What should and/or could be an ebook?

[Pedro]

When I see e-books today it kinds frustate me about the technological delay that format files and reading devices are compared with internet browsers technology, such as html, css, javascript and many more, that could enable so many features to ebooks, while we can't, by far, meme even the typography language of printed books. I imagine there could be lots of possible paths that ebooks could follow, more that I can even imagine. Paths that could take e-books out of the bondaries of the book as we know today. What do you think about it?

I know that this topic is not about kindle, but it is related and I'l be glad to hear you. If this is not a topic for this group I'll imediatly delete it, and invite you to join a group that I created to discuss this kind of thing. Actually this is a copy of a topic that I opened there. Why I don't stay in my group with this question? Because we are just 2 members yet. :P
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

[Betsy]

Pedro, there have been several topics in this group related to this issue. Here's one thread that may have some posts of interest to you:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8...

[Pedro]

Thank you, Betsy. I am following this topic also, but what it is been discussed an early future of ebook. What I mention above is more conceptual. Facing what the digital can offer to books, what can be done to enhance it?

[Tom]

Navigation should be much better.

Maybe it is not so bad if you are reading novels, but if you are studying a text, you need ways to jump easily between several locations in the same book, perhaps be able to view 2 or 3 passages at the same time. It is ironic that the computing power of the average ebook reader is more powerful than nearly all computers of 15-20 years ago, yet you cannot do simple and familiar things like windowing, task switching etc. with a reading app. They're all optimized for reading novels, and even then it is not always easy to flip back and refresh your recollection of some event or character that occurred earlier in the book without losing your place.

One Kindle example is that it is really easy to set a navigation point ("bookmark") but it is pretty hard to go back to it (tap to reveal menu, tap menu, tap view notes and marks, swipe repeatedly to get to the page containing the bookmark, tap to finally navigate there). Compare that with a real book, where you can dog-ear pages, attach sticky tabs and access any of those in a fraction of a second.

Where are the 'scrubbers' or scroll bars on the Kindle Touch and Paperwhite? This is pretty much a requirement when navigating documents on a computer, but somehow Amazon forgot the Kindle IS a computer.

Search results and notes and marks lists need something like scrubbers also. What if what you are looking for is on the last page of these lists? You have to turn a bunch of pages to get there.

Multitouch gestures can also be wired as navigation shortcuts (jump to next section, previous bookmark, flip n pages, etc.).

I can understand that many users would not need such features, or appreciate them fully. But I would like the tools to be available, even if they need to be enabled with some 'advanced navigation' preference.

Ebooks should at least not be more difficult to navigate than a real book. And of course it should be much easier and more powerful.

[Betsy]

I totally agree, Tom. I read a fair amount of nonfiction and, although I love my Kindle, it's less than optimal. I have often had to read a book on two devices at once -- my Kindle for text and my tablet for illustrations. Partly because the kindle does not display illustrations very well and partly because of the kind of back and forth navigation necessary.

[Pedro]

Tom, I also agree with you. A thing that pisses me off are the notes. Why not have notes like printed book footnotes? In kindle, the same way of diccionary check, that when you click a word opens a box with its meaning. The note could be something like that too! It would be so much easier to view then.

[D.J.]

Tom, I know you can write notes on the iPad Kindle app. Does it not work with the regular Kindle?

Also the version of iBooks looks like it will be more robust when it comes to note taking. I'm not sure if the iPad version has been announced to support it yet, but since the desktop version will have a note tab, it seems reasonable to assume that it there will be a way to access all your notes in the mobile version as well.

Check out this screenshot to see what I mean:

http://www.apple.com/osx/preview/#ibooks

As far as the future of ebooks, iPad uses a newer version of ePub which supports a lot more interactivity than other formats. The new ePub allows for a high level of interactivity with movies, 3D objects, HTML data, slideshows, and lots more. These features make a lot of sense, especially for text books. I've never used a Kindle Fire but I imagine those things will eventually find their way onto that device at some point. I think the current mobi format is pretty much geared just for text and images as far as I know.