As you might have heard, the Kindle DX—just announced yesterday—is Amazon’s large-screen version of their flagship product. ]]> The Internet ate too much Kindle DX yesterday and threw up all over itself; there was instant analysis and little chunks of live-blogging everywhere. Now that things have calmed down a bit, here’s your guide to what everybody’s been saying.

As you might have heard, the Kindle DX—just announced yesterday—is Amazon’s large-screen version of their flagship product. Its specs are very similar to the Kindle 2′s feature set, except that the DX has a 9.7″ screen (instead of 6″) and costs nearly $500.

OK, those aren’t quite the only differences. The DX also sports an iPhone-like auto-rotate feature, which you can see in action in the first of a series of great videos from a MobileRead user. And the official DX page at Amazon crows about native PDF support; however, the new Kindle still doesn’t support any DRM formats other than Kindle proprietary. That means the DX still can’t talk to Adobe Digital Editions and still can’t borrow library ebooks, and all that has an Adobe exec, as TeleRead noticed, siding with Sony.

The bigger fish frying is how Kindle DX will perform as a textbook platform and as a newspaper reader.

As the New York Times reported, Amazon has three academic publishers and six colleges and universities signed on for pilot programs this summer that will test the DX as an etextbook platform. The hardware is unquestionably a step forward for ereaders, and the highlighting feature saves text automatically, and allows users to access it from a PC, which sounds great for students.

But the lack of a touchscreen makes the highlighting process clunky at best (see it for yourself in the second of those MobileRead videos). And the price is high enough to make a lot of people balk (CrunchGear collected some Twittered responses here). Students would presumably be at the head of the balking line, right up there with the most ferocious balkers, balking away.

The battle for student money is being fought between laptop-based etextbooks and dedicated devices like the DX. Laptop textbooks have advantages like lower cost, color display, and better interactivity. Dedicated devices have more readable screens and slightly better form factors.

GalleyCat has a couple of great interviews from both parties: a print discussion with Frank Lyman, who’s a marketeer for a laptop etextbook company; and a video interview with Steven Kessel, an Amazon exec, wherein Kessel tries to convince us that students will spend the money.

Clearly, neither solution is ideal, but I have to side with Lyman. Lit students don’t need the big size (and the accompanying price tag) of the DX, and I can’t feature science students dropping half a K for the privilege of using black and white diagrams. I’m not really sure what subject’s textbooks would benefit from the size and readability but not be hurt by the lack of color. (For the record, I think something like this Chinese Internet tablet has a better feature set for etextbooks.)

On the plus side for Amazon, the DX looks absolutely perfect for newspapers. This device is perfect for simple, black and white content that you don’t need to interact with. Also, magazines and newspapers have always been the Kindle’s strong suit, thanks to its Whispernet and auto-update feature.

The price is still a real issue, though. CrunchGear has a press release stating that a few major newspapers are launching pilots this summer, and plan to introduce DX subsidies for readers who live in non-home-delivery areas. Still, though.

If this thing was $200 instead of $500, and came with a year’s subscription to the NY Times, I think it could be a game-changer. It still might, but the odds are stacked a little against it.

This whole thing is going to be an interesting fight to watch, but a tough one to handicap.

OTHER BITS AND BOBS:

MobileRead reminds you that if you bought a K2 in the past thirty days, you can return it and get a DX.

The Times’ first impressions of the DX.

From DVICE: history of the Kindle; DX impressions by a Kindle vet and a newbie; and a DX/K2 size comparison.

DFrom CrunchGear: more hands-on videos; and predictions of upcoming DX stories.

In the past few weeks, several companies have announced sheet-of-paper-sized ereaders, a trend which no doubt reflects a growing desire to crack into the lucrative business/student ebook market. The problem is that, while bigger screens are necessary for students and businesspeople, bigger screens alone will not make for a ]]>

The Brother SV-100B has a 9.7" screen

In the past few weeks, several companies have announced sheet-of-paper-sized ereaders, a trend which no doubt reflects a growing desire to crack into the lucrative business/student ebook market. The problem is that, while bigger screens are necessary for students and businesspeople, bigger screens alone will not make for a suitable device.

The fragility of the screens, the still nascent state of E-Ink, and the inadequacy of all current content interaction systems are just a few flaw that ereaders need to address before these devices become a commonplace sight on college campuses. Simply enlarging the display (and the price) won’t by itself create a perfect ereader for students and business users.

