TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

I work on the Microsoft team responsible for Origami as a product designer. Do you have any feedback on the device shown from an e-book perspective?

Most certainly I have feedback. The basics are very easy though and anyone can think of them. Implementing them might be harder. Simply said, we all read books for enjoyment and comfort. Everything that makes it harder or more annoying to read a book is bad. That is the driving thought you should keep in mind for any product you make.

This can translate to a variety of needs. Provide reading software which is easily customized in color, font, size and spacing. There are many popular readers around which you might look at.

Make it easy for people to put content on it. Either through a shop system or some -open- format. This includes a method to easily get said book onto the device. After all, if I need to spend more then a few moments to get a book on the device, or it involves annoying steps, it won’t be a pleasant reading experience.

Paul, to add to what Jaapjan said: if you have a preferred format, make sure that there is Free Software to convert to it, and give it to Matthew McClintock at Manybooks.net. He converts Project Gutenberg ebooks (and more) to a plethora of formats–as long as he can do the conversion automatically on his GNU/Linux box. (I cannot speak for Matthew of course; but he seems interested to convert to any format that makes sense, as long as he can.)

Also, getting these devices into the hands of users that will actually use them to read ebooks will give you far better feedback than what you could sollicit from people who can only see a picture of the device.

I myself would be interested in taking a peek at the the Origami, and report about it here on Teleread. (Contact info in the top menu, “Contact info and FAQs on TeleRead, blog, e-books, etc.”.)

Well, as Paul must have known even before he posted his query, this site teems with well-informed e-book users. Now maybe he can help by further clarifying the kind of information he’s after. I focused on hardware basics, but it’s clear this discussion has evolved into one on software as well. Are we, then, indeed talking about an XP machine, as some press reports have suggested? That would considerably broaden the range of topics for discussion. Thanks. David

I have never read an e-book due to the size of the screen on my Palm M105 then my Zire. I no longer use a PDA. But this would be the prefect device for me, and I am sure the high quality bigger screen would be great for reading books. Long battery life, lightweight and not be interupted by other sounds and messages and apps stealing focus while reading unless I selected to play music too.

First of all, thanks Paul for your interest in getting input. (And a courageous move considering all the “demands” and frustrations we have as e-book fans who haven’t yet found the ideal device!)

There is a feature that I want to highlight because I believe it becomes much more important with Origami-like devices… access to my book and bookmarks on multiple devices (PC, Origami, pda/smartphone). That could mean wireless access to it, but because I’m not always “connected”, it really means synchronization of bookmarks on several devices and the ability to put the book itself on multiple devices.

There will, I would guess, be a lot of synching with these devices because it is not going to be the only device a user computes from. He/she will at different times be using a PC or Origami or PDA/Smartphone. If you are reading an ebook and have multiple devices, you really don’t want to have to go find a particular device to continue reading your novel, or have to do a text search to try to figure out where you left of last time. I read all ebooks on my Treo 650 for that very reason. The screen is small, but it’s adequate. And more importantly, not only is the book always available, but I can always continue at my present location without any hunting for the right page.

Also, I’d say that it’s very important to me to have a good selection of fonts and styles and sizes, and the ability to bring in additional quality fonts that are favorites.

The ability to bring in my own ebooks easily is definitely a critical factor for me in choosing an ebook reader. For example, I currently use eReader most of the time. I like the way I’ve been able to convert any MS Word document using a nifty macro and the eReader conversion software. Because MS Word can read a lot of formats, it gives me a lot of flexibility.

Multiplatform reader software support is a big help. That’s also one of the reasons I use eReader… it supports both PalmOS and Windows Mobile. I don’t want my content to be “stuck” if I decide to switch my OS.

