the dawn of the electronic page

Image Credit: A blurry-cam shot of stanza on the iphone. Would you read if this was a screen 3-1/2 times the size?

Much has been said over the years of the death of paper. Everything would go electronic!!!! why print?!?!!? And we're moving ever closer. 2009 saw the appearance of the real ground-breaker, (much like the ipod did to music), the Amazon Kindle. There's obviously the new kid on the block, again from the creators of the ipod, Apple's new ipad. Much has been said of it's ground breaking potential in this area, and after my experiences with the iphone and my attempts to read on the tiny screen of this, I have to agree that I can see the potential and uses. It's not just because of the size too, although having a device that is less than an inch thick and essentially resembles a paperback book does help.

It's all in the interface.

I never did get into reading articles, even pdf's, comfortably on a computer screen because it never felt natural to click or scroll down using arrow keys. But after trying out the wonderful stanza application on both a laptop and on the iphone, it's the interface that is the game-changer. I can't read anything on the laptop screen, and yet I've sat through a couple of readings on the iphone's tiny 3" screen because I just h have swipe much like flicking a page. It feels natural and this is a huge thing! For an idea of the potential of reading on such a device, go to the preview page here and watch the short video on the left about 'ibooks'

Will this device be the end of paper books? I'm not so sure it'll be that good, but with some universities already announcing that they will be supplying these to students, it just shows what some people are thinking about it. With 5 out of the 6 major worldwide publishers signed up also, and with a relatively (and surprisingly good) pricetag for an Apple product, it's going to be a strong contender.

would I buy one? if I had the cash absolutely! I'd love to put some books on it, bring it into school and see the opinions of the students on it.

What do you think? Will electronic books truly catch on in the next year or two, or is there still a long way to go before we stop using trees for paper?