That said, though, I think this trend toward big ereaders could spell great news down the line for the state of ereading.

Here’s what’s happening, why it won’t be mind-blowing in the short-term, and how it could finally take ereaders mainstream.

The players

Most recently, CrunchGear posted news that Brother will release an ereader with a 9.7″ screen in Japan on June 1st (pictured above). The price? A staggering $1450, and from the looks of the interface in the early pictures, it won’t even have a touchscreen. PCWorld reports:

Brother intends the e-reader to be used in situations like factories, offices or by salespersons who typically need to access and refer to manuals and other data during their working day.

That seems like a slender niche market; I doubt it’ll catch on.

Then, there are rumors everywhere that Apple’s purported large-screen iPod Touch, which might actually be a netbook, might actually really be a large-screen ereader of its own. Largely, this kerfuffle seems to have been generated by a quote from Chicago Sun-Times contributor Andy Ihnatko in Newsarama:

“There’s something I keep hearing, and I don’t think I’d rank it as high as a rumor, but it’s an interesting story that I keep hearing, that for awhile, trucks loaded with books would arrive at a loading dock on the Apple campus, and offload big, big, big, big, huge load of books, and then the trucks would leave empty. … There’s been a long-standing rumor that Apple has been silently preparing to open a bookstore on the iTunes store…”

I’m in favor of Apple getting into ebooks, even if I doubt the new device will be an ereader.

Plus, we already know about Plastic Logic’s plans to release a sheet-of-paper-sized ereader, and the iRex 1000s is the only ereader actually out now that has both the large screen size and an interface that lets you write on ebooks as you would 0n paper. But the 1000s’s price tag, nearly $900, pretty much prohibits it from being widely adopted by student (even though it now pales in comparison to the Brother’s).

All this marks a substantial movement toward large displays. However, there are a few issues that need to get resolved on the way to business/student ereader ubiquity.

The problems to solve

The most pressing problem is that E-Ink simply isn’t fast enough, agile enough, or colorful enough for students to use for textbooks. This is just going to be a matter of time and development, driven by the fact that looking at an E-Ink screen is much more pleasant than looking at an LCD. Eventually, all our screens will be E-Inks screens, but, for now, the technology isn’t ready for anything that must be dynamically interacted with.

Secondly, there’s content interactivity. No current ereader interacts with text the way you can with a book. Early adopters might be a little forgiving of this functionality and so might the manual-toting factory workers that Brother seems to be targeting. But anybody who does anything with a book other than stare it simply cannot find an ereader that will replace the functionality of a pen and paper.

A final problem, but by no means the least troublesome, is that most E-Ink screens are quite fragile. My first Sony Reader’s screen broke disastrously, and it was in its case, in my backpack at the time. That’s a fragile screen, especially for a device with a touchscreen interface. I had a devil of a time getting my money back, and I’ve read many accounts of customers not getting any money back at all.  Making the screen four inches bigger will do nothing but exacerbate this problem.

Hopefully, something like Plastic Logic’s prototype flexible display will become commonplace eventually. In the meantime, somebody has to start making hard cases for these things. I was worried enough about my new ereader’s screen that I bought a metal box and felt strips on eBay, in order to make my own hard case (more on that soon).

In sum: large-screen ereaders should help, but will not be mass-adopted anytime soon

The very fact that companies are designing these big devices is a heartening sign that people are starting to realize the broad potential of ebooks beyond what ereaders currently offer. However, it doesn’t seem like they yet know exactly what that potential is.

The race isn’t simply to make bigger screens, the race is to adequately mimic—or even improve upon—the current functionality of paper books.

However, in the interim before E-Ink platforms become suitable for textbooks, some stiff competition could definitely help drive the development of more capable, more interactive interfaces.

I’m on record saying that ereaders aren’t ready for students, and I’ve seen nothing in this latest ereader trend that shows me anything to the contrary. Right now, reading textbooks on laptops is more useful than any dedicated reading device. The first company that can upset that balance (and deliver a reasonable price point) will be the winner, and there’s no winner yet.

You’ve got to crawl before you walk, though, so I’m considering the Brother and its cousins a pretty decent crawl.

