In this post I’ll lay out the facts about the update, and then I’ll discuss my opinion about these changes in the context of my prior review of the Nook Simple Touch.

Facts about the Simple Touch 1.1.0 update

The first thing to make clear is that this is a software update. The wording of yesterday’s Barnes and Noble’s press release was fuzzy on this point and many sites misreported that new Simple Touch hardware was being released. I called Barnes and Noble customer service today and was told in no uncertain terms that this was a firmware update. There is no new hardware. Barnes and Noble has shared an internal document which lists bug fixes and minor changes but I could not get access to this document. My suggestion to Barnes and Noble: please post detailed 1.1.0 firmware release notes.

All Nook Simple Touches will be updated automatically to 1.1.0 over the coming weeks. But you can update manually, like I did last night. This link takes you to the manual download page, which includes instructions.

Nook Simple Touch Software Updates

If you choose to manually update, I strongly recommend that you reboot your Nook Simple Touch a few minutes after completing the installation procedure. I followed the procedure carefully and found that my Nook Simple Touch was very buggy after the update—until I rebooted the Nook which cleared away all the bugs.

Here is how Barnes and Noble describes the update:

1. Breakthrough E Ink® display—best just-like paper reading, even in bright sun
2. 25% faster than any other eReader ” Best-Text™ Technology for sharper, ultra-crisp fonts
3. Longer battery life—read for over 2 months on a single charge [for one hour per day, not just half hour per day]
4. Ongoing enhancements and other performance improvements

As advertised, it’s faster, with crisper fonts and better contrast. Pictures appear to me to be a little less clear, including the cover pictures when the Nook is asleep. I can’t comment on the battery which would take weeks to test. See later on in this post for my detailed comments about the new fonts.

Here are the rest of the minor updates and bug fixes I’ve been able to discover so far:

• touch: left edge of display now responds as well to touch as the right edge of display
• touch: the book symbol at the upper left now consistently returns the user to the current book when touched
• touch: The edit shelf button is still small but is easier to touch for those with large fingers
• browser access removed altogether
• settings/shop—can “manage credit card”
• Table of Contents aligns left even for nested TOC
• Previously, all PDFs automatically reflowed at the third and larger font sizes. Now some PDFs reflow at the smallest font size as well (Is this a bug or a feature?)
• Speculative: my Nook sometimes required rebooting before the battery could charge when plugged into an electrical outlet. This bug may have been fixed as I have not had this issue since the 1.1.0 update.

I’ll further update this list over the next few days as I discover more changes. I would greatly appreciate comments on any changes I haven’t yet noticed or any facts I’ve manged to get wrong.

How the 1.1.0 update changes my review of the Nook Simple Touch

Both the battery life and page turn speed were so good to begin with that I don’t think improvements in this area will really matter to most people. They certainly don’t matter to me. The improvements to the font rendering and contrast however are very significant.

Quite a few people have expressed a preference for Kindles over the Nook with respect to contrast and font rendering. I don’t have a Kindle to compare to at the moment, but I will later this month when I get my Kindle Touch. So I’ll just compare the Nook Simple Touch to itself, before and after the 1.1.0 update.

All text appears sharper, and is easier to read when glare is present. Before this update, I disliked 5 out of the 6 fonts at the two smallest font sizes. I only used the default Caecilia font, which was a little darker than the others and good enough that I didn’t notice anything odd while reading.

Nook Simple Touch with malabar font

With 1.1.0, the fonts are now rendered so differently that they appear to my eyes to be altogether different. Malibar is now my favorite (above image is at second smallest font size). I still really like Caecilia too. Amasis does not look as sharp as the other 5 fonts, particularly at the two smallest sizes.

I previously commented that the other three fonts reminded me of what print looked like on 300 DPI laser printers when they first came out 15 years ago—so thin and plain as to be distracting. These three fonts are greatly improved and are fine for reading at any size.

It is my understanding that most people find serif fonts like Caecilia, Malabar, and Amasis easier to read on paper, but sans serif fonts like Gill Sans, Helvetica Neue, and Trebuchet easier to read on computer screens. I believe this is because serifs require a higher resolution than most computer displays offer. The Pearl E-ink display of the Nook Simple Touch is enough like paper to my eyes that I prefer serif fonts over sans serif, despite the great improvements to the sans serif fonts. So I’ll be using Caecilia and Malabar.

One thing Barnes and Noble has not changed is the Home Screen. Barnes and Noble delights in pointing out that, unlike Kindles, Nooks don’t have ads. However, there are many ways in which Nooks act as a funnel into the Barnes and Noble store. Nowhere is that more apparent than the home screen, which advertises displays Barnes and Noble books on the bottom half, and only displays “new reads” obtained from Barnes and Noble’s e-store in the upper right corner. Needless to say, I continue to bypass the home screen in favor of the library screen, which only pushes ads Barnes and Noble book samples about once per month (which I then promptly archive).

I was hoping to see the “return to prior screen” button become standard on every screen but that has not yet happened.

Conclusion

So what do I think of this update? The bug fixes are welcome as are the battery and speed improvements. But the show stopper is the software improvements to the display. I’m guessing that improved contrast and font rendering makes the Nook competitive with the Kindle in the area of text clarity, though I won’t know for sure until I get my Kindle Touch.

However, my overall conclusion about the Nook Simple Touch remains the same: If you want a novel-sized, black and white E Ink touch e-reader with varied options for holding and page turning, then you will be very happy with Nook Simple Touch hardware. I like the hardware so much that I’m not particularly hoping it’s someday replaced with improved hardware. If only I could say the same about the Nook’s platform.

The Kindle platform already had a number of advantages over the Nook when I first wrote my Nook Simple Touch review. But Amazon has improved the Kindle platform significantly since then with the addition of personal document sharing, library lending, and a free book per month lending program for Amazon Prime members. Though Kindle hardware trails a bit at the moment, those who are patient can expect popular Nook hardware features to eventually make their way to future Kindles.

The Nook Simple Touch is a great e-reader, made even better with firmware update 1.1.0. Used in conjunction with in-store advantages, it will be the most appropriate e-reader for some. But for those who don’t have ready access to a Barnes and Noble store and who want to easily access their purchased or side loaded content on any device for many years to come, the Kindle platform currently has the edge.

Hardware questions (less important)

1. Do you prefer black and white E Ink or high resolution color LCDs?
2. Do you prefer touch or keyboard?
3. What size do you prefer—pocket, novel, or large tablet?
4. How are page turns? How will your hands feel after hours of use?
5. Are any other hardware features important to you such as speed, battery life, connectivity, or expandable storage?

Platform questions (more important):

6. How good is the user interface on this device and other devices for this platform?
7. How well does the software on the device support what you want to do with it?
8. What kinds of lending, borrowing, and in-store reading are available and how well do they work?
9. What is the e-book store like?
10. Will you be able to read the kinds of material you want to read on this device?
11. How is customer service?
12. Do you want to maximize flexibility or minimize interruption?
13. Summing it up—Which platform do you want?

The last question may be the most important: Which platform do you want? With the printed books lining your bookshelf, you or anyone you lend them to can read them any time, anywhere. With books you buy for your Kindle, Nook, or iOS device, it’s not anywhere near so simple. Who, where, and how your e-books can be accessed is complicated and limited.

The rest of this post describes the choices you have for each of these questions, focusing especially on the device I’ve been using heavily for the past 3 months: The Nook Simple Touch. Think of this post as a reference, a thorough Nook Simple Touch review, and most importantly a thought process for sorting out what you most want in a portable reading device and platform.

UPDATE: Barnes and Noble released firmware update 1.1.0 on November 7, 2011. Read about the incremental changes to this review, here.

Introduction

I bought a Nook Simple Touch about 3 months ago for $139 (+ tax). For something costing this amount, you might think a few minutes is enough time to decide whether to buy it or a competing device like a Kindle 3 (now called Kindle Keyboard) or iPod touch. But consider that e-books cost money too. At a typical cost of $9.99 per e-book, you could spend $200 purchasing 20 e-books each year.

When you buy an e-reader, you’re also buying into a platform which limits choices for accessing various formats and e-book stores, including e-books you’ve already purchased. If you own a lot of Kindle books you’ll want to keep buying Kindles or other devices that can read Kindle’s proprietary format so that you don’t lose access to your already purchased books. Same is true for the Nook.

So, before you commit to buying hundreds of dollars worth of books for the Nook, Kindle, or some other reading platform, you’ll want to know if it’s the right long-term platform for you (Either that, or stick to free reading materials so that you’re not committed to the platform).

Looked at in this light, hardware is not as important as the platform. Most reviews of the Nook Simple Touch and competing devices focus primarily on the hardware, with little regard to the overall platform question. This made sense in years prior when there were many hardware limitations. But most new reading devices released after the middle of 2010 have been plenty good for reading text. The bigger differences are in the platform behind the device.

I’m going to take a different approach and guide you through a series of questions that will help you think about both hardware and platform choices. I’ll focus on the Nook Simple Touch since that is what I’ve been using for the past 3 months, but to properly frame the discussion I will frequently refer to competing devices from Amazon and Apple.

Given the length of this piece, you may want to focus on the sections that most matter to you. If there is one section you shouldn’t skip, it is the last section: “Which platform do you want?”

Question 1: Do you prefer black and white E Ink or high resolution color LCDs?

Many people think E Ink is easier on your eyes than LCD screens. I used to think that too. Having used and written about the iPod touch as e-book reader, I now have a different view. E Ink is far easier on the eyes than commonly available low resolution LCD screens. But the very best LCD screens with 170 PPI or higher such as Apple’s Retina display or Samsung’s Super AMOLED displays are excellent for reading and just as easy on the eyes for many people.

E Ink is generally easier to read in sunny or bright lighting conditions. In dim lighting conditions an E Ink display requires a lamp or clip-on light. An advantage of having no internal backlight is that battery life is measured in weeks.

Conversely, LCD screens are backlit and work well in dark to moderate light conditions. Outdoor use is problematic due to glare. Battery life will be measured in hours.

There is plenty of debate about E Ink vs. LCD. I suspect neither will prove superior, but just a matter of choice and preference. Very helpful is to borrow both an iPod touch 4g and a current generation e-reader such as the Nook Simple Touch or Kindle 3. Try using both in bright and dim conditions. You’ll find out soon enough which you prefer. For some people the answer is both: use E Ink in bright conditions and backlit LCD in dim conditions.

How does the Nook Simple Touch stack up against the E Ink competition?

The Nook Simple Touch has the same 6 inch, 167 PPI Pearl E Ink display found in the latest Kindle and Kobo E Ink readers. Displays using the new Pearl E Ink technology have much better contrast than E Ink displays from prior generations and are therefore easier to read in a wider variety of lighting conditions.

Despite using the same panel, text on the Nook looks different from text on the Kindle. Both have crisp text and good contrast, but Kindle seems a bit crisper to some eyes, and much crisper to others. Part of this is because full refreshes happen only once every sixth page turn on the Nook, causing ghosting (faint images from prior pages). This ghosting can be quite noticeable by the fourth or fifth page. But some people believe that a more important text crispness issue is different font designs and rendering techniques. I have not used a Kindle 3 so all I can say personally is that the Nook Simple Touch is both crisper and easier to read with a greater variety of lighting conditions than older displays such as the Kindle 2 or the original Nook. Most importantly—it’s plenty good enough for me.

Some people are annoyed by the way E Ink flashes with each page turn (full refresh). This happens only once every 6 pages with the Nook Simple Touch. Though it’s nice that this is absent for 5 of 6 pages, some people find this occasional page flash jarring.

Reading with the Nook’s default Caecilia font feels like reading a paperback book—I don’t even think about the font. Not so with the other 5 included fonts. All 6 fonts look good at large sizes. However, at the second or third smallest size (similar to a paperback novel), I find Caecilia far easier to read. My second favorite, Malabar, is readable but thick, squished and wide. Amasis is a fairly narrow font that looks cramped for my eyes at my normal size setting but looks very nice at the fourth and higher font size. The other 3 fonts, Gill Sans, Helvetica Neue, and Trebuchet remind me of what print looked like on 300 DPI laser printers when they first came out 15 years ago—so thin and plain as to be distracting.

As with any touch screen, smudging can be an issue. If I look at my Nook from just the right angle and catch the light just right, I can notice smudges. However, with typical lighting and clean hands, I just notice the text I’m reading. I suspect it’s not a good idea to read a Nook with very dirty or greasy hands—but you wouldn’t want to do that with other e-readers or regular books either.

Some people wonder if the Nook’s touch screen reduces reading quality. I suspect it does, but only slightly. There are rumors that Amazon has been slow to introduce a touch-based Kindle because it reduces crispness and/or clarity of text. The biggest issue I’ve noticed with the Nook’s touch screen is that it catches more glare outdoors than E Ink readers that don’t have a touch screen. It’s not a lot of glare, and glare can be reduced by changing the angle of the Nook. But for those who read outdoors frequently, the (non-touch) Kindle display is at least mildly preferable.

Bottom line: The Nook Simple Touch E Ink display stacks up well versus the E Ink competition (using the default Caecilia font). If you use the smallest font size, you read outdoors a lot, or have very discerning eyes, you’ll likely prefer the Kindle 3 display. But the bigger question will be whether you prefer E Ink or high resolution color LCD. Or both.

Question 2: Do you prefer touch or keyboard?

In the past, getting a touch screen device for reading required an LCD screen. Several E Ink devices are now available with a touch display, so you don’t have to give up touch to go with E Ink.

The success of the iPhone has made it clear that most consumers prefer touch over keyboards in handheld devices. There will always be exceptions, of course. Some people find they can type much faster with physical keyboards and find that useful for taking notes. Some people may be accustomed to Kindle keyboards and don’t want to change to something new. But touch screen keyboards work well enough for most people and help keep devices smaller, lighter, and simpler to use.

Touch works quite well on the new Nook. The infrared touchscreen technology used cannot match the responsiveness of capacitive touch displays found in devices like the iPod touch. However, it doesn’t feel sluggish when turning pages or navigating, and that’s all that really matters for a reading device.

A few quirks:

• Light touches work best.
• The left most edge of the display is less sensitive.
• When used in a hot room, the touch display is less responsive.
• The touchscreen is normally so responsive that it’s easy to accidentally double turn a page.

After a few weeks of use I got used to these quirks and learned to work around them. I now find touch to be responsive, intuitive, and automatic.

Like all touch-based devices, an adult finger is not all that precise. Barnes and Noble designed the interface with buttons in some places that are too small to easily touch. For example, if you want to edit a “shelf” to have more or less books, you need to touch a circle (with a triangle in the middle) that is literally 2 mm wide. I can only hit it in maybe 1 out of every 5 tries, and missing lands me on a different screen. If the button were 4mm wide I wouldn’t have a problem.

There is clearly room for minor improvement, some of which may be accomplished with software updates. But this first version of the touch display already works quite well for reading and navigating. Given that this 1.0 version of touch already competes well with keyboard-based e-readers that have years of refinement behind them, I suspect e-readers are headed in the same direction as phones. Devices with keyboards will be a niche part of the market a few years from now.

Question 3: What size do you prefer—pocket, novel, or large tablet?

For many people, the answer to this will depend on the situation. When out and about, you may want something you can carry in your pocket. When reading around the home or office, most people prefer larger sizes, perhaps a novel size for books, and a large tablet for reading magazines, PDFs, or newspapers.

Keyboard-based Kindles are too large to fit in a pocket. The Nook Simple Touch has the same display size yet fits nicely in a large vest or jacket pocket. I’ve carried it around and used it in a large vest pocket. I find it to be less cumbersome than a paperback book, which is thicker and heavier.

You can carry an iPod touch or smartphone in any sized pocket, but you lose screen size. I find that 3 screens of iPod touch text equal about 2 screens of Nook text. The only way I get this good a ratio is by using a smaller font size on the iPod touch while holding it a few inches closer to my eyes.

Another issue with pocket sized devices is that most of them are general purpose pocket computers. As I discussed in this interruption technology essay, reading on a pocket computer can be more difficult due to interruptions and tempting distractions.

Some things will never work well on a 6” screen. Most notably, PDF documents are usually formatted for 8.5” x 11” paper. PDFs with lots of graphics can be difficult to read on a small screen, even with lots of helpful panning and zooming controls as found on Kindles (but not this Nook). Magazines, picture books for kids, and other large format content will also benefit from larger screens.

The iPad and its large tablet competitors will be preferred for such large format content, all other things being equal. However, as of 2011, large tablets have low resolution displays and are much more expensive. I personally plan to avoid the large tablet category until display resolution increases, price declines, and the software platforms mature.

Given that device costs continue to drop, I suspect that the size issue won’t be an either/or choice much longer. Most people will choose to have multiple devices, each used at different times and places, and for different content. However, the size of the Nook is particularly attractive given that it has a novel-sized screen but can fit into a large pocket or purse.

Question 4: How are page turns? How will your hands feel after hours of use?

I happen to have hands that tire easily when gripping something for hours at a time. I avoid reading large hardback books for that reason. Paperback books are much better, especially slim ones.

How will your hands feel after several days in a row of e-reading many hours/day? It will depend a lot on the size of your hands and how you hold the device. An iPod touch is something you clutch in one hand. If you grip it hard, your hand may get tired like mine does after a few hours. You may find yourself looking for ways to read without holding it.

The Kindle 2 and Kindle 3 are light. But you have to keep your hands in the same place at all times in order to have access to the page turning buttons. Some people are able to use this device one handed while resting the other—but we’re still talking about keeping your hands in the same position, which for some people gets tiring after hours of use.

I think this is the one aspect of the Nook Simple Touch hardware that has leapfrogged the competition. The combination of wide bezel (area surrounding the screen), small size, light weight, rubberized surface, and three page turning methods means there are numerous ways to hold the device.

The most obvious way to hold the new Nook is with the bottom corners digging into palms, with thumbs resting on the bezel, so that you can turn pages by pressing the upper page turn buttons built into the bezel. This would be the most comfortable position for me if not for the hard plastic edge digging into my palm. Wearing bicycle gloves helps a little and using a skin or cover might help even more.

But instead of trying to make my favorite hand position work, I just shift my hands around in a variety of positions, and can hold it in any of the following ways:

• any combination of corners
• like a phone (one handed)
• pinching it with 2 fingers (one handed)
• with one hand in back and thumb across one top corner (one handed)
• with one hand in back and other hand’s thumb on opposite top corner
• lean it against something

Part of what makes this work is having three different ways to turn a page. I often use the slim buttons built into both sides of the bezel. These buttons require a strong press which some people find uncomfortable. But it does mean far fewer accidental page turns compared with button presses on the Kindle or screen touches on the Nook. I also turn pages by touching the screen’s right or left screen edges, when holding the Nook one handed. Others prefer swiping for its reliability (touching the side of the screen sometimes results in double page turns). Having 3 choices means that most people will find some way of holding the Nook and turning pages that pleases them, or may prefer as I do to rotate through many positions to avoid hand fatigue.

If hand fatigue issues have soured you on e-readers, you’ll want to try this device. None of the competition to date offers anywhere near the variety of potential hand positions as the Nook Simple Touch.

Question 5: Are any other hardware features important to you such as speed, battery life, connectivity, or expandable storage?

In talking to people about e-readers, I’ve noticed that a minor feature or two sometimes makes a big deal of difference. Let’s take a look at some of these features, one by one:

Speed: E-reading devices based on E Ink have been plagued with speed issues for years. Older models of the Nook and Kindle had noticeably slow page turns and sluggish behavior for anything but reading a novel. However, the recent crop of devices released since mid 2010 have all been fast enough to read appropriately formatted books without hindrance, and navigation is faster as well. Speed will only be an issue if you’re buying an older, used device.

The Nook Simple Touch in specific is among the fastest E Ink devices available partly thanks to full refreshes only once every 6 pages. While reading, you may not notice a difference between a Kindle 3 and the Nook Simple Touch. However, the lack of full refresh on 5 out of 6 pages means the Nook is much faster at rapidly skimming though a book. While the touch screen does not respond instantaneously to touch, it is plenty fast enough for the types of navigational activities needed on an e-reader.

Browsing: Speed does matter if you need a browser for reading or other purposes. Browsing on LCD devices such as the iPod touch and the Nook Color is much faster and better than browsing on E Ink devices. The Nook Simple Touch doesn’t even try, as there is no officially supported browser. Some types of reading can only be accessed via the web, so the lack of browser in the Nook Simple Touch restricts what can be read on the device. Note that there is an undocumented browser that can be used, but it is buggy, slow, and primitive. The lack of a supported browser means lack of access to cloud-based reading with Google Reader or the recently released Amazon Cloud Reader. If you want a workable (but not great) browser on an E Ink device, you’ll need to get a Kindle.

Battery Life: LCD-based e-readers have battery life measured in hours. If there are times when you’ll be away from an electrical outlet for days or weeks at a time, then E Ink based readers such as the new Nook are your only option. The latest E Ink based readers all have battery life measured in weeks. Minor differences between them are irrelevant.

Storage: Most portable reading devices include at least 2GB of internal memory, which will easily be enough storage to accommodate hundreds of books. 2GB is the advertised internal memory (RAM) for the new Nook. However, 1GB is for system software, and .75GB for e-Books purchased through the Barnes and Noble store. Only 240MB remains for side-loaded content such as PDFs or books from other stores. On the bright side, you can go far beyond this by purchasing an inexpensive SD card.

Expandable storage: Most portable reading devices do not provide an expandable storage option. The Nook Simple Touch is an exception, accepting inexpensive SD cards of up to 32GB. If all you read are text-only books obtained from the default store for your device and you plan to store fewer than 500 books, this won’t matter. However, if you plan to load many PDFs or books with graphics on your device, you’ll need more than 2GB. Also, as discussed in the prior paragraph, the Nook dedicates only 240MB of the device’s memory for side-loaded content.

Audio: The Nook Simple Touch has no audio. Kindles, iPod touches, and most other reading devices include audio, which can be useful for pronouncing words or reading books out loud.

Connectivity: The new Nook can access content via WiFi or a USB connection to a computer. A 3g cellular connection is not an option. This means that WiFi or a USB computer connection is needed for downloading new reading material. For people who travel a lot or who don’t have WiFi at home, this may be an important reason to get the competing Kindle 3g model instead. For a growing number of people, WiFi is accessible at work, at home, or free WiFi hotspots. Barnes and Noble provides free WiFi at all USA Starbucks and Barnes and Noble stores.

International: The Nook Simple Touch is intended to be a USA-only device. There do exist ways to buy the Nook and books from the Barnes and Noble e-book store outside the USA. But if you don’t live in the USA, why bother? The Kindle is designed to be used internationally (including some models with international 3G access) and so are Apple iOS devices such as the iPod touch. On the other hand, if all of your reading material on the Nook will come from PDFs, public domain sources, or other side-loaded content, then the USA-only restrictions won’t matter.

Question 6: How good is the user interface on this device and other devices for this platform?

Apple’s iOS platform has a user interface that is much easier to use than any dedicated e-reader device. But does this really matter? Is Nook’s user interface and supporting software good enough for reading, navigating, and obtaining new reading materials?

Before answering this question, it should be noted that Barnes and Noble tends to rush e-reader hardware to market before the supporting operating system is polished and free of bugs. This is followed over the next year with automated updates that fix or improve the operating system. The original Nook was difficult to use for anything but reading an already loaded book when it first shipped as the software was slow and buggy with several confusing design flaws. As these flaws were gradually corrected over time, many people came to love the device. Not me. I never liked the split user interface and I thought the original Nook was too heavy.

The new Nook breaks the trend of rushing products with unfinished software to market. The 1.0.0 software version that initially shipped with the new device was fast, intuitive, and had few obvious bugs (1.0.1 is the latest version as of September 2011). The onscreen keyboard is well designed and easy to use for most people, including myself. Navigation, controls, and settings are organized around three separate areas, one for words or phrases on the current page, one for the book you’re currently reading, and a physical button to access everything else. Here are the details:

A tap on the center of the screen while reading brings up the reading controls. These include content, find, go to, Aa text, and more. Here’s what they do:

Content: 3 tabs show Chapters, Notes & Highlights, and Bookmarks. Chapters show an active table of contents, if present. You can’t modify the table of contents. Notes and Hightlights show words you’ve highlighted or typed in notes about. To see an actual note, you need to tap on the entry which takes you to the page with that note. Then you tap on the note icon on the right. Bookmarks show a list of page numbers and first few words. These are pages you bookmarked by touching the upper right hand corner of the display while reading. For books which lack table of contents, you can easily construct your own using bookmarks.

Find: Use the popup keyboard to find every instance of the word or phrase you type within the current book. This works as you’d expect.

Goto: Move the slider to any part of the book to see what that part of the book looks like. You can then choose to “go to page” that the slider is on or “go back” to where you were reading. Readers of physical books who miss being able to flip around a book may like this feature.

Aa text: You can change font, size, line spacing, and margins to suit your tastes here. As discussed in section 1 (E Ink vs. LCD), I believe the default font is by far the best but you can judge for yourself. There is also a “publisher defaults” button. I have found that these formatting controls do not always work. For example, books you borrow from a library using Overdrive cannot have margins, line spacing, or font adjusted. PDFs appear in true (and usually too small) PDF form on the two smallest font sizes, but reflow into the appropriate size when one of the largest 5 font sizes are chosen. For Nook-formatted epub books you purchase in the Barnes and Noble store, you can change any of these settings.

More: Brings up information about the book—title, author, size, file location, and date modified.

A tap on the Nook’s one physical button brings up the following choices related to navigating and controlling the device: home, library, shop, search, and settings.

The “home” screen is essentially advertising for Barnes and Noble. It is useless for my needs, and lacks customization options. The home screen is divided into 3 sections:

1. It shows what I’m reading now (redundant because there is a “go back to reading” icon in the upper left corner of most screens).
2. It shows “New reads” from my library. Except it’s not really from my library, but the last 3 books downloaded from the Barnes and Noble store, which is almost never what I actually want to read soon.
3. It shows “What To Read Next” on the bottom half of the screen, which pictures 4 different books from the B&N top 100. Never have I seen a book here I’m interested in reading. If I had a number of Nook lending friends with similar tastes, then their recommendations would show up in this section—but when will that ever happen?

The Home screen would be more useful for a person whose primary reading material is popular books purchased from Barnes and Noble’s e-book store. Few people fit this profile, so it would be great if this screen could be customized to better fit each person’s reading habits. For example, to fit my reading habits, I’d like to see the three most recently read books. I’d also like to see suggested new books that are similar to books I’ve fully read on the Nook from any source.

The “library” screen is far more useful and is my de facto home screen. I am usually reading at least 2 books at a time—one for myself and one to my 6 year old son. So I can conveniently switch back and forth between books from the library screen when “All” and “Most Recent” are selected (which shows my entire library, ordered by most recently opened).

You can use the library’s dropdown menu to view all, books, shelves, my files, archives, and everything else. Shelves are categories that you arrange. You start with no shelves but you can create as many as you want, and then each book can be placed in 0 or more categories. With fewer than 100 books this is a fine way to organize books but I wonder how well this would work if you had hundreds of books.

The search function might prove more useful for those with large libraries. Type in one or two keywords and it will bring up everything on the Nook with these keywords in the title or author name. It’s easy to use but you can’t search the content of your books this way—just titles and authors.

The shop screen gives you many different ways to browse books, including categories, popular lists, and your own wish list. You can also search for titles in the ways you’d expect. Assuming you have a Barnes and Noble account setup with an active credit card on file, purchasing is very easy. The bottom half of the screen rotates through advertisements, including a “Free Fridays” screen on Fridays which highlights a expensive book that you can download for free.

Settings allows you to configure the device to your liking with options around Device Info, Wireless, Screen, Time, Reader, Shop, Social, and Search. Clicking on Device Info gives you remaining battery and available storage information. The most commonly used setting for many people will be Wireless, as turning off wireless extends the battery life.

So now that I’ve run through each part of the interface, how does it work as a whole? Overall, quite well. I like how the controls are logically grouped between device (the physical button), book (tap center of page), and phrase/word (touch word for 2 seconds). But there are some quirks:

1. By far the most important deficiency is a lack of “back” button on most screens. I’m used to it from using browsers and other touch-based gadgets. This lack of “back” button means it often takes 2-4 actions to return to the prior screen.
2. The Nook is designed to funnel you into their store at every turn. I understand that’s how they make money, but some onscreen distractions are over the edge. For example, 1-2 book samples per month are automatically downloaded onto your device which will show up at the top of your library until you archive or buy them (I don’t think you can delete them but at least archiving gets them out of your sight). None of these books have been remotely related to the kinds of books I like to read. As I already discussed, the Home screen is essentially advertising space for books to buy. And, overall, it is very easy to download books from the Nook e-book store but much less convenient to obtain reading materials in other ways.
3. My large fingers are unable to reliably touch the 2mm button (required to edit a shelf). I get it right on about 1 out of every 5 tries. There’s no reason for the button to be this small and I hope that future software versions have a minimum button size of 4mm.
4. I need to see informative error messages. I was not able to take advantage of reading books at Barnes and Noble stores at first because my credit card at Barnes and Noble was out of date. I wasted 30 minutes figuring that out because the Nook did not provide an informative error message. I’ve had other uninformative messages related to the one-hour limit of in-store reading.
5. Selecting a single word for highlighting, sharing, or note taking is simple enough. Just touch the word for about 2 seconds. But selecting more than a single word is more complicated. First select the first or last word in the phrase you want to highlight. Then click on the back bar of this highlight and stretch it over the phrase. Did you let it go by accident or miss by 1 character? Oops. Start all over. On the bright side, looking up old notes or highlights is simple and intuitive.
6. Unlocking the screen is somewhat cumbersome. It’s a two step process requiring first a button press and then a swipe. It may take several tries before your swipe is registered.
7. You need to remember to lock your screen before transporting the Nook by pressing the on/off button on the back side. If you don’t, all sorts of things will happen as the sensitive touch screen gets pressed. I nearly purchased a book I had never heard of and didn’t want because I forgot to lock the screen before putting it into my bag.

All these quirks aside, the touch screen makes many actions very easy. Some screens have a small icon of a book in the upper left corner. Touch that icon to return to reading the current book. To switch books, just press the bottom button, then library, then one of the recent books you’ve been reading. Bookmarking is a simple matter of touching the upper right corner. If you only use bookmarks at the beginnings of chapters, then you’ll end up with a list of bookmarks that is effectively table of contents. This comes in very handy for books lacking table of contents, as the bookmarks can be easily accessed by a tap on the center of the screen, followed by a tap on the bookmarks.

The other Barnes and Noble reading device is the Nook Color, which also has a touch-based interface. I have only tested the Nook Color for a few minutes but there are many positive reports about its ease of use. It includes many additional functions beyond the Nook Simple Touch, including an app store, a web browser, email, and access to colorful magazine content. So if you end up liking your Nook Simple Touch but sometimes want more features and flexibility, you have a solid option. Furthermore, the original Nook “First Edition” model is still for sale, and more Nook devices are expected by year end.

So how does the Nook interface compare to devices from other platforms?

Overall, the Nook seems slightly easier to use than the Kindle, due primarily to a touch-based user interface. This is in spite of the Kindle having a several-year head start. As the Nook Simple Touch operating system gets refined (Back button on every screen? Better home screen?), I suspect it will become even easier to use when compared with the keyboard-based Kindle.

Those who want an interface that is even easier to use and far more flexible should consider an iOS device such as the iPod touch. Reading, browsing, and pretty much everything else is faster, more intuitive, and more flexible.

On the other hand, for many people the point of getting a Nook is to focus on reading text-heavy books and/or PDFs. For that purpose, the Nook Simple Touch interface is “good enough,” and for some people the lack of flexibility (when compared to an iOS device) will help them stay focused on reading. It also costs less.

Question 7: How well does the software on the device support what you want to do with it?

I am amazed by the number of different ways people use e-readers or more general purpose pocket computers like the iPod touch. While researching this post, I met an amateur actress who wanted an e-reader primarily for being able to review scripts without having to carry around large bundles of papers. For her, that automatic PDF reflow feature of the Nook was a huge plus but would only work if the scans of the play scripts were done with OCR that would insure the PDF was actually text (not just a graphic).

There are many ways people use e-readers. Here are a few typical ones, with my brief comments on which e-readers work well for this purpose:

1. You spend a lot of time at Barnes and Noble stores and will buy lots of e-books: The new Nook is ideal.
2. You want to use the Nook primarily for free reading materials such as old classics, public domain works, library borrowing, and text-heavy PDFs. The Nook works well for this, but so does the Kindle and iPod touch. Your decision will be driven by minor differences between the three platforms.
3. You frequently purchase new books as they come out. The Nook is pretty good for this but the Kindle is better, as Amazon strikes many exclusive deals for new e-book releases.
4. You want a device for a very wide range of reading material, including works with extensive graphics or that originate from the internet. Avoid this Nook. While the Nook Color might work, you’re likely to be more satisfied with an iPod touch or iPad.
5. You read on many different devices. You sometimes find yourself starting to read a book on your e-reader, then picking up where you left off on your phone a few hours later, and then switching again later. You’ll be much happier with a Kindle than either a Nook or an iOS device, thanks to superior sync.
6. You’re an extensive highlighter and note-taker. You’ll be happier with a keyboard-based Kindle than a Nook.

I’m sure people use their e-readers in many other ways and some people will not fall neatly into a single category. But perhaps you’ll get a better idea of what you want and which device is best for you as you read through the rest of this post.

Question 8: What kinds of lending, borrowing, and in-store reading are available and how well do they work?

The Nook excels at lending among friends, library borrowing, and in-store reading compared with the iOS and Kindle platforms. iOS offers none of this. At this point in time, Kindle offers lending, and just rolled out library borrowing. Amazon is also attempting to develop a Netflix-like book subscription service which would have access to older titles.

The question is, how well do Nook’s lending, borrowing, and in-store reading work in practice?

The in-store reading works very well. Once you’ve set up a Barnes and Noble account with a current credit card, you can walk into any Barnes and Noble store, click on shop, then search for any e-book in Barnes and Noble’s system. A book without graphics takes seconds to download onto your Nook, while those with graphics take 20-40 seconds. Once on your Nook, you may read the book for up to an hour at the store. After this hour is up, you may not read the book again until 24 hours have elapsed (though there are reports of some books that are limited to one hour—ever). If you frequently hang out at a local Barnes and Noble anyway, this is a great, easy-to-use benefit. It is also a way to thoroughly check out books for potential purchase. If you have kids, you can read entire kids books this way. You can also read full stories in short story collections. Part of why this system works so well is that the Nook is set up to make shopping the e-book store very easy.

Do note that you can also download book samples, any time you have a WiFi connection. But once that short sample is on your Nook, you won’t be able to view the entire book in the store. The only way to regain that privilege is by logging into your Barnes and Noble account on a computer and deleting the book.

The Nook has a lending mechanism as well which I have not tested. The Nook and Kindle both have essentially the same system in place—you can lend each purchased book once ever for up to 14 days to a friend with a compatible device (Nook owners to other Nook owners). A number of web sites have sprung up to facilitate lending between strangers; a virtual library of sorts. However, given that each book can only be lent once, you’ll only be able to read a certain number of books this way.

I really like the concept of being able to check books out of a library without leaving my home. Unfortunately, the actual implementation of this widely touted Nook feature is clumsy. It uses the Overdrive system, which seems designed first and foremost to protect copyright holders using the ADE DRM (Adobe Digital Edition Digital Rights Management) scheme. As described below, setting up library lending and then using it is way too complicated.

First off, it is not obvious how to get started. Thanks to this excellent Nook Overdrive guide, I was able to get through the process of setting up ADE and download my first book in about 30 minutes.

When I browsed the e-book selections at my library, I was surprised to learn that there were a grand total of 1249 books available. Even more surprising was that nearly all of these books were checked out. Not a single ePub formatted book was available for checkout. I placed three ePub books on hold.

I noticed there were some PDF formatted books available. So I decided to check out a juvenile fiction PDF called Bog Child for testing purposes. After several clicks it was on my computer but not Adobe Digital Editions (ADE). I had to double click on the small download which in turn downloaded into ADE. To get it on the Nook, I had to attach my Nook to the computer with a USB cable and drag the icon of the book from one ADE folder to another. It takes 12-15 actions to get into the library, find a book, put it in the cart, check out, enter my library number, download it, double click the download, go into ADE, hook up the nook, drag it onto the Nook, and then disconnect the nook.

As I already mentioned, Bog Child was available only in PDF, not epub. I did get it onto my Nook, and I could read it. But it was not well formatted. It preserved page numbering for a large page PDF which caused blank space to appear at the bottom of each third Nook-sized page. What a distraction.

A few weeks later, I was notified by email that one of my ePub formatted books was on hold (for 3 days) and was available for download. After a dozen or so actions on my part, Greg Bear’s City at the End of Time was on my Nook. This time, the formatting was beautiful, though the font size was tiny. That was simple enough to correct with the Nook’s font size controls. But given that I read more than one book at a time, I needed to switch font sizes each time I switched back and forth from this book to other books.

For my third book I read SuperFreakonomics in epub format. This had wider margins than I prefer, but the font size was normal and was otherwise fine to read. I also discovered that I could keep reading it past the return date. How? Just keep the book open. As soon as you switch away from the book or sync with ADE, you won’t be able to reopen it.

Were it not for writing a comprehensive review of the Nook, I never would have persevered as long as I did to borrow an e-book. The real library has access to hundreds of thousands of physical books throughout the county and is far simpler to use. For now, unless your library has many e-books in its collection, or your eyes require very large print, my advice is to stay away from Overdrive e-book borrowing for the Nook—it’s not worth the hassle until the interface is improved. The system Amazon just rolled out for library borrowing is much easier to use, so hopefully Barnes and Noble follows suit.

In summary, Nook’s in-store reading is great if you have a Barnes and Noble store near you. Nook to Nook lending is limited to 14 days and only once per book but works. The Overdrive-based library borrowing is currently far too limited and very cumbersome to use—but if your local library has e-books available it is possible to make this system work for you. No competitors to the Nook currently offer this breadth of lending, borrowing, and in-store reading so for those who would use these features, this has to be considered a significant advantage of the Nook platform, especially the in-store features which may never be replicated by a competitor.

Question 9: What is the e-book store like?

When I go into a Barnes and Noble store and pull a random book off the shelf, 999 times out of 1000 the quality of editing, organization, and layout is excellent. There are very few (if any) spelling/grammar/typo issues, graphics are sensibly placed and captioned, font size and line spacing are fine, table of contents are always present and well done when needed, etc. It never occurs to me that I might want to check on any of these things before buying a book. Content, writing quality, and author reputation is all that really factors into my decision.

E-book stores like Barnes and Noble and Kindle are a totally different experience. The majority of books I consider for possible downloading have many types of editing, organization, and layout issues. So in addition to assessing whether the book content and writing quality is of interest to me, I must also assess the quality of editing, organization, layout, whether there’s a table of contents, etc. Examining a small excerpt (free for both Amazon and Barnes and Noble) is therefore a highly advisable step when making a purchase decision. This can be time consuming if there are many competing copies of the same book. To help make the process simpler for yourself, you might want to learn the names of the better publishers and stick with them—something you won’t need to do when buying physical books.

My greatest disappointment with Barnes and Noble’s e-book store is free books from Google. I enjoy reading many classics so I tried downloading a few of the free classics from Barnes and Noble, all sourced from Google. Most of them were of such poor quality as to be unreadable—random spaces, missing paragraphs, misspellings, funny characters appearing in the middle of words, and sometimes even strings of 50 or more random characters. Some books have “Digitized by Google” plastered all over the book, often between two words in the middle of a sentence. I tried examining a sample book on Google Books and on my iPod touch and very few of the errors were present. In other words, the books are fairly clean and readable on Google’s end, but somewhere between Google’s servers and my Nook Simple Touch, Google books get corrupted so badly as to be, in most cases, unreadable.

So let’s say I decide to archive one of these poorly formatted books. When I try to unarchive it, it refuses to download it back onto my Nook. After a little searching, I came to realize that Nook’s system for dealing with content on its servers is full of bugs with regards to syncing, archiving, and unarchiving, so these kinds of issues are common.

