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iPad Closing in on Kindle in eReader Ownership

Well 1 thing has become clear, the Sony reader is counting it's days. Since reading this thread I have converted all my DRM ePub books to non-DRM mobi books, listed my Sony reader on eBay and ordered a Kindle!

Was always going to happen, the online bookstores just don't have the variety of Amazon, and they don't get new releases until they are old. Shame, because I liked the simplicity of the Sony reader, it just displayed pages, nothing more.

Seeing the low market share of Sony I don't want to spend any more money on books, I'd rather buy into Kindle and at least know I will still be using it (the format) in 10 years time and I decide to re-read a book.
 
Macist said:
eInk Pearl gets devices like the Kindle close enough to real books that, finally, ebooks have a future. I think I spent 10minutes with the Kindle getting to know it but as soon as I was absorbed in a good read I'd completely forgotten I was reading in some new-fangled way. Amazon have cracked it.
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+1

I got my Kindle 3 a few weeks ago, and I can't believe how good the screen is. I love reading on it.
 
I sold my Kindle 2 before I got my iPad in April. Then, between April and September, I read 50+ books on the iPad. The Kindle 2's poor contrast was difficult for my eyes--I found I was concentrating more on adjusting the book light (which I needed to use in most lighting situations, not just in the dark) than on the reading. In fact, I'd only managed to read 10 books on the Kindle in the six months I had it. So the iPad was much better, in my experience.

Then in September Sony came out with their latest Reader models, with the improved-contrast Pearl e-Ink screens, and I bought the smallest, lightest one.

And the pressure behind my eyes that I'd been getting on days when I'd read for hours at a stretch? It went away.... 35 books on the Sony in 2.5 months, no pressure, no aches.

Coincidence? It absolutely, totally could be--maybe I had a sinus thing going on that resolved itself right around the time my Sony showed up. After all, I didn't experience the problem when I first got the iPad; it started happening as I spent more and more time reading on it. But the size and weight of the Sony have me reaching for it first when I want to read anyway, so I haven't had a lot of incentive to go back to the iPad to experiment.

I do love my iPad for many things, and it's a fantastic replacement for the MacBook I'd been using solely for web-browsing and email checking, but for book reading I'm happy to use a very portable dedicated device.
 
i wont doubt the experience of others but eye strain is real for many of us. i sit infront of a computer screen for at least 8 hrs on some days. and you know what? at the end of the day, my eyes are tired. hell no, im not going to want to add more pain by sitting at home reading a screen that is giving the same punishment to my eyes. if i have a work day where im not behind a computer screen, my eyes dont feel like they need to be recharged. i can go home and read a book. hell, i often read in whatever sunlight is left. i dont think thats incidental.

another thing i dont like about lcd displays is seeing my reflection in them. i dont want to see the light or the ceiling fan behind me. i dont want to see anything but whats on the screen and i dont want to have to pitch the screen at funny angles to achieve that. glare makes me "hulk smash" mad. no, not really but i do hate it.
 
Abyssgh0st said:
You may be able to read on an iPod fine, but could you do so if reading for 3+ hours without incurring blurred vision, headaches, or any other symptom? Maybe so, but for the vast majority of people the answer is no. I've adjusted the brightness appropriately on my iPad and iPhone, and I still get headaches after just 15-20 minutes of reading with a reasonable sized font nonetheless.
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No, you haven't adjusted properly. Because the reason you get headaches is incorrect lumens and font size, as related to your surroundings and distance eye-screen. (as those websites posted will tell you, if they aren't crap) Every thread like this, here or elsewhere, simply adds positive feedback to my hypothesis that most people don't know what the hell to do with their own bodies.

The same issue comes with TVs. Most are set up incorrectly, for all of the exact same reasons.
Dooger said:
Are we talking proper books or ones with lots of pictures? Seriously though, the eye strain and constant scrolling would, IMO, be a total misery. I'm currently writing a masters research paper and downloaded a few medical papers onto my iphone to save me taking out my MBP on a cramped flight. I got as far as the first paragraph before giving up. The other issue is the battery life; I can't imagine it lasting very long with the screen constantly on.
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My reading apps can be set to scroll automatically. Sometimes I use it. Battery life is drained by wifi on iDevices, or games, not simply from having the screen on. Reading a PDF in email is probably not a good reading solution, but then, I dont' think that is the preferred method on a Kindle, either.
 
I'm on the fence with this because I'm waiting for the iPad 2 (spent enough on other Apple stuff including a new iMac this year) and I'm interested in the new Kindle as well. I'm just afraid that the Kindle may end up collecting dust as soon as I get the iPad 2. I do like to read outdoors a lot so that's why I'm considering the Kindle and because it's so small. The iPad does seem a bit unwieldy for reading for hours on end as I tend to do.

I'll probably get the Kindle anyway. A question for those who have both: when you download eBooks to the Kindle, how easy is it to move the books over to the iPad to be read on the Kindle app? Can that even be done?
 
JAT said:
No, you haven't adjusted properly. Because the reason you get headaches is incorrect lumens and font size, as related to your surroundings and distance eye-screen. (as those websites posted will tell you, if they aren't crap) Every thread like this, here or elsewhere, simply adds positive feedback to my hypothesis that most people don't know what the hell to do with their own bodies.
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Do you mind sharing your qualifications for your expertise in this field? Because I think it's BS.
 
alexkhan2000 said:
A question for those who have both: when you download eBooks to the Kindle, how easy is it to move the books over to the iPad to be read on the Kindle app? Can that even be done?
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Yes, and requires very little user intervention. You just login to your Amazon account the first time you launch the Kindle app, and there's a section called "Archived items" which shows you the ebooks you've already purchased. Just tap the one you want and it's instantly downloaded into the app.

The best part is that you can read upto a certain page of a book on your iPad, then pickup your Kindle and it automatically syncs to the page you were last at on your iPad. This also works between other devices with the Kindle app, such as iPhones and Android phones.
 
NebulaClash said:
epub standard is an industry standard. It's the standard that all will be using soon. Only Amazon uses a standard that won't work except through its own software.
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Well, epub claims it's an industry standard, although I'm not sure exactly what this is supposed to mean, as Kindle's format owns 75% of the market. And different flavors of epub means that most epub books you buy are also limited to their respective owners. You can't read an iBook on any other reader, even an ePub reader like a Sony. You can't read a book you buy at B&N on any other ePub reader, either. It doesn't matter if ePub is "standard" since DRM isn't standard.
 
HLdan said:
I just love your exaggerations as if that's the only solutions. Yeah, and a lot of people will dump their slow and clunky netbooks for an iPad that does it all. So they don't need a Kindle and they won't be spending nearly the ridiculous amount of money the way you make it sound. ;) Oh the irony in your post from someone who would buy a MBP over a cheap PC that can do the same thing. With money left over you could buy some anti-virus software. Your pasts post tell the story.:rolleyes:
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Are all your posts a personal complaint against people? ... and why do you send PM Spam?
 
The Kindle and the iPad are two wholly different devices. I love my Kindle for reading books and my iPad for everything else.
 
alhedges said:
Well, epub claims it's an industry standard, although I'm not sure exactly what this is supposed to mean, as Kindle's format owns 75% of the market. And different flavors of epub means that most epub books you buy are also limited to their respective owners. You can't read an iBook on any other reader, even an ePub reader like a Sony. You can't read a book you buy at B&N on any other ePub reader, either. It doesn't matter if ePub is "standard" since DRM isn't standard.
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It's not a claim, it's a de facto reality. ePub is the standard that all companies are coalescing around. Except, of course, for Amazon with their proprietary format.

So the iPad will happily read any format on the market, but the Kindle is much more limited. As it happens, Amazon has the lion's share of the book market, so the limitations of the Kindle are not yet that noticeable. But it will grow increasingly so as time goes on.
 
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