For the record, I don’t put any stock into the rumors of Apple making an ereader. The reports state that Apple bought a bunch of touchscreens, not a bunch of E-Ink screens. Dedicated ereader devices simply cannot have LCD screens anymore. ]]>

It's burning my retinas, even in this tiny unofficial mockup (photo credit: allthingsd.com)

For the record, I don’t put any stock into the rumors of Apple making an ereader. The reports state that Apple bought a bunch of touchscreens, not a bunch of E-Ink screens. Dedicated ereader devices simply cannot have LCD screens anymore. My guess is it’s a big iPod, like everybody first thought; even in that case, if they’re hyping a reading feature, backlit screens are a step back.

All that said, though, Apple entering the ereader market would be nothing but a good thing for readers.

On ITWorld, Peter Smith theorizes that one of the major reasons for Amazon’s popularity is its ease of use: you don’t have to fool around with formats or software, you just buy books right off the Kindle Store.

The tradeoff for this ease of use is a number of significant drawbacks: Kindlers have no alternative buying options, they’re strongly tethered to cripping digital restriction measures, they can’t borrow library ebooks, and they can’t download RSS feeds for free (and can’t download a lot of feeds at all). Plus, Kindle’s success is making Amazon a company that feels no desire to significantly improve its device. Understandably so, because nobody else can compete with their price,  selection, name recognition, or that aforementioned streamlined book-buying process.

If ease-of-use giant Apple makes an entrance, we’ll finally have a competitor for Amazon, especially in terms of content (if the quote from the Newsarama article is true, which is not a given). With two major companies vying for ebooks, publishers will feel more pressure to get on the ebook train. Other ebookstores will have to lower their prices (10% off hardcover price is not a discount, Sony). And hopefully, eventually, they’ll force each other to start removing DRM. Unfortunately, I don’t think competition will ever result in a universal format, the lack of which will provide a wealth of headaches for readers down the road. One of these formats is going to be the Betamax of ebooks, and right now there’s no telling which one it’ll be (although my money’s on LRF to go first).

Anyway, an AppleBook could also start opening doors toward a multipurpose netbook/ereader device. Once E-Ink is ready, and backlightable, I could see a 10″ tablet netbook with a detachable E-Ink screen that you read on.  I’m a little concerned about giving up the distraction-free interface of current ereaders, but since that’s at least a few years away, we can burn that bridge when we get there.

Then there’s the Machead zombie call to consider. Apple can count on name recognition alone to sell a few hundred thousand of these, and the Great eReader Adoption can always a use shot in the arm.

Whether it’s an E-Ink ereader or just a bigger iPod Touch, I’m not going to be terribly interested in the device itself, but Apple getting into the ereader game—or even just into the ebook game—would be good for all of us ebook enthusiasts.

Since it’s all based on a couple of flimsy rumors, though, I’m not holding my breath.

[AppleBook news from Newsarama via The iPhone Blog]

though it’s easy to find an outsource ]]> Cory Doctorow has an article up at Locus Magazine, called “In Praise of the Sales Force,” about the irreplaceability of the publishing industry’s ground-pounding sales force. He makes a number of good points about the potential difficulties of democratizing publishing using the Internet, including essentially his main argument:

though it’s easy to find an outsource firm that’ll get your books from Warehouse (A) to Store (B), it’s a lot harder to find the cost-effective firm that will convince Store (B) to order the book from You (C). That’s shoe-leather business, the slow, messy human-factor business of getting to know thousands of key people around the country, people who will introduce your book to readers who haven’t heard of you and don’t know why they should be reading you (good bookselling is fractal: the sales rep knows what the clerk will like, and the clerk knows what the reader will like).

I can understand (and respect) Doctorow’s loyalty to the people who’ve worked hard for his books, but I just don’t buy this argument. These days, I purchase books in actual bookstores very rarely, and I don’t think I’ve ever bought a book because the guy at Borders recommended it.

I find wandering through bookstores (without a prewritten list) a pleasant way to waste a few hours, and a severely frustrating way to find a book that I’d actually like to read. Occasionally, I’ll look over the staff recommendations at an independent bookstore, but that’s about the only interaction I have with bookstore employees. Well, that and the occasional thirty second conversation about Thomas Bernhard at the register.

Instead of browsing shelves, I research. I hear about books from friends, I read reviews and articles, I find lists of best books, and I compare the books I hear about with my personal aesthetic and the kind of read I’m looking for at a given time. I don’t do this by chance, I do it because I’ve found aimless browsing to be largely an exercise in disappointment.

