Study Shows iPad, Kindle and Printed Books are Good, PC's Bad

"A study of people reading long-form text on tablets finds higher reading speeds than in the past, but they're still slower than reading print."

24 people were tested using the iBook application (indistinguishable from Stanza and other eBook readers) on an iPad, an Amazon Kindle, an eBook reader on a PC and a bound and printed book.

Reading speeds suffered on the electronic devices by as much as almost 11% slower than the printed book, with the Kindle results the slowest, though not statistically significant from the iPad.

The largest surprise to me though, was the user satisfaction levels. The readers were rather happy with the iPad, Kindle and printed book, hated the PC.  The readers didn't care for the weight of the iPad, didn't like the low contrast of the Kindle and the PC reminded them of work.

My wife and I are avid readers with almost 1,000 printed books on our shelves.  We also read eBooks on our computers and handheld devices (current iPod Touch and HTC EVO) having retired our Rocket eBook readers (REB1100s and REB1200s) to a box in the closet.  We too prefer the printed and bound "TreeBook" format but do most of our reading on the computer screen.  At our ages, a 24" screen beats even a 10" screen.

eBooks, no matter the reading device have a lot of advantages such as not needing walls of bookshelves, they don't collect dust, aren't a fire hazard and are a heck of a lot easier to handle when house moving.

TreeBooks though, may be read anywhere, any time, don't need electricity and ten years from now, you won't have a problem finding the right program or device to read them.  After TSHTF, society collapses and little is left except for mutant cockroaches driving old Buicks, a printed book can still be read.

 

 

You can read the full article on the study at: iPad and Kindle Reading Speeds (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

 

Disclaimer: This blog post was created using MarsEdit on my MacBook Pro. I love the combination of quality hardware and software that is stable and functional while making things easy to get things done. All original content is copyright ©2008-2010 by Rick Cross, all rights reserved.

iPhone Sales Rise To 16% Market Share!

Smartphone shipments show dynamic growth - Business - Macworld UK: "More than 55 million smartphones shipped globally in the first quarter, with iPhone shipments rising slightly from the previous quarter, from 8.7 million to 8.8 million, according to ABI Research."

 

Was G.W. Bush the President 50 Years Ago?

(Via xkcd.com.)

Apple's Fix For iPhone 4 To Show AT&T Network Weakness

Lending new meaning to "more bars, more places", Today Apple announced that they've been lying about signal strength since the original iPhone.  They admitted that the formula used to display signal strength, shows two or more bars too many.

This flaw is where Apple puts the blame for the iPhone 4 reception problem.  The one where the signal goes away when you hold the phone.  That instead of 3 or 4 bars... when this problem happens you really have a very weak signal and by grounding the antenna by touching it, you lose service.

So, they will be releasing a patch for all iPhones (except perhaps the original) which will display the "true" signal strength.  Except that now iPhone users will find out just how crappy the AT&T signal may be in their area.

BTW, I don't buy this excuse... they say that the iPhone 3GS had the same bad formula.  But they don't drop calls near as much as the new iPhone 4.  Apple's designers had a victory against the Apple engineers as no engineer would make a phone where you held the antenna.  By showing fewer bars, Apple can blamed the problem on AT&T.  By making the first few bars taller (to make them "easier to see"), Apple hopes that their fans will be lulled into a sense of having a good signal.

Apple admits iPhone 4 reception issues, says fix is coming - CNN.com

 

iPhone 4 gets a $1 alternative to pricey Bumpers - No $30 Rubber Bands

I thought that those bumpers look familiar!

iPhone 4 gets a $1 alternative to pricey Bumpers -- Engadget:

Motorola Droid X -- EVO For Verizon Customers

Finding that the camera is a bit sharper than the EVO, Engadget did a great hands on review of Motorola's new Droid X.

I'll let you read the review but in a nutshell, the Droid X is a good phone that for the most part matches the HTC Evo, just bringing parity to Verizon in the App Phone/Super Phone market.

Based on what I've read as well as my hands on experiences, when you combine hardware, software and service provider, the App Phone rankings are:

1. Sprint - HTC EVO
2. Verizon - Droid X
3. T-Mobile - Nexus One
4. AT&T - iPhone

*Note: I place the EVO in #1 because of the 4G bandwidth where available, the 2nd camera and the HTC Sense UI.  For those not in a 4G service area, it is pretty much a toss-up between the EVO and Droid X.

Motorola Droid X review -- Engadget: