lemon drops.
adcustom - January 20, 2012
I agree with almost all the points you make, plus in developing countries like India you can buy a novel like
Snow Crash for about $5(paperback) whereas the kindle edition costs $9. So it doesn’t make much sense.
erosenin - January 20, 2012
That’s not just in developing countries. There are used book stores here in the US with thousands of books available for pennies. I can get a used copy of a paperback on Amazon extremely cheap compared to the Kindle edition for lots of mass market books.
There’s no way I’m paying the full Kindle price for a used book that’s available right on Amazon for a penny.
WilliamF - January 20, 2012
It’s all about usage and convenience, though. I don’t enjoy the act of reading from a paper copy of a boo, especially a paperback. My choices are to either break the binding or struggle through the book with a hand cramp. I can’t find an ideal position with perfect lighting to ignore the medium, and loose myself in the content. If I’m away from home, and I didn’t specifically know I would have a delay, I wouldn’t have a book on me. I always have my phone and the Kindle app. I can carry and read several books at a time, with no increase in storage space or weight, allowing me to attune my reading to my mood.
I wasn’t reading much for the past decade or so. I’ve read more in the year since acquiring a smart phone, and subsequently a Kindle Fire, than in the 10 years prior. I can’t imagine going a day without reading anymore, and it’s thanks to the “don’t have to think about it” convenience of owning the digital formats of the books. If this costs me a few more dollars, I can afford it.
The other thing to realize is that digital prices will only become cheaper as we move away from the old model of publishing that involves more middlemen that need to be paid. I can already see authors being able to send their work directly to a self-publisher for ebooks and having their stuff out there for much cheaper than before while retaining a larger cut for themselves. This trickles down to the price of the book, making traditional publishing the added cost, not the other way around. Not to mention, that eventually books become free when they enter the public domain. In that case, a paper copy still has a value that people will impose on you to own it, whereas digital copies, being just bits on a server, can be truly free. Between Amazon and Google books, I’ve been taking advantage of this pretty heavily. About one third of the books I read cost me nothing.
keverson42 - January 23, 2012
I don’t miss any part of physical books, and though I’m not in school anymore that goes double for textbooks. $200 for a book that will be “revised” (woo! new cover art!) a year later making resale impossible as it’s now out of date, is ridiculous. If you can, by some miracle, buy it used, you are buying a germ farm (that “great” musty smell everyone’s after), that probably already has someone else’s notes scribbled in it, making it harder for you to organize your own. Also, while we’re on the subject of revision, how accurate do you think the geography book you had in middle school is now? E-books can have updates made to them, no replacement necessary. It’s the future, and I’m enjoying it. I don’t need paper books anymore.
keverson42 - January 20, 2012
Revision only really applies to text books. Other books, all fiction for instance, don’t need updating. Most people don’t want fiction changed. And as for historical documents, I wouldn’ t want them changed either.
Tams - January 22, 2012
Sometimes, despite a full review by the editor and several rewrites, mistakes get into the final works. They weren’t necessarily even what the author meant to write, but when buried in the project, it’s a bit hard to see the forest for the trees. I can’t, for the life of me, remember which book it was, but it was a novel, and I recently received a notice from Amazon telling me that a newer version of the book was available for download. These errors can run the entire gamut from typos to giant plot holes that got missed. If they can fix those, and improve the immersion and enjoyment of the book, I think that’s a worthwhile thing. Lord of the Rings has been significantly changed several times in it’s storied (pun!) history after its initial publication. Purists who say that, once written, it can’t be unwritten, should really relax a bit.
History, as written, quite often needs revising, and it’s not always in the wrong direction. The people writing it at the time didn’t necessarily lack a bias that allowed them to tell the truth as it actually happened. Later, we discover that, beyond any doubt, that couldn’t have happened how they said it did. I think the varied truth is more valuable than a consistent lie.
keverson42 - January 23, 2012
The author forgot to add you can burn a book for warmth, and you can use it to prop up a chair, raise a monitor, and also use it to give your enemies the death-by-a-thousand-cuts. Obviously, the advantages over ebooks keep piling up.
Damn, but the Luddism is running thick through the Verge today. Next, perhaps an article on the superiority of oil paintings over digital images?
OgilvyTheAstronomer - January 20, 2012 via mobile
Wait, you wouldn’t agree that an actual oil painting is indeed superior to a digital image?
lundsh - January 20, 2012
If so, it’d be spoken like someone who’s never been to a museum. How sad it would be if he actually believed that!
Dorek - January 20, 2012
Dude. He is clearly rooting for ebooks. We all want them to win, but the current model still doesn’t work. Until I can buy an ebook from any source and use whatever reading/note taking software I want, with now fear that I may someday lose my book because of a failed platform, paper books will have advantages. In the end, ebooks should/will be hands down better, but there are still some really big, long run trade offs.
RagingTyrant - January 20, 2012
Articles like these are the reason i love The Verge.
Thank you, Dieter!
sluggy - January 20, 2012
Am I seeing things or does the photo with the pink highlighter say “Lg cock” in the margin?
Blue Celery - January 20, 2012
That’s an arrow pointing to the word “code.” ebooks win on notes legibility, at least when I’m taking them ;)
Dieter Bohn - January 20, 2012
You forgot the two best features:
- Perfect tactile feedback.
- The scent of a fresh print.
obelisque - January 20, 2012
That’s pretty awesome considering the two least important things you can do with a book are:
-touching/feeling the pages
-smelling the pages
The least important would have to be ‘taste’.
21tiger - January 20, 2012
Absolutely agree.
Diveafall - January 21, 2012
Bravo! Excellent article and I agree on all points. The “long view” represented here is one of the big reservations I have been carrying about ebooks. I hope archivists can find a way to reliably preserve ebooks and make them easily and freely accessible for thousands of years.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
I’m not in university any more but when I was I’d have to have a load of books for each essay, and a mountain of them for my dissertation, constantly switching between them etc. I just can’t imagine doing that on one device.
I really don’t see the big attraction to iBooks. Apart from for children, in which case it just seems like a reason to get parents to buy their kids iPads which they don’t need.
thisismynextname - January 20, 2012
This new (prototype) book interface looks promising: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVyBwz1-AiE
vision60y - January 20, 2012
Brilliant article. Really frustrating that technology has enabled the almost free transfer of ideas but that that freedom has been restricted. There must be an answer somewhere between piratebay on one hand and apple’s restrictions on the other
kennyjbaird - January 20, 2012
This article and Chris’ article released earlier today about Unlimited Data. Are the reasons why I love the Verge and everybody involved. You guys are awesome keep up the great writing and I will keep reading.
TFausett - January 20, 2012
I prefer paper books over ebooks but not for any of the reasons Deiter states. I simply hate trees, and so should you. Trees watch us all the time and plot in evil silence for the day that they will rise up and crush humanity. As a result anything we can do to chop down more trees is good. Lots of paper, never recycle, make sure you use wood furniture. Oh and wood stove as well. DOWN WITH OUR FUTURE PITHY OVERLORDS.
Lomifeh - January 20, 2012
Regarding formats and the thousand year view. ASCII is forever. Those eBooks on the 5.25" disk may not be physically accessible, but they were almost certainly copied at some point and the format they were likely in was ASCII.
Plain ASCII text files don’t allow for much in the way of illustration (ASCII art!) but have no DRM, are universally compatible, and easy to derive the principles of encoding just from the stream of bytes with basic cryptanalysis. They’re also compact, easy to compress, and very easy to widely disseminate.
Here’s a short list of organizations, many of which you mentioned as those which are trying to preserve physical books, who are doing their best to preserve some very, very old works as ASCII text stored on their servers: http://www.gutenberg.org/MIRRORS.ALL
So yeah, DRMed ebooks are bad, but without DRM, ebooks become easier to preserve than physical ones. They can be copied very rapidly for an extremely miniscule cost. Not so, for paper books. Scanning and reproducing them is time consuming. And all current DRM formats are easily stripped after a short trip into the dark corners of the web. That code has been reproduced, distributed, and kept around by the same mechanisms that make ASCII ebooks practically impossible to eliminate.
WilliamF - January 20, 2012
ASCII has been superseded by UTF.
Paper books can be archived without having to re-copy them every few years as magnetic/flash media demands.
Dave Ray - January 21, 2012
All UTF-8 bits below 127 are equivalent to the original ASCII table. So ASCII hasn’t been superseded so much as subsumed in a larger standard. For English language text for maximum archival compatibility, the ASCII character set (and by extension the reduced set of UTF-8) is the way to go.
Also, bits can be encoded in stone, too. http://millenniata.com/m-disc/
Widely distributed and replicated digital copies are safer than a few, carefully preserved or hidden paper copies, IMO. At least until industrial civilization collapses. And even then, it doesn’t take much infrastructure to support some computing and data storage.
WilliamF - January 24, 2012
Irony: an article on website making the case that reading is better on paper than a electronic display.
digitalbobby - January 20, 2012
ZING!! Good one.
JRX16 - January 20, 2012
I find the points in this article about paper being better than an eReader to be very specific and strained. What I mean is that it seems the author tried extremely hard to find some way to defend his ancient and obsolete technology, by pointing out many things that either few care about, or are far more insignificant than the benefits of the newer technology.
JRX16 - January 20, 2012
I hope that you really do not think that the archival preservation of our cultural history as “insignificant” or unimportant.
mxwp - January 24, 2012
In my mind there is a clear difference betweek book and textbook. To me article seems to be written from the book perspective.
If I could choose between reading a novel in it’s paper form or on any kind of e-reader, paper wins every time. If I could choose between textbook on paper or textbook with interactive diagrams, videos, 3d models, etc. I would most certainly choose the later one.
Important aspect of these ebooks is that they encourage learning and exploration. With kids all over the world loosing interest in learning this is becoming more and more important.
There are valid concerns about DRM and long term preservation, etc. but these concerns can be addressed. You can always print a dozen and send then to national library. We’ll eventually get ebooks without DRM. We’ll eventually get to the point of standardized and open format readable by everyone.
These concerns should be taken as a challenge for Apple’s competitors, NOT as a argument against e-textbooks. And even though Apple is doing this for vendor lock reasons and for money from iPad (and maybe textbooks) sales I still applaud them for pushing education into this direction.
Elrol - January 20, 2012
Not kids “all over the world” lose interest but mostly kids in a few first world countries. And iPads are not affordable for 90% of mankind. So textbooks which can only be used on iPad or other Apple hardware and are not even allowed to be printed will just widen this gap more.
tw_ - January 20, 2012
Depends on the costs of the eTextbooks. A few college textbooks adds up to the cost of an iPad which offers a lot more for the long term for people such as access to the Internet. And different markets will have different solutions, obviously folks in Africa will still get printed textbooks.
JRX16 - January 21, 2012
Absolutely correct. I use as many digital books as possible simply because it’s far cheaper to get .pdf versions online (always legal ones, of course!) than it is to buy them as ebooks- and I can easily write on a .pdf in Bluebeam on my tablet PC.
Chikn - January 21, 2012
I completely disagree. I am the exact opposite. I think for novels and passive reading that is mostly text, e-reader (with e-ink) is already the clear winner. In my mind, there is almost no advantage to a paperback book anymore. I’ve read perhaps a thousand paperbacks but after a few e-books, I’m completely converted. I think the nostalgia stuff is BS.
Textbooks will be digital eventually as well. But I just don’t think the devices are ready yet. I also don’t like proprietary standards. I can’t wait for the day we have fully interactive textbooks. However, I think we need something a little closer to Courier than an iPad.
Minjin - January 20, 2012
The biggest thing needed to make ebooks better than paper, IMHO:
no DRM
standard formats
reasonable prices
styli for annotations
With those four things, I’d imagine that students at all levels would be willing to shell out $650 for an iPad, then $15-30/book than the current model of $300+ each semester. Until the stylus becomes the norm, not the exception, for ebook devices, I can’t see this happening anytime soon.
Chikn - January 21, 2012
Instead of helping out mankind apple closed the gates of its walled garden forever banning those outside acess to its ebooks. Apple only wanted money and power and did not care that this could benefit the many not just the few.
cris178 - January 20, 2012
eventually, anything analog will become digital. Why? to have more control over it.
bsfatboy - January 20, 2012
Exactly but by who?
J3R3MY_H - January 20, 2012
Dieter’s apartment smells of rich mahogany and leatherbound books. People know him. He’s kind of a big deal.
backporchprophet - January 20, 2012
My greatest fear involving books going digital is the idea that “content owners” can restrict access to books if they want, or even change passages to reflect their own agendas. I prefer books to stay on paper, because once it has been printed, it’s mine and it stays that way. As soon as ebooks start getting software updates, I’m writing them off completely (pun not intended).
backporchprophet - January 20, 2012
I wonder what the content master will do to the text of Animal Farm?
fluffydyke - January 21, 2012
Exactly! I know that’s a really paranoid point of me to make, but they already do that to the news and stuff. Why wouldn’t they do it to works of history, reference, and philosophy? I’m sure that a little of that is already done with printed works, with their many releases and and all, but it would be way worse with “eBooks”, I do fear, indeed.
backporchprophet - January 21, 2012
Very good article which raises many valid points. But I’m afraid all the gullible sheeple out there do not care.
tw_ - January 20, 2012
A rather one-sided view which doesn’t even bother to elaborate the advantages of digital while it takes for granted all the artificial limitations of digital (e.g., many e-books are available DRM-free).
I would love to see a study on reading patterns in the 21st century. How many hours a week does the average person spend reading dead trees versus digital screens? If paper were winning on specs, would the mail, newspaper, and magazine industries be in so much trouble right now? Is the book so sacred that it can weather the storm which is already sinking so many other applications of the printing press?
famousringo - January 20, 2012
You missed the point of the article.
tw_ - January 20, 2012
iBooks have DRM. The article is about iBooks versus paper books. Very few commerically-available ebooks are not DRM-encumbered.
