The Verge: Sorry iBooks, paper books still win on specs

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by piper28

I will admit one thing that I've found somewhat annoying with ebooks. Some of the books I read will have maps at various points in the book, and every now and then I'd like to flip back to refer to them. For whatever reason, I've found that significantly more of a pain in an ebook than I do in a real book. I am learning, by adding bookmarks, but it's still somewhat clunky to me, and I never remember to mark the spot until I realize that I wanted to go back there.

This is one of the *big* features that ebooks are lacking, and it's what'll keep them from getting bigger in the academic world. There are students who've figured out methods, because the weight difference is *so* extreme, but research use of ebooks is still in baby-developmental stage.

Oh, and for all those that keep bringing up the built-in dictionary: how many people really use it?

Apparently a lot. I don't have one in my reader, but I gather that many people really like having it. Especially if they're reading in something other than their first language. But it's definitely a "shrug" option, like an index in paper books--nice when it's there for those few times you actually care, but in most books, you'd never notice it's missing.

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I really wish the print aficionados would pay more attention to which features are actually valuable, and to whom, rather than listing off "twenty ways in which print books are different from ebooks, which I'm going to insist make them better, because damned if I'm going to make the same list from the other side."

Ebooks have easy search. Pbooks have easy flip-through-pages. Both features are useful for research--and the fact that ebooks don't have one is a matter of software development, not an inherent flaw in ebooks.

At least they've mostly stopped whining about the smell of books.

[carpetmojo]

[QUOTE=piper28;1938722Oh, and for all those that keep bringing up the built-in dictionary: how many people really use it? I honestly think I've used it once, and that was more by accident than for really wanting to use it. I can't say that in my normal reading I generally find that I have a real need for a dictionary. I honestly can't see that I'd miss it if I didn't have it.[/QUOTE]

I use it loads, obviously the English Dictionary, but also the French,and, a lot, the American-English, as I love finally being certain what an American reference means ! Zydeco is a perfect, minor, example - in James Lee Burke's novels, I thought I knew what the music sounded like......
After reading him for 15+ years, I now know I do for sure ...

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by piper28

I will admit one thing that I've found somewhat annoying with ebooks. Some of the books I read will have maps at various points in the book, and every now and then I'd like to flip back to refer to them. For whatever reason, I've found that significantly more of a pain in an ebook than I do in a real book. I am learning, by adding bookmarks, but it's still somewhat clunky to me, and I never remember to mark the spot until I realize that I wanted to go back there.

Frequently the map is marked in the Table of Contents.

Oh, and for all those that keep bringing up the built-in dictionary: how many people really use it? I honestly think I've used it once, and that was more by accident than for really wanting to use it. I can't say that in my normal reading I generally find that I have a real need for a dictionary. I honestly can't see that I'd miss it if I didn't have it.

I use the in-line dictionary all the time (double-tap a word to get the definition). I've never brought up the dictionary from the main menu and entered a word though.

It's probably best to say that both pbooks and ebooks have advantages. The 'better one' often depends upon what the reader thinks is important and sometimes depends upon what is being read.

At the moment, I prefer ebooks for novels and certain non-fiction books. eInk is almost as good as paper, battery life is excellent, and everything goes smoothly because everything is read linearly. For most information books though, dead trees still win out. Random access is a lot easier at the moment, a table of contents or good index is more reliable than a keyword search, and battery life sucks on the ereaders that are good for fixed format or colour documents.

Of course other people will draw the line in other places. There are plenty of people who still read DTB novels and plenty of people who read information texts on tablets.

[xg4bx]

i've still gotta do my mainstream science fiction and fantasy reading in paper. horror is ok in e form as are indie books for obvious reasons. its just a personality quirk but i've gotta see the doorstop and bury myself in it, i need to see how big the universe is. its an odd feeling to put into words but the e format definitely kills some magic for me. so thats a + on the paperback side,

[Giggleton]

Paper books brought about copyright, ebooks will end copyright. In this way they are better.

[HappyMartin]

There are some valid points of course. The non intrusive interface is a bit of a joke. Try reading and holding up a really big pbook and then tell me about the non intrusive interface.

I agree that with text books that use charts and so on ebooks can be a story but I found a way around that. I have an ipad and a kindle and when going through any kind of reference material I use both. I read on the kindle and have the ipad off to one side with charts and so on bookmarked so I can see the maps and stuff on that and be on a different page of text on the kindle. Works very well.

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Paper books brought about copyright, ebooks will end copyright. In this way they are better.

It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few decades, because I don't think it's a foregone conclusion either way.

One thing to note is that copyrights have become more and more "important" (i.e. longer and longer duration) while copying has become easier and easier. This has been particularly true over the past century when technologies like radically improved printing techniques and more easily copyable media has been introduced.

On the other hand, I honestly don't see how the copyright wars are sustainable. By digitizing information we've made it possible to replicate it perfectly, indefinitely, and easily. Even the vulgarities of physics that make the exact replication of bits impossible has long been solved mathematically. So something is going to have to break somewhere: either society as a whole is going to have to accept copyright (and current indications are that society is heading in the other direction) or we're going to have to discard the notion of copyright and find other means of supporting the "information economy."

[cHex]

Books do have a learning curve, though: