Re: "The Elusive E-book"

May I put in a word for the eBookMan? 

I love mine, and one of the things I love best about it is the design.
When I'm reading on it, I hold it in one hand and my finger naturally
falls on the jog wheel, letting me turn pages in either direction. It
will fit in a pocket, so I can easily carry it anywhere.

I don't see the issue about the proprietary OS if you plan to use it
primarily as a reader... which is almost all I use mine for, though I
do have a few very simple games on it that I occasionally play, and I
have used the calculator function a few times. Yes it uses AAA
batteries, but I see that as a plus. Franklin's own program for
keeping track of battery usage is admittedly rather poor, but I
downloaded and installed BatGraph by juried (
http://www.geocities.com/juried/ ), and that gives me plenty of
warning when it's time to switch from one set of rechargeable
batteries to the other... and if I'm stuck in an airport with no
recharger available - which happened to me last year - I can buy any
set of AAA batteries and go on reading. 

Yes, if you let the batteries die anyway, despite the warning,
everything, including the OS, is gone from RAM, but if you were bright
enough to back everything up on the flash memory card using the
built-in back-up program, as soon as you've put in fresh batteries and
turned the unit on, it searches the card for that back-up and restores
everything automatically. It only takes a couple of minutes, turning
this into a minor inconvenience.

I can't justify buying any of the new readers to myself because
they're not *that* much better than the eBookMan, and mine is still
going strong.

Would I buy one now? I don't know. I would be delighted to buy an
updated version of the eBookMan that was basically the same design,
but the original model? There are a few things that I'd really like to
see changed, changes that would probably have happened naturally if
Franklin had continued to support and develop the eBookMan. 

On the other hand, it's a whole lot cheaper than these new units, I
can buy batteries that will work in it anywhere, and the smaller form
factor makes it a lot easier to carry around and to read in. 

So if mine suddenly died, I just might buy the exact same thing again
rather than any of the newer designs.

Steve P


--- In [email protected], Aaron Walker <ajwalker@...> wrote:
>
> The iPod and Apple iTunes had DRM upon release. 
>  
> I don't have an iPod or use iTunes but it hasn't been until recently
that Steve Jobs starting trumpeting the no DRM call. 
>  
> The Franklin eBookman failed because it was a horribly designed
device that used a proprietary OS that ran on 3 AAA batteries. When
the batteries died, everything on the device was wiped, including the
OS! Who, in their right mind, would want a device like that even back
then?
>  
> That was the problem with Palm and early Windows Mobile. Remember
how big a deal it was when they all went to persistent storage? The
eBookman never did and died on the gadget vine. (Although they are
still selling them and they are still cheap, go figure.)
> And I still contend, Average Joe Consumer doesn't lose any sleep at
night over DRM. Once Average Joe Reader can get his hands on a cheap
reading device that will let him read for pleasure away from a
computer screen, we'll all see an upswing in our sales.
>  
> Apple needs to release an iReader, then all the hipsters will
"discover" reading again. This will force innovation in the field
where current makers will have to justify their prices and other
entrepreneurs will come in to make cheaper versions.
>  
> And it will probably be something very much like the eBookman:
smaller screen (maybe even 4 inch E ink), rechargeable battery, a
number of ways to read (PDF, txt, .doc, maybe even MobiPocket, PDB), a
few text size options and a simple way to transfer content, perhaps
hosted "in the clouds" on some server somewhere.
> Aaron J. WalkerPublisher
> http://www.walkbroadpublishing.com
> 
> 
> To: ebook-community@...: yahoogroups2006@...: Thu, 8 May 2008
09:55:14 -0400Subject: [ebook-community] Re: "The Elusive E-book"
> 



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