Dave Ray - January 21, 2012
I think we need an out-of-10 score rating for the paper book…
Hammered Pizza - January 20, 2012
@backlon, I think I can make a case that an ebook is better than paper in the longevity game. For the most part, 2 thousand, 3 thousand, 5 thousand year old writings are in languages that have to be deciphered. I don’t know about you, but I’m illiterate in Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Cuneiform, and who knows what else. Without the Rosetta Stone, headway into understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics would have taken a bit longer. Points, experts are needed to decipher these long forgotten writings.
The savages of time eventually make the language forgotten and experts are need to translate. So, an iPad gets buried in concrete or whatever unfortunate set of events. 1 million years from know, I presume paper would have disintegrated, yet the flash in the iPad may well be intact, with the 1s and 0s all still there. A sufficiently advanced civilization will be able to recover the data and see what’s up. Experts will be needed to decipher the information. Same thing with a hard drive. In addition, there would be orders of magnitude more information than the combined set of information found on paper in human antiquity.
Aenean144 - January 20, 2012
Even if an iPad’s hard drive was capable of retaining data that long, deciphering 0s and 1s is a far more hopeless task than deciphering the most difficult of ancient languages.
prometheusluomenos - January 20, 2012
Why would it be more difficult?
Aenean144 - January 21, 2012
Because you have more than one encoding layer to decode. Languages use symbols to encode sounds or words. With symbols written on paper or stone you have to find out their meaning. Which is difficult enough. With a storage media using a binary encoding you have to first find out what symbols were encoding by the bits you find before you can start to decode the actual language symbols.
tw_ - January 21, 2012
I’m sorry to inform you that the flash memory in an iPad would not be readable in a million years from now. You have to educate yourself about how flash memory works. Flash cells store analog values in the form of a charge on the floating gate of a MOS transistor. Because of charge leaking from the floating gates which is accelerated by high temperatures or radiation flash memory loses all information over time if not used. Typical guaranteed data retention time for Flash memories are 10 … 100 years only. If used (by writing often to it) the life span is reduced further.
As for old languages I have no idea what your point is since when a language gets forgotten it doesn’t matter whether the text is printed on paper or stored in flash memory.
tw_ - January 20, 2012
Ok, but what are the olds that paper will last 1 million years?
The question is, which medium will have last longer? Shorten the time frame, 10,000 years. Paper or Flash or Hard Drive or optical? Which medium will be capable of surviving the longest?
The language talk is about how people in the far future will likely have to decipher both, whatever is on the paper or the digital storage medium, people will still have to work to figure out what it means.
Aenean144 - January 21, 2012
If we talk about 10,000 years I still would bet on paper when compared with standard flash, standard hard disks or standard optical media (CD, DVD). That acid- free paper can last at least several hundreds of years is proven. Probably it will last much longer. The earliest archaeological fragments of paper date to the 2nd century BC in China.
While data on standard hard disks will last only up to 30 years, data on CD or DVD up to 80 years and data on flash only up to 100 years for the better variants of flash technology. Normal flash memory will keep the data only for about 15 years.
What we talk about here is called long-term archiving or digital preservation. This has become a science since there are many issues with current main stream storage technologies which make them unsuitable for sealed off long-term archiving. The data has to be copied every few years in such archives.
A solution for this problem could be new technologies. On of them could be the Millenniata M-DISC mentioned above in the article by Dieter Bohn. Ironically this is a kind of stone carved by a laser. Check out http://millenniata.com/.
I agree with the sentiment of the article that these problems have to be resolved first.
tw_ - January 21, 2012
In the future there will be no need to read, no need to learn, and no need to think because the masses keep trading our future for something fast, easy & shiny! You will all be enslaved unless you wake up…..there will be no dechiphering experts because everyone will be too busy commenting on meaningless internet bs and apple will not offer an accurate text book on dechipering anything they dont want you too know. In won’t matter anyway..the way some of you think makes it hard for me to believe that we will would even still be here in a million years anyway!
theMediator - January 21, 2012
Pity the poor archaeologists who dig through internet archives 1000 years from now and label YouTube comments as examples of our culture. . .
Chikn - January 21, 2012
I think ebooks should get some extra credit for the ease of copying (assuming no drm). If I have a pdf or txt file of an ebook I’m not limited by the lifespan of my computer harddrive or my kindle’s flash memory, I just copy my ebooks folder to my new device or if the old device was lost from my backup drive/ cloud server. I can have redundant copies of the information whereas with a book if one portion is damaged it is lost forever. As for the 1000 year argument it depends on if you’re considering evolution or revolution. History is a chain that can be kept unbroken if people work at it. If as humans we decided the preservation of knowledge was a worthwhile endeavor we could keep knowledge converted to the newest formats one degree of separation at a time. (ie if someone had taken that 5.25 floppy and moved it to 3.25 then to CD then DVD then to the cloud it is a lot easier than trying to go from 5.25 to a modern computer)
Sapereaude - January 20, 2012
aha finally someone that uses their brain….good job!
theMediator - January 21, 2012
“Assuming no DRM” that’s really the issue. The only reason we have the bible or the Illiad or any ancient document exists now is because thousands of people made copies of the work… and without the author’s permission. It’s the LOCKSS effect.
mxwp - January 24, 2012
I love this. Books are wonderful.
And I’m saying that as someone who thinks that magazines, newspapers, tabloids, note taking, calendars and address books, music collections, movie collections, and TV subscriptions should be replaced with the digital equivalents.
iCello - January 20, 2012
Fantastic article. I feel like The Verge’s opinion articles are superior to Engadget’s.
VergeOC - January 20, 2012
Apple’s mind-bogglingly greedy and evil license agreement
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/apples-mind-bogglingly-greedy-and-evil-license-agreement/4360?
Hugo Pinto - January 20, 2012
That’s referring to the output of the iBook creator.
BenDTU - January 20, 2012
So that would mean that the content that the author provided isn’t what Apple restricts?
For example: If I write a Math textbook and sell it for a fee, It just means that the file format is what I can’t distribute port through other methods? However the content would still be my property?
If that’s the case, it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds.
MrSeanWashington - January 20, 2012
More or less, the content is completely yours, the only restriction is: if you made it on our app then you should only publish it on our channel (as long as it isn’t free), if you copy and paste the content to other app and make a digital book on it, that’s a non issue.
augustofretes - January 20, 2012 via mobile
Paper: cannot be upgraded, rips easily, kills trees, about 10,000 times heavier than bits.
Nice try, though.
21tiger - January 20, 2012
Why not address some of the author’s more substantial points? Besides, he’s not saying he doesn’t think we ought to use ebooks, he’s saying there are some problems that need to be addressed before the switch can be made completely.
lundsh - January 20, 2012
Kills trees? Yes that is bad…and btw exactly how do you think we power the generators that create the electricity to power all these great little gadgets we use ? Let me check the Bat computer, …oh darn it says we kill trees by coal and oil smoke, by burning them and by causing radioactive toxins in our nuclear power plants to make those bits
theMediator - January 21, 2012
You’ve tripped on one of your tricks this time, Joker! My electricity comes from hydroelectric power.
Sapereaude - January 21, 2012
Books are heavy. The iPad is not. iBooks win.
That being said, bring on the 7" / lighter iPads. I love the feel of the Samsung tab 7.7 but don’t want an Android tablet.
BenDTU - January 20, 2012
I don’t want an iPad so I guess iBooks loses.
That being said, bring on an open standard. I love the technology but it should work on something like this http://one.laptop.org/
J3R3MY_H - January 20, 2012
7" tablets are better for standard fiction and nonfiction, but the layout of textbooks needs more elbow room. That’s why I think Apple is soliciting textbook authors rather than writers in general (a la Amazon).
Gameboy70 - January 20, 2012
Very true. Bring on the lighter iPads in that case!
BenDTU - January 20, 2012
how about this?
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2010/12/21/knos-single-screen-and-dual-screen-e-reader-tablets-ship-today/
big enough displays for your liking?
. . . too bad they’re out of business now.
Chikn - January 21, 2012
Books don’t run out of batteries. Books win.
Dave Ray - January 21, 2012
This is what happens when you are named dieter. (Whi names their kid diet?)
CMG90 - January 20, 2012 via mobile
Germans. It’s short for Dietrich.
Gameboy70 - January 20, 2012
The first article on the verge that I completely disagree with? There are a mast amount of positives that paper completely fails to deliver. This is coming from a current student. You can always loose a book but if its in a digital format it has the potential if being acessed anywhere. In digital format it will last forever. In my opinion the digitalization of books and textbooks is moving to slow. Everday I am remeinded on how i would kill to have all my books on an ipad or computer. I really dislike this article because it shows a mentalitly that will slow down the conversion process. I can honestly go on for ages about this but im on my phone and my main point is that i strongly and completely disagree
coletrain - January 20, 2012 via mobile
I’d much sooner lose a $100 textbook than a $500 iPad, even if I could access the content "anywhere"–which, in this case, means “on any iPad”.
Sent from my iPad.
Gameboy70 - January 20, 2012
That’s funny, because none of my paper textbooks ever had a “Find My Textbook” feature that I could use to locate them. I wish they did—then I wouldn’t have had to purchase that number theory textbook twice.
My iPad has something to that effect, however, and it’s definitely come through for me :-)
saifrc - January 21, 2012
Books vs Ipads in my opinion is tied to a generation thing. Try giving your grandma an ipad and tell her its the future. She will look at you funny and tell you her books “work for her”. When shes 6ft under the conversion will happen exponentially faster. When the non tech savvy generation dies off, this world will grow faster than any of us could have imagined.
NotSoSiniSta - January 21, 2012
Pretty sad you think that: the biggest violaters of tech savvy abuse seem to be the elderly, the lonely, and those under seventeen. The generation gap seems to apply only when some people do not study or bother to learn anything of real substance because they actually believe that it will all be provided to them free and truthfully on the internet! ha ha ha!
The people that are old now were born between the 1920’s and the 1950’s, they coined the phrase “einstein” after a real scientist that lived then—-and guess what einstein they were all about flying cars, robots, touch screens and rocket ships….most visions of the future (literal or sci- fi) always came from them and I cannot tell you how many times an elderly person has went out of their way to show me how great they can use whatever little tech gadget has just come out. Everyone is different though and your Granny may just be old fashioned…..thats okay too.
theMediator - January 21, 2012
Don’t disrespect your elders. They may not be on Facebook, but in all likelihood they know a hell of a lot more about adapting to change than you. They probably think your iPad is a toy, a fad or a hobbyist’s gizmo. Until it’s been proven to be otherwise, you should do them and yourself a favour and keep your braindead ageist comments to yourself.
Dave Ray - January 21, 2012
if you think that then what are you doing on a tech website?
coletrain - February 13, 2012
Just maybe this guy, like myself actually likes the concept of ebooks and just not all the baggage that comes with it? Ever study US Government? Do u know what a rider is? How many cell/smart phones have you (or your parents) owned? How long do they last? think about it? Why do some of you insist on having a “cloud” to know and watch your everymove———this is what happens when you are raised in the generation of facebook…..I mean I’m not even thirty yet….how do you kids not even know that you are supposed to have privacy! You guys keep sacrificing freedom for fame and you will not recognize your own world in ten years!
theMediator - January 21, 2012
mast = vast
loose = lose
acessed = accessed
to = too
slow = slowly
everday = everyday
remeinded = reminded
on = of
mentalitly = mentality
im = I’m
Your main point is invalid because:
a) You don’t present a cogent argument for the ebook versus regular paper books (seriously, the only thing you can think of is that if you lose your iPad, you can buy a new one and download the book again?!)
b) You’re probably incapable of spelling your own fucking name without looking it up
Dave Ray - January 21, 2012
My solution is to get PDFs of the textbooks then print the pages i need at a given time. I like using the paper itself but this way I don’t carry the whole book at once
CtrlAltDel121 - January 21, 2012
The books might be cheaper but the ipad isn’t.
Kaggy - January 20, 2012
The quality of this site has been going downhill
Allegrotechie - January 20, 2012
And articles
Allegrotechie - January 20, 2012
Kidding, right?
You can always go to another website where spouting non-sense about how ATT helps the phone industry by improving on designs is considered a good article.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
Do you realize the difference between “low quality article” and “article I disagree with”?
lundsh - January 21, 2012
Disappointed at this article.
jaggedspike - January 21, 2012
For longevity purposes, I say ebooks should be redundantly exported to all major open-spurce formats, such as ODT, Office XML, PDF, plain text, and an audio reading in FLAC. Open-source software can be retuned for future platform and hardware changes. As for storage media, the medium with the highest dollar-per-terabyte cost ratio should be used until a new medium leads that category (e.g., hard drives for now, and then SSDs in about ten years).
nonosh - January 20, 2012 via mobile
Open source formats FTW!
Dieter advocated this in the article by suggesting that DRM ebook files absolutely have to go in order for the conversion from paper to make any sense. Just like for games, music, movies, etc. DRM generally means more of a pain for the end user- and really doesn’t limit piracy anyway.
Why not make it a better experience for everyone? Just have a standard format (ePub or .pdf sound great to me. . .) and not DRM the hell out of it?
Chikn - January 21, 2012
Even if the book lasts a thousand years it’s basically outdated as soon as it’s been printed. There will always come an updated textbook later on.
iPad 1-0 paper book
thehatisonfire - January 20, 2012
Did anyone else laugh when during the presentation the iPad got the durability nod over a textbook. I mean seriously, throw your iPad to the ground as hard as you can. Now throw your book. Which one is still working?
Drop your iPad in a bathtub. Now drop your book. If you’re still alive because you weren’t dumb enough to be in the tub at the same time, tell me which one still works.
Books do have their place (as Deiter said, the longevity of them and ease of use and easy sharing are key) but the future are ebooks like this. We just need to progress a little more and settle on a standard.
