Suddenly, Everyone Wants to Read on an LCD Screen

It must have been about 12 years ago (either late 1998 or early 1999) that I found out about Project Gutenberg. This wonderful idea is a place "where you can download over 30,000 free ebooks to read" on various electronic devices (at the time this primarily meant desktops and laptops). You see, when a book's copyright expires, it enters the Public Domain. As a perpetually cash-strapped student, having free and legal access to so many books was a Godsend. I was so enthusiastic about this wondrous world that gave me quick and convenient access to all these great works that I couldn't wait to tell everybody I met about it—I wanted to share and spread the joy!

However, the response I got was almost universally cold: "Who wants to read on a computer monitor? I'd much rather pay for the paper edition." In the intervening years, as CRT monitors were replaced by LCD monitors (much better suited to reading text), the response surprisingly (from my perspective) didn't change.

Then I heard about electronic paper (e-paper) readers (commonly called e-readers) and was excited: here finally was a technology that could/would get people to read books on electronic devices. When I actually saw my first e-reader (a first-generation Sony device) I couldn't believe my eyes: it was almost as good as reading on paper (at least as good as newsprint). I was thrilled, to say the least. A greater number of people started accepting the idea of reading lots of text on the screen of an electronic device (especially with the launch of the first-generation Kindle) because it offered as good contrast and as little eye-strain as reading printed paper.

Then Apple launched the iPad and among other things, it's being hailed as a Kindle-killer. Wait, what? Suddenly people are enthusiastic about reading books on an LCD screen???? The biggest strength of the e-readers was that they weren't LCD screens: they were optimally suited to reading lots of text. Now, suddenly, everybody is ok reading on an LCD screen...

I can come up with only one explanation that seems to make any sense: Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field...

It is easy to see that the iPad's colour LCD screen is far superior to e-readers' grayscale e-ink screens for animations, videos and comics, but reading books? Come on! If this weren't an Apple product, would people still be going as ga-ga over it with regards to reading books?

In my mind the answer is a clear NO.