Thank you for putting the time and thought into this. If you don't have a blog, you should give it a try.

I like the idea of an ereader, but they aren't ready for me yet. That's just me. I encourage everyone but me to get an ereader, so you can all work out the kinks for me. :)

One thing they will never have that books have, is being able to drop one or lose one and feel nothing more than slight regret. The other day I creased the back cover of a used paperback; I felt a bit of remorse because I have an emotional attachment to books, but I got over it. I'd feel sick if I dropped or creased a $259 kindle, more so if I lost access to all the books stored in it.

"Apple will try to solve a better problem."

What a great way to shift perspective and open up areas of possibility.

Others here object to an ereader doing anything more than presenting static text (and pictures I assume), specifically objecting to video.

For me, an ereader that does nothing more than digitize a book is not nearly enough of a new product to make me want one. Other than a great improvement in storage, and a slight improvement in portability, an ereader doesn't solve the problem that a book solves much better than the book already solves it. That's because ereaders currently try to be "better books," rather than trying to solve a better problem.

Here is an ereader that I would buy instantly:

- Reasonably indestructible.

- Made and makable by many vendors, using basic media standards. Competition is good, lock-in is bad.

- Owned media portable to any new reader that I may acquire, from any vendor. Copyright and piracy issues aside, this is merely an expected consequence of the previous point. Maybe better use of cloud technology would make this practical, and might also help solve piracy concerns. In other words, you don't "practice ownership" (better term?) by having a work on your ereader, you do it by having it on your cloud.

- Able to load media that I and my friends produce informally (without benefit of corporation).

- Tailored to consumption rather than production. I don't want a laptop with a keyboard. CD and MP3 players don't need to give the user the capability to play the bassoon. But I might like to be able to take pictures and record an audio record. I'd accept limited text entry ability if it didn't physically or cognitively bloat the device.

- Able to present any digital media, with a reasonable approximation of "any."

That last point jumps off from jamesmcintyre's "solve a better problem." As long as ereaders are merely better books, I'll probably continue to use paper books, until they're not commonly available.

What I expect to see is new forms and uses of media. Books should commonly become more than just linear text strings, except where that's all a particular work needs or aspires to be.

Certainly I would like video and audio commonly integrated into the idea of a "book," to the point where the table of contents and the index reference not just the beginning of a video/audio section, but specific locations within those sections, just as an index can reference a page within a section. Of course those directories would be active and lead you right to the referenced item.

Works that reference each other should also lead you to those other works (superhyperlinks). If you own access to the referenced work then you should be led to the work itself; if not, then to some "fair" portion or approximation of the work. I don't think payment should be involved; having a consumer exposed to a work, and made a potential buyer, is probably compensation enough.