InvaderDJ - January 20, 2012
I was with you on the first paragraph. When I got to the second paragraph, I looked like this:
Minjin - January 20, 2012
Ha ha that’s funny but we already know you are an antagonist Bot
theMediator - January 21, 2012
You’d have to try REALLY hard to die by means of dropping an iPad in a bathtub. Perhaps affixing knives to it.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
On a related note, Variety just published an article about a report by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on the fragility of digital film production. Quoting from the article: “A new report from the Acad warns that movies shot or finished digitally face a lifespan so short they can be lost even before they get distribution. Worse, indie and docu filmmakers, whose work is most vulnerable to this risk, seem oblivious to the danger. … In short, digital storage, be it on hard drives, DVDs or solid-state memory, simply isn’t on a par for anything close to the 100-plus-year lifespan of film. The life of digital media is measured in years, not decades, and file formats can go obsolete in months, not years.” The same is true of ebooks too, of course, and while ebooks have many, many advantages over traditional printed books, they still fall woefully short when it comes to longevity, which (unless you think the Mayans were right) is something we should all be concerned about.
jheaton416 - January 20, 2012
so we should record everything on stone tablets??
Chikn - January 21, 2012
If you want to store an important document past 100 years, the best thing to do is to print it out on acid free paper and store it someplace dark and cold. Digital media is TERRIBLE at preservation, which is the author’s point and something any archivist knows. Did you know warnings for nuclear waste materials are etched by lasers on titanium plates? Those warnings need to last for thousands of years. So, though you were joking you actually are better off storing info on stone tablets than on tablet devices.
mxwp - January 24, 2012
Whats happening is all of our knowledge is getting consolidated to a single medium. The internet. Books are kept in hundreds of thousands of buildings through out the world. If someone wanted to get rid of all the books in this world, they would have to burn every single house/building/library etc. in this world down. Which is impossible.. If all of the information in this world was accessible on the internet, it would at least be remotely possible to delete it all. Deconsolidation is key. Clouds should be made up of Raid 1s and that information should be in a lot of different places as well. As technology moves on, that information will continue to be brought up to the next storage medium, not a big deal.
NotSoSiniSta - January 21, 2012
There’s not a single good argument in this whole editorial, not a single one, not a single middling enlightining bit. I must say I don’t know what article is more dumb this one or Paul’s one about interfaces.
augustofretes - January 21, 2012
I hope you are joking, because preservation is a real issue and one that worries archivists and historians.
mxwp - January 24, 2012
Does anyone else absolutely loathe the idea of writing in a book? The image above nearly made me throw up a little. I can’t bring myself to write in a textbook, and I was always disappointed when I was issued a textbook with writing in it.
First of all, I like to keep things pristine. No personalization, no markings, nothing. That’s just my style, when it comes to my possessions.
Secondly, when buying a used book, or being issued a used textbook, don’t obstruct my own reading experience. I don’t need your dumbass interpretation of the key points—I know what I’m going to read/skim/note/skip for myself. If I take notes (which I didn’t do voluntarily until college), it’ll be in my own NOTEbook.
saifrc - January 21, 2012
Yay, between you and I, there are now two people commenting on this article familiar with the allusive notebook!
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
Specs died a long time ago. You should know that by now. Specs Don’t Matter.
Avjinder - January 21, 2012
An excellent article that I believe just cements the fact that (what do we start to call them now?) Traditional books are not going away any time soon. There are some types of books that I agree are not suited to the ebook format such as ‘create your own adventure’, and sometimes it’s nice to have the feel of paper in your hands. But the ability to make pictures in books bigger so you can see more detail I think is a huge benefit.
I’m 28 and have had the chance grow up through the transition into a digital medium and I embrace the advantages it brings but it’s getting to the point where my students were born into it. They will know know different. We have to adapt to this new way of reading and navigating a book as opposed to it being the norm. Take digital music as a parallel example. As a teacher of Music Technology I try to explain about the warmth and tone of a record that just can’t be recreated digitally and my students go on about FLAC and ALAC are “lossless” just like a record (despite my explanation to the contrary). I agree that I can’t carry my record collection around with and I have an iPhone full of songs. But I do still have the records to enjoy at home. Perhaps the paper book will still have a place on shelves to be enjoyed in the same way.
I frequently find myself on the fence of should I buy this digitally of as a physical copy? A dilemma I found myself in a few years back with my music. I do still buy the odd physical copy of an album. Pricing also seems to be a factor.
Sure there are things to work out like standardising a format and DRM and even cross platform compatibility and time is a great healer. I think they will be along soon enough
As a tech geek I love the new conveniences technology brings and I am quite excited about how I can use it both at home and in the classroom, but there is nothing like the feel of a good book in your hands and a coffee by your side.
JoseJacobUK - January 21, 2012
Best books i’ve read are paper ones, until that changes .. i will love paper.
IceCrush - January 21, 2012
The argument of the ebook on a floppy disk in completely moot: a floppy disk is not an ebook, it is a floppy disk. I could put a paper book in a safe, give you the safe and challenge you to read the book, that would be the exact same thing (and by the time you crack the safe open I’m sure I can find a floppy disk reader).
Plus, if you really think that paper books are more durable than ebooks, I hope you’ll never be in charge of a big library (that are incidentally all scanning their books for safe-keeping purposes, but what do they know about books really?)
PepperoniJack - January 21, 2012
Guess what smart guy….a few years ago the records of over 200,000 people were physically stolen from the Veterans Administration giving thieves access to an abundance of Identity theft and draining these poor old folks of their bank accounts…it took ALMOST THREE years to get back only 30% of what was stolen! Why? NO PAPER COPIES, NO BACKUPS – the thieves took the servers as well as the disk therefore your point is also moot.
Not everything is on the Internet: believe it or not everything you see on the web has to actually be STORED some where physical in order for you to access it.
I believe the point the writer was making had to do with HOW this so called “digital” information is actually shared and saved and reloaded over and over again to compensate for new formats of ever evolving technological tools and their interfaces. Look at it this way: your cell phone company exists and eventually camera phones are invented which evolve into smart phones (which currently contain sim cards) …..Try uploading the pictures from the first camera phones without simcards or ANY outgoing connectivity into your smartphone or anywhere for that matter! The point is that if ebay or facebook are shutdown where does all that information go? Every Corporation In the United States is required to keep PAPER backups of vital information….and by their own choice the smart ones keep two sets of backup records: computer and paper!
theMediator - January 21, 2012
If you actually speak with librarians, archivists, and historians they will say that absolutely paper is far more durable for preservation than a digital. Important documents are printed on special paper and stored in dry and cool vaults. Permanent documents are etched on metal plates.
mxwp - January 24, 2012
Trying to read the etextbook in iBooks 2, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d consume the content better if it were a physical book.
Gandalthewhite - January 21, 2012
This is a great article. Thank you!
supastar - January 21, 2012
This article helped me to abandon Verge website in favor of paper tech magazines. This is my last comment.
Saad Salman - January 21, 2012
Great article… but I disagree on basically every point ;)
Paper certainly has a few advantages over ebooks. But, for me, they just can’t make up for the advantages.
I graduated from University last June, so I’ve accumulated quite a few textbooks in the process. Looking at that massive shelf full of books about geology, physics, biology, calculus… I can safely say that I’d rather all of them be in a digital format. I mean, a collective 100 pounds or so of textbooks, each of which cost a good 100-150 bucks, versus all of that stored on my computer or on a tablet for a fraction of the price. It’s no contest for me.