Bad as all this sounds, the situation is in some ways worse with the Kindle store. You can only examine a small excerpt from the book, which won’t always get you to the parts of the book you need to assess quality. For example, some books have dozens of pages at the beginning in preface which uses up the entire preview so you won’t have much sense of how the main part of the book is formatted and organized. At least with the Nook, you can examine any part of the book when you’re at a Barnes and Noble store (though you lose that privilege for any book for which you download a sample). Furthermore, if you avoid the Google books, the quality on average seems to be a little higher at Barnes and Noble, at least in my (not scientifically tested) experience.

Yet another issue with e-book stores is book spam of various sorts, which often takes the form of public domain or stolen content that is sloppily formatted and sold for low cost. This has been a bigger problem for Amazon than Barnes and Noble, at least in 2011.

Given that Barnes and Noble has a several decade reputation as a quality bookseller, I’m frankly shocked at the variable quality found in the e-book store. For free books, I have already given up on the Barnes and Noble store. I use online services such as Feedbooks or Manybooks to side load content onto the Nook. The books I’ve obtained from these services have usually been free of error.

One big point in Amazon’s favor is that Kindle Store content, including e-books, is eligible for a full refund if returned within 7 days. E-books can be returned for any reason. Amazon has also been know to issue refunds for books that contain formatting issues or missing text outside the 7 day window.

For people who stick to popular, recent releases, the quality is high at both Barnes and Noble and Amazon. This is particularly true for novels which require no graphics or table of contents. For these sorts of books, Amazon is widely considered to have a better selection, thanks to many exclusive deals. There are many physical books present at Barnes and Noble stores that are not available as e-books for the Nook.

It’s hard for me to recommend either Barnes and Noble or Amazon given all the issues I’ve run into. Hopefully these e-book stores improve over time and I can update this section with a more positive outlook. However, it is possible to have a positive experience with either e-book store if you stick to buying books from more reputable publishers. Given the quality issues I experienced in both stores, the ability to fully examine e-books at Barnes and Noble stores is a distinct advantage for those who live near a Barnes and Noble store. For those who don’t live near a Barnes and Noble store, Amazon has the advantage with its 7 day return policy.

Question 10: Will you be able to read the kinds of material you want to read on this device?

The two prior articles I wrote about the iPod touch and the Kindle focused primarily on this question. They were quite lengthy so I’ll avoid discussing the Kindle and iPod touch other than to say that both can be used to read a wider range or reading materials than the Nook, especially the iPod touch. For more detail, here are the posts:

iPod touch vs. Kindle: Which is Best for Reading?

Can You Read Anything With the Kindle? Almost . . . With Google Reader

Because it has no browser, the Nook Simple Touch is limited to a smaller set of reading materials—novels, chapter books (and short story collections), mixed text and graphics, and PDFs, as follows:

For novels, reading is a breeze. I’ve already discussed touch, page turns, user interface issues, and customizability of fonts, size, and margins earlier in this post. All work very well. Particularly impressive is having so many options for holding the device and turning pages, which results in less hand fatigue when reading many hours at a time. The new Nook is clearly optimized for reading novels.

Books with chapters and short story collections are also done well on the Nook—better than Kindle and in some ways even better than a physical book. Those of you who read all books straight through won’t care. Personally, I like to look at the table of contents. I sometimes jump around to different sections. I sometimes flip through books, and I sometimes do that section by section. I like to see stories and/or chapters start at the top of a page. I can do all these things on the Nook Simple Touch.

A very high percentage of chapter books and short story collections from the Nook store have a table of contents. Tap the center of the screen, tap the leftmost icon, and then tap a chapter name and you’ll be swiftly taken to the chapter, with the chapter title at the top of the page.

For books lacking a table of contents, it’s easy to create them on the fly. Just touch the upper right hand corner of a page to bookmark it and then your collection of bookmarks will effectively be a table of contents. Page turning is so fast that even without using the table of contents it’s quick to flip to the next or prior chapter. To top it all off, there’s a slider feature (choose “Go To”) which allows you to very quickly go to any part of the book, indicating the name of the chapter each time you stop sliding. The Kindle “way points” feature is not implemented on the Nook, but it’s not implemented on most Kindle books either. With all the options for moving around, I find reading short story collections on the Nook to be easy and already second nature.

Mixed text and graphics are problematic for all E Ink readers, whether displaying picture books for kids or the occasional chart or diagram. My experience with this type of reading on the Kindle was very poor. The Nook was a bit better as some publishers have taken the time to format their books to fit the Nook screen. Of the dozen or so books I examined, I found a few kids’ books that were a mess and some that worked pretty well such as Rapunzel’s Tale (Disney Tangled). Nonfiction e-books with the occasional graphic tended to be pretty good. Though less well formatted than physical books, it was nice to see there were at least some books that were passably good on the Nook. In contrast, I found poorly formatted graphics in every sample I examined in 2010 from the Kindle e-book store.

The Nook is good for text-heavy, reflowable PDFs, but bad for graphics-intensive PDFs. The text in many PDFs is searchable and therefore reflowable. If you open up such a PDF on your Nook with the third font size or larger, the text automatically reflows the text to fit on the screen, with any graphics removed. I’ve tried this on nearly a dozen PDFs and it usually works well, though the font size is sometimes too large, and cannot be made suitably small. When you choose one of the two smallest sizes, it shows the original PDF shrunk to fit the Nook, so text is too small to read. On the other hand, if text is not reflowable and/or there are graphics you want to view, you’re out of luck. There’s no zooming and panning controls so both text and graphics are too small. If viewing PDF graphics and being able to pan or zoom around a PDF on a small device is important to you, you should avoid the Nook Simple Touch.

E-readers smaller than a piece of paper are generally not going to be easy to use for reading graphics-heavy 8.5 x 11 PDFs, even with far more advanced controls as are present on the Kindle. So perhaps Barnes and Noble has the right idea to not even try. If all you read are text-heavy, reflowable PDFs, then you’ll be very happy with how simply and well this works on the Nook, but for anything more you’ll be disappointed.

All things considered, the Nook Simple Touch works very well for reading anything that is text heavy. Graphics are generally not done so well, though my experience has been that it’s a little better than the Kindle. But do understand that the Nook is restricted in what you can read. Lacking a browser, email, or RSS reader of any sort means that you’re restricted to reading novels, chapter books, mixed text/graphics, and text heavy PDFs that you get from the Nook store or side load from a computer. With the exception of graphics-intensive books and graphics-intensive PDFs, it works quite well for reading these types of content.

Question 11: How is customer service?

Customer service can only be fairly evaluated from hundreds of experiences, so it’s hard for one person like myself to give a balanced view. However, based on many forum comments and some common sense, I think there are a few observations worth sharing.

If you live near a Barnes and Noble store, you can take advantage of the friendly, enthusiastic, and sometimes knowledgeable staff. There’s a dedicated Nook desk at every store. There’s never a big line. Sometimes the people behind the desk are very knowledgeable and tech savvy. Sometimes not. My own experience has been positive (3 out of 5 of the Nook staff I encountered were sharp and helpful). Some things are much easier to explain and show on a Nook in person rather than on the phone.

If you want to talk to someone but don’t live near a Barnes and Noble store, you’ll need to use phone tech support. There are many forum reports that Barnes and Noble’s phone tech support is inferior to the support available for Kindle and Apple owners.

Barnes and Noble also has an online forum where customers help each other, here:

http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/

My experience walking into an Apple store suggests that in-store customer service is far better at Barnes and Noble than Apple if you are primarily interested in a reading device. This makes sense given that Nooks are reading devices while iPads, iPhones, and Ipod touches are general-purpose devices. While Apple staff can show you how to use the device, they know nothing about the best ways to use these devices for reading—even how to use Apple’s bundled iBooks app. This is all based on my personal experiences with several staff members at a single Apple store.

Another aspect of customer service which I already discussed in the E-book store is how e-books with missing text or formatting errors are handled. Barnes and Noble lets you examine a book for up to an hour per day in their store but once you buy it you’re stuck with it. Amazon doesn’t let you examine more than a small excerpt in advance but allows you to return an E-book for any reason within 7 days. This comes in particularly handy if you purchase a book by accident.

