What will e-readers be like 10 years from now?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Braid

What do you think e-readers will be like ten years from now?

Colour screens are an obvious way forward. Do you think this will take off?

Will e-ink continue to dominate? Will it develop to offer quicker response times, thereby allowing PDF documents to be read more conveniently?

Seven years ago, I thought we'd have colour screen ereaders by 2015. I'm now just hoping we see them in the next five.

In ten years from now? If there's a good enough screen technology, I see ereaders converging with tablets. But until there's a bright, low power, sunlight-readable tablet display, I think we'll still have ereaders.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by dwig

True, but that applies to last years 2017 vintage offerings. Come 2028, things will have changed and I don't think that there will be any significant advantage to creating a ereader only by then.

I don't think one-trick-pony ereaders will survive very long. People want excellent displays and light, but 10 years worth of tech evolution will likely deliver that in a device that can also run a range of apps and provide far more utility than a pure ereader.

Ah but those same multipurpose devices have one flaw. If the wrong thing malfunctions everything else goes. For a time there were VHS players built into TV sets. Great idea some thought, but what if the VHS player malfunctions and need to be sent off for repair? What if the TV goes bad? Then you have nothing left. It isn't wise to put all your eggs in one basket.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Seven years ago, I thought we'd have colour screen ereaders by 2015. I'm now just hoping we see them in the next five.

In ten years from now? If there's a good enough screen technology, I see ereaders converging with tablets. But until there's a bright, low power, sunlight-readable tablet display, I think we'll still have ereaders.

I agree about the ereader. My KF needs to be recharged a lot more often (wifi on or not) than my paperwhite.

[barryem]

My hope is that ereaders in 10 years will be a lot like they are today. The point of an ereader is reading books and these devices are perfect for that.

I guess the one thing I do hope changes is that ereaders are no longer proprietary devices from book sellers, but that companies can compete to give us more variety in size and type and that they'll all read any books we happen to buy, DRM or not.

Barry

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Foldable e-ink screens maybe? I'd still like more margin control than the Kindle gives, and better font control for side-loaded books. Retinal Control for page turns? Longer battery life is a given, although fairly I'm happy with the Oasis as is.

I think foldable screens are a distinct possibility with tablets going away due to the convenience of the smaller footprint. I hear Microsoft is working on this as we speak.

Dale

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by sealbeater

Hmmm "controlled", no thanks. I think it's bad enough the Kindle readers are spied on by Amazon.

Not counting KU, do you have proof of this?

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by barryem

My hope is that ereaders in 10 years will be a lot like they are today.

All today's hardware models with replaceable batteries (often only slightly difficult to replace) should still be available, used, ten years from now.

Will I be able to take one almost anywhere in the world, and, in a pinch, send an email -- as I can do with my Kindle Keyboard today? I'm guessing no -- Amazon will turn that off at some point and/or the cell phone networks will no longer support the hardware.

Will what I consider the killer eInk app in the United States still be available then? I'm again guessing -- No.

Will new books still load on the old readers? Maybe. In the eInk Kindle world, it depends on Amazon support decisions.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

I think foldable screens are a distinct possibility with tablets going away due to the convenience of the smaller footprint. I hear Microsoft is working on this as we speak.

I've been hearing about this, or similar, for, I'd guess, twenty plus years. Newspapers were supposed to be, by now, on a large-screen light-weight flexible device. Instead, the big newspaper change was getting killed by free news on the Internet. The future is hard to predict!

I've predicted before that paper books would be replaced by single-title readers much cheaper to produce than a hardback. People here don't like that idea. Whether it happens may depends less on whether people like the idea, and more on whether techniques to manufacture a book like I describe, extremely cheaply, are actually invented.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by crich70

Ah but those same multipurpose devices have one flaw. If the wrong thing malfunctions everything else goes. ...

That doesn't apply to a "merged" tablet + ereader. There is no significant difference between the guts of a 2017 tablet and a 2017 ereader. There is a small difference, technically, between some of the displays and small differences in the speed of the microprocessor and size of storage. None of these differences makes any difference in reliability. The significant difference between a "tablet" and an "ereader" is primarily the software/firmware. After that, its just balancing relatively minor differences in specs to optimize the device for its particular target application.

Even things like the fact that ereaders have WiFi, but rarely Bluetooth and that tablets universally have both doesn't count since the radio chips available today have both. New devices today that have WiFi will all have a Bluetooth radio even if the software/firmware doesn't use it. It's the same chip either way so its the same reliablility.

[shalym]

Well, a little over 10 years ago, this was what was being discussed as the future of e-readers:

Interesting how things have changed, and stayed the same...

If we go back even further, to 2006, we have this:

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

If we go back to the first news of eink, the pictures accompanying the news show a flexible plastic sheet. This is the future of readers. A standard size will exist for every format of publication. News papers will share one size, novels an other etc. These readers will be cheap and reusable. The challenge now is to miniaturize computing power and data input sockets to a smaller size proportional with the sheet's thickness. That is one step not necessarily in line with novel readers but with the true meaning of e-ink.

Shari

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Conan46

E-ink will be gone in 10 years. Better phone and tablet screens, and better battery life will completely replace them. They have already begun to do so.

Isn't that what they were saying five years ago? You may be right, I don't know. I hope not. I don't like LCD screens for reading.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by dwig

Once technology advances to eliminate the unique advantage that the one trick pony has, it dies as its function is merged with another device. PIMs (e.g. Palm Pilots, ...) as phones became smart phones and got smaller and lighter, allowing them to assume all of the utility of the PIMs. As it is today, tablets are struggling to maintain a position outside of the Schwarzchild Radius of that Black Hole that is the ever more powerful "smart phone". The tablet world will likely absorb the ereader world as pressure increases from smart phones' the ever expanding influence.

I don't see tablets absorbing eReaders. I see tablets dying as smartphones take their place. There also seems to be the beginning of an anti-I'm-connnected-all-the-time movement. I think eReaders will still be around in ten years.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

E-readers have one more advantage besides e-ink: they weigh several times less than tablets. As long as they do so, I doubt they're in danger of disappearing. Not everyone wants to read on a device that's hard to hold in one hand for long periods.

Agreed. I think Microsoft's failure to sell the concept of the same version of Windows on all devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone) highlights the fact that different devices are used for different purposes. I think tablets will be the "odd man out," in a few years, not a niche product like eReaders.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Conan46

Tablets will get lighter as they have continued to do. Even my new 10" Fire Tab does not feel very heavy compared to the bricks just a few years ago.

They've still got a long ways to go to match the size and weight of a 10 year-old eReader.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by dwig

That doesn't apply to a "merged" tablet + ereader. There is no significant difference between the guts of a 2017 tablet and a 2017 ereader. ...

It's not the guts that matter. It's the weight, type of screen and size that matters. And this is where a tablet and eReader still diverge. And I don't see that changing any time soon.

[Tarana]

Overall, I don't think ereaders will change all that much in the future. They've pretty much reached a point where they are much lighter than books. The lighting could improve, but the screen is already great. With the addition of more graduated font sizes, it's pretty darn perfect for that. I would hope there would be improvements in book organization.