Frankly, I quite dislike textbooks. And that’s mainly because they’re on paper. When you have a whole shelf full of them, searching through them takes ages. I barely touch them for this reason. I’m usually more inclined to do a google search, or use spotlight to search through all my old course notes. Additionally, I like taking notes within a textbook, but I hate cluttering up the margins with all that crap. I’d rather be able to digitally annotate something and hide it away, rather than having them constantly present.
As for novels, I’ve totally switched to my Kindle. The same arguments apply. And I just find reading on an ebook reader much faster. Instead of fumbling to turn pages, I just press a button. If I want to read and eat at the same time, I’m not constantly trying to keep the book from closing on itself. And, having access to hundreds of novels in something thinner than one is just way too practical.
floobie - January 21, 2012
Respectfully of course….. What University did you graduate from? You cannot disagree with facts (grass is generally green, etc)- case closed.
I completely understand your opinions and you are right, however, the writer actually wrote a fair, balance, and unbiased piece referencing the advantages and disadvantages (your “points”) of both sides.
He was not writing merely about the adult preferences of University students, but rather about books in general.
My company is all digital, most customers pay by card and yet all my customers always ask for a PAPER receipt….If I have a dispute with an employee over a business expense (credit card) they are required to show me an actual paper receipt…!
It’s cute that everyone uses a kindle or an ipad now but we have been going down the tubes for ten years losing freedoms, rights, and knowledge in exchange for tech that is obsolete every other year!
Q: Why did I single out your reply ?
A: Because although it is honest and innocent you embody everything that scares me…everything that is wrong with this World——-
You are a recent college grad, raised in generation of people that “comments” on everything merely because you can, you have access to virtually the best technology the world has ever known to our knowledge and yet you COMPLETELY MISSED THE POINT OF THE ARTICLE!
Kindles are okay but here is a bigger picture not shown on your small kindle screen……your children’s children may not even know what rights are anymore…….
only laws will exist….EVERYTHING you now know could easily be changed , deleted , or erased…no one institution should be in control of the world’s history , literature, or knowledge.
Ebooks are fine but I AM MORE CONCERNED WITH the future generations of this planet being completely ignorant to the facts of all that came before them …..it’s not that you all don’t know any better that gets me, it’s the fact that when you are informed you could still obviously care less!
theMediator - January 21, 2012
Apparently you totally missed my point. If it wasn’t clear enough for you, I’ll copy and paste the second line of my original post, verbatim:
“Paper certainly has a few advantages over ebooks. But, for me, they just can’t make up for the advantages.”
I’m not arguing with the facts. I just stated that, for my preferences, the shortcomings of ebooks are dramatically outweighed by their advantages. I’m not ignorant of digital mediums deficiencies. I just don’t prioritize them as highly as you seem to.
But, thanks for the condescending tone. Really appreciate it.
floobie - January 21, 2012
Whether or not you subscribe to the notion that the sheer physical-ness of printed matter is beautiful (I do), the e-book is a step backwards technologically from paper, as the article above explained. It’s low-resolution, is encumbered by restrictive digital rights management, and has a limited note-taking capability.
You’ll also find that you can’t resell your e-books. Maybe if you’d bought some of your university texts second hand you could have saved some of the money you said you’d spent on them.
Dave Ray - January 21, 2012
What happens if Apple goes bankrupt?
supastar - January 21, 2012
I wake up and realize I just saw a nightmare.
Diveafall - January 21, 2012
The issues of openness and longevity of digital publishing in general is intriguing and sometimes scary. But the writer was largely silent on a key advantage of digital publishing as a “system” (i.e. when the focus is not on the object of a book or e-book, but on what the technological system makes possible).
The systemic advantage of digital, connected publishing is the immediate availability of knowledge. The other big related advantage is obviously all the new chances for the production of knowledge by more people.
It seems like a prudent thing for humanity to keep paper copies of most of its knowledge (or key parts of its knowledge). But I think we passed the point of no return in the paradigm shift in how knowledge is produced and distributed.
Still it was great to read this thoughtful article.
humeid - January 21, 2012
Am I the only one that gets satisfaction out of seeing how many physical pages I’ve read in a real book? I just read a 900 page book on my kindle, and even with the percentage marker, it just wasn’t nearly as satisfying to see “90 percent” as it is to hold 750 pages in my hand.
Also- it’s much easier to tell how much more you have left to read by glancing at the pages in the book.
If E-Books were more than just letters on a page- but actual virtual 3D objects representing their real-life counterparts that can be manipulated in 3D space in ways identical to their physical model- that would make me quite happy.
Combine this with a really good pen input and then you’ve got something.
Blackacex2 - January 21, 2012
For example, if my kindle shows “25 percent” read, I would like a visual reference point equal to a physical book. 25 percent read of a 10 page book is a lot different than a 500 page book. It just annoys me to death
Blackacex2 - January 21, 2012
No matter how rapidly the new features for e-readers occur nothing can replace paper books. The sure spirit of those, that has been developed through ages, its calmness and beauty cannot be duplicated by any other type of reading experience. Therefore I find it rather stupid to refer to them as a technology with its own spec-list, although I get the purpose of it. You can define paper books however you want, but they always differ from ebooks. They have something on an emotional level that is priceless by itself.
Diveafall - January 21, 2012
I’m not so sure- look at how the magazine and newspaper businesses are doing. Only the generation that grew up with their digital counterparts are keeping them in business.
I could definitely see my future children developing their attachment to great literature through a kindle-like device instead of a library book and therefore beginning a new trend for future generations.
Blackacex2 - January 21, 2012
*grew up WIHTOUT"
Blackacex2 - January 21, 2012
Specs of a paper book? Sometimes tech journalism can really be insufferable.
DeanStephens - January 21, 2012
They should invent self-second-source-of-light-generating pixels. Samsung could call it Super S3LG AMOLED+.
Pacoup - January 21, 2012
Thank you Dieter. I could not have said it any better myself. May I also add the fact that lcd screens are very bad for your eyes and that these Ibooks still require WIFI (most schools have them) which of course means that THEY WILL ALWAYS HAVE SOME FORM OF WIRELESS SIGNAL ENTERING THEIR BODIES! Is this the price we pay for knowledge? Most of us did not have this problem all our lives. Therefore modern man is expected to be bombarded with invisible signals at home, at work, and now even at school too! At least paper books are not harmful to your health (btw for some added fun look at some closeup pics of middle school kids in 1992 -compare them with the children of this generation and you see that these poor kids have the added luxury of early bags and wrinkles normally reserved for forty somethings!) This article is not only true but I feel it should be distributed throughout the web as a warning that all knowledge (paper books) could one day be essentially controlled, erased , or destroyed!! What a shame it is that some greedy Corporations out there have caused us to become perpetually hesitant of our greatest technological advances. I love Apple, however, we all know that it only takes one bad Apple to ruin the bunch!
theMediator - January 21, 2012
Clapping your hands produces x-ray radiation.
Yes, I’m serious.