I’m not saying that my way of finding books is normal (and neither is it unique), but it’s certainly possible, and I’m not ready to concede that my way is worse than buying whatever Eric the Bantam rep talked somebody into displaying on the front table.

Ultimately, Doctorow’s argument smacks a bit of old media thinking, not only in claiming that the old ways are irreplaceable, but also in focusing on publishers selling books, and not readers finding books they enjoy. That “shoe-leather business,” after all, is about increasing visibility for authors and publishers, which in no way correlates to quality of work or, more importantly, reader satisfaction.

Part of the Internet democratizing media distribution is an increase in objectivity. Ideally, this could lead to a meritocracy. More probably, it will mean at least a fundamental restructuring of how publishers sell books to (or push books on) their customers, and it will mean the obsolescence of those ground-pounders Doctorow advocates for, or at least the way they currently work.

I agree with Doctorow that self-publishing is not suddenly made viable simply because ebooks exist. But neither am I ready to concede that the old ways of selling books are so necessary to publishing that we can’t move beyond them. When the Great eReader Adoption finally happens, a lot of things will change, including the “shoe-leather business” that Doctorow praises.

[@ Locus, via Boing Boing]

While I have high hopes for the successful future of ebooks and confidence in the Great Reader Adoption actually occurring, I have had very little exposure to the current generation of ereaders themselves. Most of my ebook consumption occurs on my computer and my iPhone in small bites (I’m smitten with Stanza, but long reading sessions ]]>

While I have high hopes for the successful future of ebooks and confidence in the Great Reader Adoption actually occurring, I have had very little exposure to the current generation of ereaders themselves. Most of my ebook consumption occurs on my computer and my iPhone in small bites (I’m smitten with Stanza, but long reading sessions on either screen prove uncomfortable, especially after spending the work day staring at a computer). So I borrowed a BeBook and took it with me on a recent Fung Wah adventure to NY. Nico’s already done a good job of breaking down the good, the bad, and the ugly with the BeBook, so I’m not going to do they same, and he’s also put forth that reading on an ereader is better than reading a paper book. I don’t agree with him entirely on that point, but I’d like to share my impressions as someone who recently lost his ereader cherry.

Now, I’ll admit I’ve been dragging my heels a little about trying out ereaders. A large part of me doesn’t want to like them. I’m one of those people who likes to hold a book, smell the paper, jot in the margins, admire my overflowing bookshelf. I hold a weird reverence for books like they were trophies or war medals; I keep care of dust jackets like they were Mickey Mantle cards; and I take offense if I see someone dogear a page–they better hope it wasn’t a page of one of my books! However, I am still eager to see publishing march boldly into the digital age, because it will bring so much good with it, namely in instant accessibility of different books. Indie publishers will have more clout, and reading a sample paragraph from some book you might never have noticed in a bookstore will be as simple as a click on a blog or review site.

Books: Read Whatever Whenever

Unlike the 8-track and Betamax, the book will never become an obsolete format. No matter what any idiot anybody says, this is true. Music and video might, but publishing will never move to a 100% digital delivery mode. It just won’t happen. However, digital delivery will likely become the preferred and even primary modus operandi for publishing companies, as it already has for music and quickly is for video. The reasons for this are different though. Consumer demand won’t force the industry’s hand, floundering bottom lines will. Stocking every Borders, Wal-Mart and airport bookstore around the country hardcovers is damn expensive. Bandwidth for distributing the files digitally doesn’t even compare. The trouble for them is, unlike music and video, an expensive gadget isn’t necessary to bring a book with you whenever you go, and no matter how cool the ereader is, this will always be the case.

The Great eReader Adoption will happen with hybrid devices that aren’t soley dedicated to books and newspapers. The simple fact is people don’t need another to device to lug around along with their laptop, smartphone, and perhaps mp3 player. The most likely scenario is that a multipurpose device somewhere between a netbook and an eReader will emerge. It will be affordable and used for basic communications tasks such as email, and accessing blogs and newspapers, as well as ebooks. It will also be able to handle basic documents. Laptops are already losing ground to netbooks, and ubiquitous smartphones will never get to the point of functionality where we are doing more than very basic word processing on them, if that. Once something like this becomes a stable of students and business travelers, the publishing houses will see a leap in their digital sales, and things will expand from there. Technology is a little behind on this, and I think the key will be affordable, color electronic ink.