One more comment. Well, pretty much a complaint about the MS Reader activation scheme. (Sorry! I know it’s probably not your fault.) It’s device based, and very limited in activations, yet activations are fragile - i.e. reloading the OS or hard resets, etc cause you to lose an activation. I really like MS Reader for reading. I love the textured backgrounds!!! But unless using “DRM workarounds”, I’d never buy a .lit file with MS Reader DRM. It’s too easy to do something that requires reactivation, and I’ve heard you can only activate 3 devices, including reactivations. Even the threat of losing the ebook due to that kind of event is reason to avoid it. Unless you’ve saved PPC activation files, or restore from a good backup, a few crashes of your pda and you’re done. Not to mention horror stories about no response when trying to extend to another activation with MS support. I could go on and on, but I’m sure you know what I mean, and I’m sure there are some great minds working on improvements. But as it stands, I just wouldn’t want any MS Reader DRM’d files. I want to feel some sense of stability if I buy a book. And if customers are not willing to buy a book in a particular format, that can really crimp sales and adoption of the associated ebook reader, no matter how great the reader hardware and software is.

I should also say that one handed operation and multiple ways to turn pages is a big deal because you hold a device for a long time when reading a book. I like low backlight levels for reading in bed. And I like to be able to see a clock and battery levels without having to choose a menu item or click on something.

A rocker switch (the D-pad on my Treo) is my favorite way to turn pages. I like the tactile feedback. But the D-pad on my Treo seems a bit small and the “click” is not satisfying. Especially with the skin case on it. The Sony Clie I had before it was great, but after the thousands of page turns, I basically wore out the page up/down switch and I’m afraid I’ll do the same to my Treo.

As has been mentioned before, outdoor readability is very important, as well as glare control. But also an unscratched screen is important to enjoy the reading experience. Screen protectors are fine, but it’s hard to find a durable and clear one that both protects well and is inexpensive.

A related issue is whether or not I feel like the device is “easy to drop.” Some things just seem to drop easy, and other things are easy to hold onto. I’d be afraid of a form factor and texture that is very droppable, unless there was a great case for it. Same thing about “breakable.” If it seems very fragile, and one drop will doom it with certainty, I’d be afraid to spend much on it. In fact, that’s one of my primary concerns about the upcoming Origami devices.

But I’m quite excited about Origami, and similar future devices. I wish you well with it, and as the technology improves I think this sort of mobile device (as if I really know exactly what it will be!) is going to become a greater and greater hit.

Hope there’s something here that is of interest or gives you some ideas. We’re probably going to do a lot of complaining no matter what you roll out, but we’re really cheering for you as we are for all groups that are forwarding the book reader and mobile computing device markets!

BobR
MobileRead.com

The most important thing to me would be the ability to highlight and save highlighted portions of text to a seperate file.

First a little background, to better understand my thoughts: I’m a novelist who has been publishing eBooks for seven years now on the web, and reading them for almost 25 years, all the way from my old TRS-80 now to my Treo, and just about every device in between. I would consider myself on the “expert” level now, as far as how to make documents in .pdb, .pml, .lit, .pdf and interactive .pdf. In 1999 I won a grant from the Illinois Arts Council for electronic publishing; I have published maybe 50 titles now in those years, both my own work and others. I am also the founder of a group called the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, opening this September, who will be commercially publishing 20 eBooks a year, among other things.

First, I would please encourage Microsoft to create software for the Origami that accepted as many of the above-mentioned formats as possible, not just .lit (for MSReader), and to also add .txt, .flv (Flash), .html and .xml (RSS) (and of course OpenReader…but that goes without saying). There’s a real opportunity here that so far no eBook manufacturers have taken - to combine book reading, magazine reading, website reading and RSS feed reading, all into one simple application. This would be an amazing thing, I think - to have one device and one window, where I could tab from the latest Murakami novel to the New York Times, right to my friend’s blog. This will only happen, though, by embracing as many standards as possible, which so far no one has done.

Second, please give us all the great simple benefits that come with reading a paper book: easy and automatic bookmarking of where we left off, when clicking out of a document; the ability to write notes in the margins, and to highlight phrases; the ability to easily turn from “page” to “page” (versus one endless scrolling document). Since you asked, I myself would primarily want to highlight and take notes with a stylus, then turn pages with large friendly buttons, either real or virtual. I have found real resistance among many of my readers to embrace eBooks, mostly for this reason; that to this date, it’s still not as convenient as a paper book or magazine is. Apple closed this gap in music, for example, by creating the combination of iTunes and the iPod; I would love to see the Origami be the first device ever to close this gap with eBooks.