Overall conclusion: If you don’t live near a Barnes and Noble store, you’ll be much happier with the customer service you’ll usually get from Amazon as a Kindle owner or from Apple as an iPod touch owner. But if you live near a Barnes and Noble store, you can get hands-on technical help and customer service. Hands-on can be faster and easier if you manage to talk to particularly tech savvy staff.

Question 12: Do you want to maximize flexibility or minimize interruption?

Earlier this year, I wrote an essay about the trade-offs between flexibility and interruption—The more general purpose and connected a device, the more you can do with it, but the easier it is to get distracted and interrupted. For example, the iPhone 4 has a terrific reading display but it gets used for so much more that many people can’t focus long enough to read a novel on it, or even a short story. Conversely, less connectivity and flexibility means less interruption. The printed book is on the other end of the spectrum from the iPhone 4.

Roughly speaking, here is how I rank device categories on the flexibility/interruption spectrum, from flexible and most interruptions to least flexible and least interruptions:

• Smartphones
• Notebook Computers
• Pocket Computers such as the iPod touch or Galaxy Player
• Tablets
• E-book Readers (LCD)
• E-book Readers (E Ink)
• Printed Books

The Nook Simple Touch is clearly in the e-book readers (E Ink) category. Within that category, it is one of the least flexible devices, given that it has no web browser, has rudimentary sync, and lacks one-touch methods to download anything that doesn’t come from the Barnes and Noble e-book store. In other words, it is about as close as you can get to being a book without being a book.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Only you can decide for yourself. If you’re the type of person that gets easily distracted, then you may find it easier to read with the Nook Simple Touch than more flexible devices. On the other hand, if you want to read more than just text-heavy epub books and PDFs, you’ll find the Nook Simple Touch much too limiting.

If you’re the kind of person that gets easily distracted by technology, then I advise the following—think carefully about what you primarily want to read. Buy the device that is as close to printed books as possible and still allows you to read what you want. It’s hard enough to find hours at a time for reading, so may as well keep additional distractions and interruptions to a minimum.

Question 13: Summing it up—Which platform do you want?

With some product categories (such as AA batteries), what to buy is obvious after just a little research. Not so with portable reading devices.

A few weeks ago I started writing a review of the Nook Simple Touch. The hardware of this marvelous device is designed to make you fall in love at first touch. It happened to most reviewers and it happened to me. If you want a novel-sized, black and white E Ink touch e-reader with varied options for holding and page turning, then you will be very happy with Nook Simple Touch hardware. And you may be less happy with hardware from the competition.

But the longer I spent with this device, the more problems I noticed with the platform behind this excellent hardware until I realized something quite simple—hardware has reached a point where it’s easy to read a book on any of the latest portable gadgets. And even if a particular e-reader’s hardware is best at one point in time, you can be sure that the major competition will come out with similar or better devices within a year. The more important choice is which of the three major reading platforms would you like to tie yourself to—Nook, Kindle, or iOS?

It is much harder to sum up conclusions about the platform than the hardware. Here’s my best try:

The way the software works for the Nook Simple Touch is not perfect. But for a first release, it’s pretty good, and is not likely to be a limiting factor for most people. My guess is that most of the minor quirks I described in this review will be gone within a year after a few software updates. The most obvious missing software feature is a back button. This doesn’t cripple the device, but it does make navigation more cumbersome than it needs to be. For some people the lack of browser will be a deal killer, but that too may be added in the future.

A more serious annoyance is the borderline-obnoxious tendency of Nook software to emphasize privileged content and penalize side-loaded content usability, whether it’s home screen advertising, awkward library lending, limiting sharing to B&N content, etc. Though Apple and Amazon both hinder usability in their own ways on iOS and Kindle devices, it is not to this extreme. iOS is the best of the three as far as maintaining user-friendliness no matter how you use the device.

But the most important question is whether you can easily read any free or legally paid-for electronic content, no matter how it was obtained. LCD tablets and pocket computers based on Android or iOS systems will let you install apps to access content you purchased on other platforms. Unfortunately, no E Ink device currently lets you do that out of the box, and that most certainly includes the Nook. If you own books purchased from Amazon’s Kindle store or even epub books purchased from Sony, it is not a simple matter to read them from your Nook. Various complicated solutions for the technically inclined are required, such as using conversion software from Calibre or “rooting your Nook” to make it into an Android tablet so you can install Kindle or other e-reader apps.

Competing formats and walled gardens of the sort erected by Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony, and Apple are terrible for consumers. But at this point in time, you’ll need to choose one of these walled gardens if you want to read using E Ink.

So which walled garden is better?

Amazon and Barnes and Noble are clearly the two market share leaders with the most content for devices that emphasize reading. Content from both platforms can be accessed by apps on Android, iOS, and Windows. Both platforms offer multiple models, including color tablets able to access video and audio content in addition to books and magazines.

At this point in time, Amazon has a greater selection of popular, recently published books, better phone and online customer service, and a seamless system for automatically syncing content among multiple devices, which makes Amazon-purchased content easily available on almost any device. Amazon also makes their devices easy to use with content beyond Amazon’s e-book store. Barnes and Noble’s store base means you can get in-store tech help (which is sometimes quite good), examine devices before you buy them, get free in-store WiFi, and read any book free in-store for up to an hour. Nooks can read books from most popular formats (except for Amazon’s proprietary format). Kindles read fewer formats, though cumbersome workarounds exists (i.e. Calibre). Both e-book stores have quality issues, though sticking with reputable publishers (including Barnes and Noble publishing) is a way to filter out most lower quality books. Barnes and Noble’s in-store reading means you can examine any part of the book before purchase.

Given these competing strengths and weaknesses, the majority of people who carefully think through this choice tend to choose Amazon over Barnes and Noble due to greater flexibility, accessibility, and ease of use. But if you already have ePub books from a previous Nook or some other epub-based device, or if you tend to spend time at Barnes and Noble stores, or if you plan to root your Nook, then the Nook platform may be a better choice for you. Frequently visiting a Barnes and Noble store (or not) could be what tips the decision one way or the other.

And what about the iPod touch and other iOS devices? Apple has only begun to emphasize books, so has far less content and reading platform features than the other two major platforms. Furthermore, any content purchased through Apple’s iTunes book store can only be accessed on Apple’s devices. So I can’t recommend purchasing permanently walled-off content from Apple. However, iPod touch and other iOS devices are great devices for reading a wide variety of content, including content purchased for the Nook or Kindle platforms. Just be aware that you won’t be able to purchase Nook or Kindle content directly within an app. You’ll have to make such purchases from a browser or on a different device.

Returning to the Nook, you may love the Nook Simple Touch hardware but fear being tied to an inferior platform. However, you can take comfort in the Nook software available for iOS and Android devices. You’ll have access to your Nook books on these LCD devices for the foreseeable future. You’ll also have access to your Nook books from the many future Nook devices sure to come. You may not be able to access your Nook books from all of your hardware, but you’ll definitely have some choices.

I want to emphasize that I love reading on the Nook Simple Touch. In some ways, it’s even easier to use than a paperback book. If you’re not bothered by any of the platform or software issues I mentioned in this post, you’ll likely enjoy using this device for many years. In fact, The Nook Simple Touch is the first e-reader hardware and reading experience that is so good that I don’t hope for improved hardware to come out a year or two from now. If only I could say the same about the Nook’s platform.

New e-reader hardware features such as those found in the Nook Simple Touch can and will be copied. Platform features can not be so easily copied. Hardware is therefore less important than the platform behind it. The three leading platforms have enough differing strengths and weaknesses that it can be tough to choose among them. I hope this post will prove helpful in making that choice.

Since that time, there has been an explosion of interest in helping people read without distraction. Apple has included a Readability button with the Safari browser. All browsers but Safari now include a full screen mode. Many web page reformatting services have come and gone.

But Readable and Readability are the two web page reformatting services which came out first, and both have withstood the test of time. Both also came out with new versions in early 2011. Here’s what you need to know about the latest versions.

Readable

The latest version of the Readable bookmarklet is free, very fast, lets you customize appearance with easy-to-use controls, and works on most sites. For those occasional instances where Readable doesn’t automatically grab the text you want, go back to the web page, select the text you want, and click again on the Readable button.