Unfortunately, live is full of dangers.
numberoneoppa - January 21, 2012
Whoa…Source! lol
backporchprophet - January 21, 2012
My neck hurts after reading that.
krazyfrog - January 22, 2012
One thing that I always thought would be awesome about eBooks would be if, say, iBooks allowed a user to comment on the book they were reading, maybe chapter by chapter. It would be interesting to have conversations with, potentially, the entire about your favorite books, right? Let iBooks mod it for trolls and spam and it could be a lot of fun..
backporchprophet - January 21, 2012
**entire world
backporchprophet - January 21, 2012
“…I am loathe to see disappear.”
No, you are loath to see them disappear.
/sigh
Dave Ray - January 21, 2012
"If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a “Work”), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple"
Yeah, sure. That’s going to work. We’d be going from an oligopoly to a monopoly. That’s a regression in my book, if you’ll forgive the pun.
Dave Ray - January 21, 2012
So most of you have all sadly missed the point of this man’s article.
Picture the future somewhere between five and twenty years down the road- some of you may have children. Now try reading a bedtime story to your child with an ebook and you may as well try to get them to sleep with an espresso shot or two. I dunno , I like tablets but i guess I never really compared the two. they seem so different. Plus ebooks will keep me awake at night (computer light) and real books don’t. Well folks just remember this : when the future sucks at least you can recall the exact idiotic people who caused all this in the first place….and this article will point to the exact time we all realized that we might as well have just given all our tablets and ipads to monkees and circus jugglers!
theMediator - January 21, 2012
If it’s not on paper, it’s not worth reading.
Who else printed this article out?
friendlyrobot - January 21, 2012 via mobile
I’ve used paper textbooks and Kindle textbooks for school. I have to admit there’s something about the paper books that I can’t quite place. I can concentrate on them better, i feel like i absorb the material easier, and I just find reading the book a more pleasurable experience. I couldn’t tell you exactly why, its just the way it is.
CtrlAltDel121 - January 21, 2012
a very well written revealing article. i consider myself as a proponent of ebooks. but i think the real problem i see is the drm and the copyright management and formats. there is no “one to rule ’em all” format present which is being propelled by all the publishers, and there are the compatibility problems. i think textbook is a sensitive area which should be kept away from being e-book-ized . as one private company who provides all the tools to manufacture cannot claim the output of it; that being equivalent to paper-manufacturers, ink-makers,font designers claiming the content(books) published with the help of their products!
kaustubh.sharma - January 22, 2012
Though i do understand that ebooks have their shortcomings, I can’t stand paper books. The idea that paper books require no battery power is true but the idea that they don’t require power is totally absurd. Paper books have to start as trees (those things that help us breath), get harvested (power), ground up (power), formed into paper (power), printed (power), bound (power), tonnes and tonnes of them trucked all over the place (power).. they consume space, they are heavy (requiring more energy to carry around.. power)…
ebooks probably require more power but they don’t require any trees. really.. they don’t. i like trees and i’m really really sick of paper being wasted on everything.
Paper books are mounds and mounds of power, space waste..also, sometimes it’s ok that books don’t last forever, really, do you want the people of the future knowing that our society loved the da vinci code? i don’t. lol.
morgan hocking - January 22, 2012
I think printed books will become a luxury item.
arktype - January 22, 2012
Always up to date eBooks are scary.
Chickenroll - January 22, 2012
uhhh…is there any irony that you are writing this on a new fangled “electronical” platform and not on paper? :-P
Generally, I agree with your points. Definitely, don’t want the digital equivalent of the library of Alexandria. That said, that was paper.
Les Stroud - January 22, 2012
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phen375 - March 28, 2012 via mobile
Unrelated: the watermarks on your (shitty) photos are embarrassingly arrogant, don’t you think?
Related: this is worrisome, as it indicates you are ignorant of the medium you use and report/comment on.
Just sayin’.
tbeseda - January 22, 2012
The first and most important problem with this article is that the author didn’t really get what Apple announced in NYC.
They’re not trying to replace paper books in general. They’re trying to replace TEXTBOOK!
I LOVE paper books with their nice smell and hard, peaceful cover.
But static textbooks SUCK. Have you ever tried understanding some physics/chemistry/biology process or concept with a static picture? It’s so much harder than with a simple animation. That’s why I mostly ignore the textbooks they recommend us in college and use wikipedia+youtube+khan academy to understand stuff. And you know what? I actually enjoy studying and I remember so much more.
I’m glad someone is finally able to put these into a book, so I won’t need the internet anymore after I download the textbook.
czechboy0 - January 22, 2012
Electronic textbooks will never replace hard copies because you can’t sell them back. Nobody is going to buy a digital version for $80-200 when you could buy a last edition printed version for $30 that has the same freaking content but a different cover and a few images here and there.
iBooks is a step in the wrong direction. My professors have already complained about our textbooks being filled with nice images which have no real educational value. On top of that most people still hate reading from a bright screen or not being able to slip pages with your hand.
Emmanuel A. - January 22, 2012
What if you could by an e-textbook for $15?
You know, the max cost for iBook textbooks?
Andy H - January 22, 2012
Wow, how uninformed can this guy BE?
lukeskymac - January 23, 2012
Here’s a few things that bug me.
On one hand ereaders (and other computers) already make searching for something you know in a text incredibly easy. On the other, they don;t and I don’t see them emulating the flicking through of pages to find something you don’t know you’re looking e.g. just to find something of interest or to find a general part of a book.
Tams - January 22, 2012
Damn no editing.
Anyway, another thing is that bookmarks in a real book/document/magazine always seem easier to use. You can see them in the context of the whole text, whereas with a computer with a most usually two screens you see a list, with a preview if you’re lucky. You have to imagine the location of the bookmark relative to where it is.
I can think of two ways this may be resolved:
a) I grew up with books/etc. still being the main source of information and that while understanding computers comes naturally to me, that it comes even more naturally to younger people now
b) ereading will better adapt to its format. There will be electronic alternatives to ‘flicking’ and ‘bookmarking’ that feel just as natural as flicking and bookmarking with paper does.
Tams - January 22, 2012
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Locked down after that it didn’t even have copy and paste.
uncleho - January 22, 2012
Thanks to: http://trollemipsum.appspot.com/
A joke, of course.
uncleho - January 22, 2012
This excuse of an article is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read on The Verge.
It’s almost as retarded as “iPad vs Stone Tablet” jokes.
lukeskymac - January 23, 2012
This is one of the better articles I’ve read on The Verge. Good job Dieter. I agree on almost every point. I love paper books & I love ebooks & really I just want ebooks to be better. Kinda like the meme – do better ebooks, do better.
VorJoshigan - January 23, 2012
Very interesting article, it will be very scary if one organization ends up controlling all the books digitally as a standard. Maybe only certain classes of individuals will have access to books in the future.
matthype - January 23, 2012
Highly doubtful, new technology like this always scares some people at first and then everything is fine later. But if anyone is to control or create anything, I’d prefer it be Apple. They have a very strong track record of adhering to standards with their technology. They need to set the standard and then everyone will copy what they do and then years later we will argue about what the definition of innovation and totalitarianism is.