Third, like many others have said here, definitely a way for users to create their own documents. MSReader has a good history of this, though (of making it easy to convert many documents to .lit format, that is), so I imagine you will do the same with the Origami.

Fourth, and I know it’s a little too late for this, but I think the time has finally come where “electronic ink” systems can be taken seriously. This is the number-one reason I hear from my readers, as to why they don’t read eBooks; that no matter how fine the screen, they still simply can’t read it for longer than 30 or 45 minutes in a row, without their eyeballs going crazy. Nothing is ever going to get better with eBooks until this technology is finally improved.

I’ve enjoyed all the different prototypes and videos I’ve now seen of the possible finished product; I wouldn’t really change anything so far viewed, although that may change once I get to interact with the actual device.

Where to get eBooks: That’s another big problem, caused in this case by so many publishing companies not understanding the real strength of eBooks, and implementing them in very wrong ways. But that has nothing to do with Microsoft, and could be another 1,000 words on its own if I get started, so I won’t. In a nutshell - we need a YouTube for electronic books, but a lot of publishers are very threatened by this idea.

That’s it; I’ll make way now for others. Thanks for listening!

[ilikejason at gmail dot com]

Paul, how very cluetrainesque of you to conduct your research in this way.

I’m not into gadgets much but this one has me all excited. I’ve been blogging about it for three days http://learnandteachonline.com/node/346

Ditto to a lot of what’s been said. One thing you might want to take into account that I haven’t seen mentioned is business use of devices for leisurely offline reading. So often if something like a work-related article is quite long you’d like to be able to curl up with it, like you would with a book or magazine. Lots of general business information , as well as vertical business info is available in PDF, and I have a feeling that’s going to be the main file format for business use, so Acrobat Reader would have to work perfectly.

I also work in publishing (for the National Safety Council, where we put out some 20 newsletters, three magazines and 100 books). As a practical matter a vertical publisher very often will not want to take the trouble to reformat the print version of a publication for electronic consumption. So, I’m thinking about page size for a large textbook-sized book or a magazine. It’s probably going to have to be displayed in landscape mode, but it would be really nice to plan how it fits into the shape of your device’s screen, and try to strike the right balance between font size and getting a page on no more than two screens full of text.

Also, for education purposes, you might want to consider some sort of LMS quiz plug-in that can be completed offline then submitted later online.

/amyloo

[...] From information coming out at Teleread, it seems an e-book reader is also being planned. Microsoft has a fabulous e-reader (Microsoft Reader) in place, with DRM that enables it to deal with commercial, encrypted book titles. They also have long-standing arrangements with major publishers and the online booksellers. Sony’s Reader might be cheaper, but the Origami/UMPC will run XP, and will include WiFi access, not to mention color (both absent in Sony’s device). [...]

Myself, I think I’ll hold out for the day I find something that works with Thout/Open Reader, seeing as that’s the format I’m using to convert all my scholarly books. Being able to sync private (and downloaded public/group, if there’s no wireless card) notes with my other machines would also be nice.

I came in late, so maybe this is a repeat. One-handedness thing is the first feature I look for besides screen-size. I loved my old HP because I could just flick the side rocker button. I also like to read anywhere, including outdoors. I detest DRM and have found that Palm’s is the easiest to work with: can read your book on as many devices as you like and unlock it with the credit card number. Palm had the best site going until I bought a Nokia 7710 under the impression it would read pdb’s. Sigh. Wi-fi is important; fiddling with cables is annoying. Outlining, highlighting, lookup. Search should start from current page and lap the book.

Great discussion and of course BIG kudos to Paul for asking for input! Have just a few things to add -

1) Please, please work with Libraries (and schools!) right from the get-go so that e-books for this reader can easily be acessible to everybody, not just the rich. I personally know that libraries are part of Microsoft’s vision - and they are a crucial piece of the solution to get e-books into the mainstream.

2) Unicode - make the device totally unicode compliant so that no matter what language (even non-roman alphabet ones!), any book can easily be read without being a technical genius.

3) Include a nice, smooth autoscroller! I use mine all the time and is one of the main reasons I use Mobi-Pocket instead of Microsoft Reader. One use is hands-free reading during lunch!

Long time ebook reader. I use Ubook almost exclusively on a Dell Axim X5, to read 3 to 4 books a week. Ability to read lots of formats besides just a main ebook. Love that Ubook can read from a zipped file, which makes my preferred format zipped .html work as all the files are contained in one zip file. Universal file format reading is key. Simple interface with lots of control options to let the reader pick what works for them.

Instant on is a key element. Would really like to see ebook reading, mp3 and movie playing all bypass the operating system.

Easy adjust of brightness.

Like the idea of tabbed viewing of books, magazines, rss feeds - that was a superb idea.

Take advantage of the tablet interface and create gestures for book navigation as well (like in the Maxthon program, highly useful, so much so that I try to use gestures in other programs)

I have read eBooks primarily on three devices: The Nokia 3650, Sony Clie SJ22 (and, briefly, before the screen broke, the SJ20), and my new HTC Universal device. In all cases I’ve used the Mobipocket software, because for devices it just seems to work much better than the various alternatives. I’ve also read ebooks on my old-ish laptop, using MS eBook reader (because on PCs, that one’s better), but that’s just too large for regular use.

Controlling the ebook was easiest on the Clie by a long shot, in either hand, due to the absolutely brilliant jog-dial. The Universal has a rocker switch, but trying to use it for pageturning usually involves overshooting your page by miles because it takes too much force to use and repeats too quickly — but even with that fixed it would not be a match for the jog dial.

The screen is clearly best on the Universal — something with *at least* that pixel density would be good. To be useful for webbrowsing as well, I think 1024-wide would be better than 800-wide. The screen on the Clie wasn’t bad, but the fonts available let it down a bit. The screen on the 3650 was small, but it’s relatively high-dpi and so it’s nearly as good to read on as the SJ22 is. I’ll take high-dpi over sheer size any day (especially if the rest of the device shrinks with it).

Formatwise: I’m for convertible tablet, in whichever size. The problem there is that the typical hinge is weak. I think it might be good to explore a form factor where converting to tablet involves flipping the screen all the way back (flipping the base keyboard down, rather than having it in the middle). This is, of course, not really something that is within Microsoft’s purview, but a manufacturer might read this as well.

In re: battery life, it’d have to be PDA-like, rather than notebook-like, although my latest PDA is a bit of a batteryhog itself. For extended use (during, say, holidays) I’d like the ability to charge the battery by connecting whatever voltage I’ve got on the charge connector (at the very least 5V-6V) — one thing that came in really handy was a 4xAA battery holder with a charge cable attached. Even in darkest Transsylvania (literally), you can always get AA batteries, and you can usually find an internet cafe where you can plug your USB-charge cable in while you surf.

Connectivity out the wazoo — at least Bluetooth (and maybe IR) and WiFi, but preferably with an integrated UMTS(/HSDPA)/GPRS(/EDGE) radio in. Actual phone capability is more or less optional (perhaps just with BT headset). Hell, if you can fit in a GPS receiver while we’re at it, go for it (but the phone and especailly GPS functions, like in current PDAs, are probably best left more or less to the individual hardware manufacturer). But include a program to easily activate and deactivate all of that, for powersaving reasons.

I would not be averse to a version of the tablet that uses Flash rather than or in addition to a spinning hard drive (8GB CF is fairly affordable these days — Incidentally, SD and size permitting CF readers are a capital idea) — although I suspect you’d need to up the ram a bit and modify the OS to make properly sure you don’t trash the flash cells unnecessarily. Perhaps OS off Flash with a small scratch RAM disk for those bits that just work better with a ‘disk’ and a larger 1.8″ ipod-style hard drive that only activates when you’re doing things that need it. I suspect that this is beyond what Windows XP can do without major rewriting that’s no longer an option with Vista on the horizon.

A lot of this is probably not yet an option wth the current state of the art, price/performance wise, but I suspect that a device such as I describe could be made at a reasonable price (say, the ~1k that the Universal costs now) within two or three years.