The cell phone/smart phone we carry is slowly becoming an all-purpose device. Besides being a phone, it’s a camera, it’s my walkman/iPod, FM radio, etc. It allows me to read and send emails and text messages. So on and so on! Play video clips for me. You may soon be able to watch TV broadcasts, as well as video broadcasts over the Internet, etc.
It’s a short jump to let you read a book through the same thing too! Have you heard about Kindle promoted by Amazon? It is already in its second generation. It is a book-sized device that gives you the feeling of having a book in your hands. The page change is done electronically, of course. But otherwise, the screen has the look and feel of a white page printed in black. Books can be downloaded very easily wirelessly. You can take several books and in exchange for subscription/prices you can even read recent books.
Google has now launched a service in early February that allows you to download books and read them on your mobile device. The library is 1.5 million books that Google has in its collection suitable for mobile viewing. Being in a fully electronic format, these books are easily searchable and bookmarkable. At this time, only iPhone and Android phone owners can take advantage of this service. It is not difficult to see that this will become widespread soon.
The screen is so small on these mobile devices that reading on it is not going to be a very comfortable experience. I don’t know if I would like to do that. Except for a little novelty value that piques my curiosity, I can’t see myself reading a book about it. Reading a text message, an email is enough for me. Will it ever become a means of reading a book? The portability and convenience of the damn device are undeniable. Screen size is increasing, driven by the demand to watch videos comfortably.
There is a limit to how big the screen can be. Beyond one size, you would start to lose the portability advantage. On the other hand, we are as used to 10 or 12 point size text in a display area as at least a paperback. Kindle seems to have taken that approach. There are other readers on the market that are following that approach. Even with that approach, the question of how comfortable you are reading an electronic screen is an issue. That could go away as more people feel comfortable reading things on an electronic screen.
But from the screen of a mobile device! Google has bet heavily on it. Will a large part of the people read from these devices? Only the future would tell, I guess.