Try eInk and you'll be surprised just how different it is from LCD screens.

eInk, I can attest from my BeBook trial, is awesome. You really won’t understand until you take it for a spin, and I highly recommend that you do so. Seeing it in pictures or over someone’s shoulder is deceiving: it looks like the dot matrix screens from the original Gameboys at a quick glance. However, when you sit down and read it, it is surprising comfortable on the eyes. As comfortable as if you were reading real ink on paper. The constantly changing light on my bus trip really illustrated this for me, and coupled with the ease of holding the lightweight device and not having to readjust so often in the relatively cramped seat (as I usually do when holding a hardcover on such trips), made for a very pleasant bus ride–aside from having to smell the unwashed fellow next to me. This was a short trip, but if it were a longer one, say spanning a few flights and layovers, I’m sure I’d be real glad not to have a backpack full of heavy books as well.

eInk is also consumes next to no power. I used the BeBook for approximately 9-10 hours over the weekend excursion, and not a single notch disappeared from the battery meter. And since power is only consumed when the screen refreshes (such as a page turn) there is no need to wait for startup loading. The advantages this holds for devices such as I predict above are obvious.

I think we’ll see digital delivery of books approach becoming the standard beginning with a supplemental approach. As ebooks rise in popularity, consumer demand will drag the prices down from the stratosphere. The fact that many now cost more than hardcovers is ludicrous, and will inevitably change. Much like the Fox/Apple Digital Copy, publishers will be able to use the digital files as a packaged deal with popular books (at practically no additional cost–they’d have to figure out the means of delivery of course, it would probably have to be done via the retailer). This will help them establish a digital consumer base and ease into a lower cost digital standard that their bottom lines would undoubtedly prefer. It will also encourage holdout to buy a ereader device. Let’s just hope they do it without DRM.

The supplemental bit is key here. I absolutely loved having the BeBook with me on my bus trip. Yet, when I got home from the weekend excursion, I went straight to the couch and read a paper book. For me, the advantages of the ereader are situation specific. When I’m lying in bed, a (-n analog? I don’t think we’re there yet) book is just as good for me as it has been for readers for centuries. I imagine the average reader of today feels the same.

Amidst all the kerfuffle over the Kindle 2.0, Plastic Logic’s announcements today have been relatively overlooked by most blogs (TeleRead being the notable exception).

The biggest news was the variety of formats the Plastic Logic ereader will support, including ePub, PDF, and “Adobe DRM/eBook support,” ]]>

Click on the "Find Out More" button at PlasticLogic.com

Amidst all the kerfuffle over the Kindle 2.0, Plastic Logic’s announcements today have been relatively overlooked by most blogs (TeleRead being the notable exception).

The biggest news was the variety of formats the Plastic Logic ereader will support, including ePub, PDF, and “Adobe DRM/eBook support,” which I think, and hope, means that Plastic Logic ereaders will be able to borrow library books. The device will also support the usual suspects like .rtf and .txt, and eReader format, which might take the wind of the eSlick’s sails.

In addition, Plastic Logic announced a “Publishers’ Program,” which will allow third parties to distribute ebooks directly through Plastic Logic, instead of dealing with either paper publishing houses who botch ebook distribution, or sites like Smashwords, which are just digitized self-publishers.

This platform opens the door for small presses to circumvent the models of Luddite publishers like Random House, and release cheap ebooks without paper press overhead. Hopefully, it will also spark some drive in those Luddite publishers to get on the ebook wagon and agressively push the development of ebooks and ereaders, which will get us closer to the Great eReader Adoption.

Plastic Logic seems to be aiming for a primarily business-oriented market, with its emphasis on business content, and paper-sheet, 8.5″ by 11″ form factor. Hopefully they’ll branch out to incorporate more casual users also, as, from the looks of this video, they seem to have balanced a good contrast ratio and a touchscreen interface, a combination which has so far eluded Amazon and Sony.

TeleRead is also reporting that Plastic Logic will have wireless, which, if it’s open wireless, will be a huge step in the right direction for the epublishing industry.

I said yesterday that I was more excited about this than the new Kindle. Plastic Logic has indeed delivered the more ground-breaking news, and the better news for the future of the epublishing industry. Upstage successful.