Imagine that? It doesn't hurt to look at (like a computer screen), you actually have something tangible (instead of a computer file), and you don't have to LIVE YOUR LIFE IN A FUCKING COMPUTER!

if you're so concerned about someone living their life in a computer, why the hell are you taking the time, on your computer, to post a nasty message to a blog that's ABOUT TECHNOLOGY? I love books too, but come on... if I could get the same content to go on my iphone instead of carrying around a paperback AND a phone? Fantastic. That's one less thing to carry around, which lets me get on with living my life.

that's what you're so concerned about, right?

Welcome Joe... are you the new Machinist?

I just got a BlackBerry in March! I don't need a new phone! The iPhone is just sounding cooler and cooler, though.

I prefer a real book most of the time, but electronic books have been tempting me for a while now, for long trips when I don't want to carry a lot, or when I finish my current book and need something else to read right away. I didn't want to carry around another gadget, though--it's hard enough to keep track of the phone! The eReader on the phone, on the other hand, is very tempting.

Asus eee and their later generation machines all tout wonderful mobility. But I for one would never submit to be chained to a subnotebook with a 7" or even 10" screen. So at best, it's a limited use machine or, probably, your 'second' laptop. Now the idea of synching your two laptops or your subnotebook with your desktop with your phone with your iPod are pretty daunting.

Again though, this is probably a generational thing and younger people won't care how or if or how well all those devices sync together. My teens have maybe a 4 second attention span for that stuff. In either case, I don't know any young people who would 'read' anything on an ebook reader. They will get orders of magnitude more use out of the WiFi in order to google school work cut and paste material.

But in the final analysis all geek journalists know, but ignore, the Devil's First Corollary of All Technology. It is:

Anything that can be used for porn and for anything else, will be used for porn.

The iPhone is perhaps the world's best 'handheld' porn machine on the market today.

I love dead-tree books but I've got a few ebooks on my Palm Zire, and they'll tag along (and be joined by a few more) when I move to an iPod Touch. I must say, it's nice to be able to keep the entire Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (plus English-French and English-Spanish dictionaries) easy to hand without developing lower-back problems.

On the other hand, a major drawback of ebooks as far as I'm concerned is the inability to borrow and lend them, or buy/sell them from/to used book stores. Sure, in the short run that benefits the publishers, but probably not in the long run.

I am right there with you, Joe. I had been hoping that eReader, given that they already had their software running on the Mac, would do a quick port; I was sorry it took a year. But yes, it's great, and I was as happy as you. The two things that I missed most with the first version of the iPhone--games and eBooks--are now in place. I'm a happy camper.

I wish it was easier to read one-handed--flicking a finger across a page to turn it is tricky one-handed. I also wish we had different backgrounds available; the one thing I preferred about the Windows Mobile version of eReader was the backgrounds. And finally, having a version of the book-making software create iPhone-viewable copy would be great.

But all that is minor kvetching; I'm a happy guy.

Comparing any LCD-based ebook reader to an electronic ink device like the Kindle is seriously apples vs. oranges.

The lack of a backlight on the Kindle (and other e-ink devices) is not a deficiency... it's part of the e-ink technology, which is designed to emulate the experience of reading from paper. No backlight means no eye strain. I can read from the Kindle for hours without ever getting dry or strained eyes. And if you need a light for it, there are several clip-ons that work just fine and wouldn't annoy your sleeping partner any more than the light from an LCD screen itself.

The Kindle is an ebook reader -- it's not an all-in-one device, but as an ebook reader, it kicks ass over anything else. And I've been reading (or trying to) on Palm and similar devices since I got my first Palm (the first Palm, the Palm Pilot) as a gift 10 years ago. I'm on my fourth Palm device now and love it as a phone, a calendar, a solitaire player and the place to keep my checkbook register. But no LCD-based device will ever be as good for reading as an e-ink based device like Kindle.

(BTW, you stop noticing the page-turn flash after a day or two.)

I can't "sync" my phone! I can't set my VCR clock! Damn kids won't get off my lawn!

Well ok then what is your delete-sync hierarchy for a 4 way sync? Which device takes priority for deltas that occur at or near the same date? With 3 or 4 address books in a different format, which record is a merge and which is an overlay and which is a replace? Or do you chuck it and dupe them all?

I hope that didn't sound as arrogant as you did.

I downloaded the reader and Frankenstein. Yuch. I can't imagine reading a book on this thing. It's headache inducing. No matter how I adjusted it, the text seemed too small or too big. I need to see the whole page when I read a book. I need to understand the length of an entire paragraph before I start to read it. I think my brain wants to evaluate how much concentration is being asked before it will be allowed to pause again. Also, I want to "curl up with a book" as they say and rest the book in my lap or on the bed -- hard to do that with the iPhone -- it's too far away.

On the other hand, reading The New York Times on the iPhone is amazingly good. Don't know why this is so since I hated the book reader so much, but that was my impression.