iPad/Pod/Phone as ereader: No, no, not for me

There’s some debate about whether the iPad/Pod/Phone should be considered an ereader. I do not consider it such and it’s likely I never will. Here is an experience I had that demonstrates why.

On my way to work, standing on the train platform, I wanted to read a book I’d bought and downloaded some time ago. I took out my iPhone, launched my Kobo app and started to read. But I couldn’t get more than three pages without it crashing back to the home screen. I checked the App Store and there was an update to this app. I tried to update the app, but it informed me I was logged into the wrong App Store account. I went into my iPhone settings, logged out, logged back in again, and tried to update the app again.

This time it said I had to agree to new iTunes terms and conditions to continue. Leaving aside that I had at no point done anything with iTunes, I grudgingly clicked Okay (because there was no other button to press.) By this time I was on the train, we went through a tunnel and it timed out before I could agree. I tried again, and was able to approve the conditions. I tried to update the app for the third time, and when the train stopped moving it found enough 3G to download the update. It lagged a bit during the install, but finally it was done.

I launched the app again. Due to the update it had logged me out of my Kobo account. I was able to log in, but it had deleted all my purchased books and I had to download them again. When I did that and clicked on the book I’d wanted to read, it took me to the last page of the chapter I’d been reading. That read (by accident) I flipped back through the pages to find where I’d been.

By this point I’d arrived at work. I’d logged in to a few accounts, downloaded an update, re-downloaded books, and agreed to a hell of a lot of terms and conditions. And what I hadn’t done was read the bloody book, even though it was apparently all set up to read before I started.

Some people might say this is all the fault of the Kobo app, and it’s true that if it hadn’t been buggy I would have been reading for an hour rather than battling my iPhone. But it wasn’t just that app (designed by a company who have their own dedicated ereader.) It was the combination of long processes of many applications and operating systems working (and not working) together to verify and antagonize me into frustration. None of it had anything to do with reading. I was connected to the internet more often than not, to read a book I’d already downloaded.

The iPad/Pod/Phone allows you to read ebooks, but as a bonus rather than its main function. Its lack of dedication to the process means that to me it is a gadget that also reads ebooks, rather than an ereader. And that’s not likely to change.

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Photos: The New Reading by Dave Walker, and #3/100 by northnorthwest (me) on flickr