JRX16 - January 23, 2012
ebook, epub, ibook, pdf, text, apps, websites !
What is needed in this “affair” is a new role more than anything else.
This new role could be described as “personal contracts/licences holder” “account managers for personal contract/licences and login/passwds or certificates”(no contents or copies in there, just references), something like that, several of them of course, and ability to move all your “assets” or “belongings” from one to the other, so that a trust relationship can exist regarding the privacy of these data (and privacy of these data also under strong legal constraints for these organisations).
Then you can have an environment with a clear role separation between these organisations on one side, and editors, on line shops, on line content holders and difusers on the other.
Which then could allow a user to buy an ebook, apps, websites (access to) “for life”(or with some timing guarenteed in a strict legal point of view, but “for life” in spirit), possibility of upgrade if new edition and you feel like it, and that’s it.
Enough with these “private bookshelves”(music, video, sito shelves) linked to some device maker, on line shops, “social network”, or some other giant !
A bit more developed below :
http://iiscn.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/concepts-economie-numerique-draft/
(and in the “copies_licences” text (2007) linked in the post)
And almost EVERYTHING already there really
yt75 - January 23, 2012
God, I am a Luddite.
I see both sides of this. In terms of personal use, I don’t have a preference for how I read, but the tactile nature of the book is superior from my perspective. Where I find myself fully swayed by Dieter’s argument is in terms of the far off future. When we see books that are centuries old, at the same time as seeing memory formats being happily discarded in favour of the latest tech, you have to wonder – just who is going to tend to the ebook versions? Will it amount to libraries asking private individuals to come forward with a copy of an ebook because their servers and backups just went ‘boom’?
It’s the same as with music, there is a lot to be said for the digital revolution, but for those of us with fondness for the days of vinyl, a download just cannot compete.
atomicsolar - January 23, 2012
Can you imagine the students in Star Trek opening their paper textbooks in an episode of The Next Generation? Being forward thinking is real talent, seeing the future is something special and I don’t expect it from everyone (including the author of this article). This is only the beginning and won’t be perfect out the gates (although if anyone can pull it off with any success it’s Apple), but there’s no way in hell given the technology we now have that we should be using paper as a society, especially for something as dynamic and heavy as a school textbook.
JRX16 - January 23, 2012
Great article, good considerations. I think both are cool and useful in their ways, it really is a matter of tradeoffs.
Leonardo Oliveira - January 24, 2012
I think this article just points out the obvious that everyone knows, but I don’t think eBooks are to replace actual printed books, they are to compliment them. Not every book has to be kept for 1,000 years. “Facebook for Dummies” will not be relevant in 1000 years, but a novel by Stephen King will be. So eBooks are for fast, current content, while actual books are for collecting, archiving, purpose and do look good on a book shelve.
volodoscope - January 25, 2012
I prefer DRM-Free PDF eBooks. You can do more with them than standard print textbooks. And you can hold thousands of them on an iPad. You can write on them, highlight them. And better yet, you can directly copy the text and store it elsewhere.
I love DRM-Free PDF eBooks so much, I bought a dual-sided scanner to convert my print books into OCR’d PDFs. As a result, I have a lot of bookshelf space. And it is a lot easier to read my textbooks quickly on a large screen laptop. Doing research has never been so easy.
jameskatt - January 25, 2012
The main reason I still buy textbooks in paper is because I actually find them EASIER to search. Like I may not annotate perfectly, but I know what I’ve read. Like I will remember where in the book it is, where it’s situated on the page and other “landmarks.” These don’t exist in digital form. I can’t just flip quickly to where I “think” it is. There are no landmarks because all the pages look the same. Also, citing a digital book is a little more involving than a paper book. Maybe I’m old school (and I do have digital texts), but when it comes to the main text book, it’s paper all the way.
sooper_verge12 - January 26, 2012
“Crash-proof and immune to viruses (though vulnerable to some worms)”
Love it.
And of all your points I think the longevity one strikes hardest.
TonyMcFadden - February 2, 2012
So most of you have all sadly missed the point of this man’s article.
Picture the future somewhere between five and twenty years down the road- some of you may have children. Now buy phen375 try reading a bedtime story to your child with an ebook and you may as well try to get them to sleep with an espresso shot or two. I dunno , I like tablets but i guess I never really compared the two. they seem so different. Plus ebooks will keep me awake at night (computer light) and real books don’t. Well folks just remember this : when the future sucks at least you can buy nuratrim recall the exact idiotic people who caused all this in the first place….and this article will point to the exact time we all realized that we might as well have just given all our tablets and ipads to monkees and circus jugglers!
phen375 - February 25, 2012 via mobile
This new role could be described as "personal contracts/licences holder" "account managers for personal contract/licences nuratrim login/passwds or certificates"(no contents or copies in there, just references), something like that, several of them of course, and ability to move all your "assets" or "belongings" from one phen375 fat burner the other, so that a trust relationship can exist regarding the privacy of buy nuratrim these data (and privacy of these data also under strong legal constraints for these organisations).
Then you can have an environment with a clear role separation between these organisations on one side, and editors, on line shops, on line content holders and difusers on the other.
Which then could allow a user to buy an ebook, apps, websites (buy phen) "for life"(or with some timing guarenteed in a strict legal point of view, but "for life" in spirit), possibility of upgrade if new edition and you feel like it, and that’s it.
phen375 - February 25, 2012 via mobile
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Fact is, Apple are going down, while moron, when cult of Steve, however professional fanboy, in the main Gruber but it didn’t even have copy and paste after that crap in the end marketing, what is more fact is, I can get a better laptop for less, this is why Apple are nothing without Steve Jobs so fanboi, apparently cult of Jobs, personally typical fanboy this includes fanboy.
Antennagate, in order that fanboi which Jesus pad, who Android is better because it’s open, in spite of Apple copied Android’s notifications, why locked down soon hype on the whole you don’t know anything at first it’s open in contrast death-grip, that ass-kissing, next you suck at the beginning you suck where ufo evidence brainwashed so that fanboi overall fanboi, not only Antennagate but also fanboy prior to Apple copied LG, I believe you suck.
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You don’t know anything, suddenly cult of Steve, besides fanboi in great weight loss pills conclusion I-Pod such a Apple are nothing without Steve Jobs afterwards death-grip at the end Flash.
Moron whereas marketing owing to blah, blah, blah finally typical fanboy, and it’s open eventually Android sells more phones.
Gruber, for this reason fact is, I can get a better laptop for less on the other hand brainwashed furthermore sucky ass, so as to fanboy on the contrary natural health shop Apple copied Android’s notifications, since you suck, whenever Apple copied Android’s notifications.
You’d buy shit if Apple sold it, what I-Pod, as well as it didn’t even have copy and paste then moron, whatever hypnotised for example typical fanboy above all notifications are way better on Android I think fanboy thus professional fanboy particularly Antennagate in addition locked down, because Android is better because it’s open, despite toys, once blah, blah, blah to sum up marketing, not enough fact raspberry ketone plus review is, Apple are going down, although overpriced, as soon as fanboi whose Android sells more phones to whom fanboy, for instance hype, immediately professional fanboy.
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