The old version of Readable still exists. But it will no longer be maintained.

Readable creator Gabriel Coarna intends to maintain and improve the new version of Readable and make this speedy service even faster with browser extensions. He does not intend to add a read-it-later service or the ability to merge multiple web pages into one. But he does intend to add a way to share a Readable-formatted page. The current feature set works very well for those who simply want to read without clutter, one web page at a time.

Thanks to a philosophy emphasizing speed and simplicity, no reformatting service currently works faster or with less clutter than Readable.

Readability

Readability 1.0 was popular, fast, convenient, uncluttered, and effective. Recently revamped Readability 2.0 is still effective, reformats multi-page articles into a single page, and settings can now be changed without having to reinstall the bookmarklet. But there are some drawbacks:

• It takes 5-15 seconds to reformat a web page, compared to 1-2 seconds for Readability 1.0 and the latest version of Readable described above.
• The new method for accessing controls involves a colored strip that you can hide or show on the left hand side which uses up more screen space and attention than the former buttons up top.
• The F5 key no longer refreshes the screen to the original web page.

So the new features come at a cost, which in my opinion outweigh the benefits. However, I expect that arc90 will find a way to speed up Readability, and continue to make other improvements.

With Readability 2.0, there are now two versions: free and paid. In addition to the free functionality described above, the paid version also allows you to seamlessly read articles later and on a variety of mobile devices. Readability can be set up using a browser extension or a bookmarklet.

The paid version of Readability is an ambitious experiment to change the business model for reading on the Internet. Currently, you read for free but content creators get paid when you click an ad or purchase a product or service. With arc90’s experiment, content creators get paid by arc90 each time you read something. In return, you get a better reading experience with no ads or other distractions.

The paid version costs $60/year. It remains to be seen if users and publishers embrace this new Internet content business model.

For those who don’t care for the new version, the old version of Readability can be had at Readabilitude, which copied the open source code from the old version. So far as I can tell, it works just like the old Readability.

Tips for Using Readable and Readability

• Both Readable and Readability provide various customization options such as choosing fonts, text size, and line spacing.
• You can specify the content width for each of these services, so the number of characters per line is not excessive on a wide screen monitor.
• Readability also provides options for turning off link visibility and hiding images.
• Both Readable and Readablity now work in Google Reader.
• It is possible to choose FilterJoe colors by choosing the “Joe Golton” color theme when setting up Readable. Other color themes are available as well, or you can set up your own color theme.

Readable Vs. Readability

I’ve used both Readable and Readability since they first came out two years ago. Readability used to be my favorite because it did a better job of identifying and extracting the main text of sites I visited.

With the latest versions, Readable has matched this ability and become very fast. Meanwhile Readability added useful features, created a paid version with even more features, and is encouraging outside developers to build upon their platform. While I applaud arc90’s bold experiments with Readability, these changes have unfortunately increased visual clutter and increased web page reformatting time to 5-15 seconds per page.

The main purpose of using one of these tools is to be able to read without distraction. Adding 5-15 seconds of load time and a vertical bar to each web page is a distraction. So for now, I’ll be using Readable.

I now use a vertical monitor with high pixel density. It helps reduce eye fatigue, clicks, and distraction.

Why?

How?

The Right Monitor Setup

The picture above is a screenshot of my monitor’s display. Below is one small portion of it. Look carefully at the New York Times article and compare it to what you see on your own monitor, here.

You’ll see that on my monitor:

• There’s no clutter from the web site or the browser.
• The background color is similar to the FilterJoe site, which is easier on the eyes than bright white.
• It’s easy to read!

Furthermore, this 21.5″ 1920×1080 monitor is 34 inches from my eyes, so that I can’t distinguish individual pixels. The enlarged text appears very crisp from this distance, and this means easier reading and less eye fatigue.

To achieve this setup, you need to:

1. Use a vertical monitor. For added flexibility, use a monitor that can pivot between vertical and horizontal positions.
2. Sit far from the monitor and increase screen font size to increase effective resolution. See “Reduce Eye Fatigue” section below for how to calculate this distance for your monitor.
3. When reading or writing a long article, use “fullscreen mode” which can be invoked with the F11 key on most browsers for Windows or Linux users.
4. For cluttered web sites use tools like Readability or Readable to rid a web page of everything except the main content.

For more details on all of the above, keep reading.

A Widescreen Monitor is Not the Best Setup

Reasons people use a widescreen monitor include:

• Entertainment such as video, pictures, games
• Working at two related tasks, such as writing and researching
• Multitasking unrelated activities

The first two uses seem perfectly reasonable, but multitasking unrelated activities is a productivity killer for most people.

Can a widescreen monitor be used effectively for the first two uses? Yes. Many people do. And it may be ideal in certain homes where the display is used for both entertainment and light work. But if you’re trying to work without distraction for hours at a time, you may find that a widescreen monitor will lead you down the dark path of multitasking unrelated activities.

I tried for two years to use a 24”, 1920×1200, widescreen monitor effectively at my office, because I often find myself flipping back and forth between writing and researching. I failed. With the combination of a widescreen monitor and a tabbed browser, I too often succumbed to multitasking unrelated activities.

I had other issues with the wide screen. The short monitor height required too many clicks to scroll through long articles. I couldn’t use fullscreen mode because text stretched super wide. And though tools like Readability or Readable could be used, much of the screen space was wasted with wide margins.

I did distracted myself with many experiments to try to improve the situation, including various utilities or plug-ins designed to manage large screens or block distraction. It turns out that most content is meant to be displayed vertically, and this is assumed in computer software and operating systems. I found myself constantly battling this vertical display assumption, and often losing. So after two years of reduced productivity I gave up on widescreen monitors.

Now I have the best of both worlds. I have a widescreen monitor, but it can pivot into a vertical position. It is in vertical position over 95% of the time.

Reduce Eye Fatigue

Steve Jobs claims that you can’t distinguish individual pixels on a device with more than 300 PPI such as the iPhone 4 or iPod Touch 4g, which both have a 326 pixels per inch (PPI) “Retina Display.” He’s right. That is likely the main reason my eyes get less tired with this device than any other LCD display I’ve used.

This display is so good that the iPod Touch 4g makes for a great e-reader. So I began to wonder: could I get a display this good for reading on my computer?

The answer is yes . . . sort of. You can’t get consumer grade monitors with such high pixel density, but you can simulate it. Here’s why, and how:

Have you ever noticed how a massive HDTV looks great 6 or more feet away, but not so great close up? You can see the individual pixels on a 46” HDTV if you’re 3 feet away, but not if you’re 6 feet away. The same principal applies to an LCD display. Move it twice as far away, and you’ll only be able to distinguish half the detail.

The distance (in inches) at which people cannot distinguish individual pixels can be calculated with this simple formula (see this Discover article for details). Note that PPI is Pixels per Inch:

3438/PPI = number of inches from eyes to display

Example 1: iPod Touch Retina Display 326PPI

3438/326 = 10.55 inches from eyes to display

Example 2: My 21.5”, 1920 x 1080 monitor 103PPI

3438/103 = 33.4 inches from eyes to display

See Wikipedia for the PPI of many common devices.

In other words, you cannot distinguish individual pixels on a 326 PPI Retina Display that is more than 10.55 inches away from your eyes unless you have better than 20/20 vision. The same applies to my 103 PPI monitor at a distance of greater than 33.4 inches.

So doesn’t putting a monitor so far away make it difficult to read tiny type? Yes, but that’s not a problem. I just increase font sizes. To do this in a browser, type control+ on Windows, and command+ on Macs. Or you can use the Readability or Readable bookmarklet with a large font selected.

Enlarged text nearly three feet from my eyes is very easy to read. Another subtle benefit is that page elements such as tabs, menus, and status bars do not get larger. They look tiny relative to the enlarged text, so they’re less noticeable and less distracting.

Note that by enlarging your web pages or documents, you do end up with less information on the screen. I find that I don’t usually need 1920×1080 pixels worth of information on a screen at one time. But when I do, I can simply move the screen closer to my eyes. Yes I lose the benefits of having the equivalent of a Retina Display, but the trade-off is sometimes worthwhile, particularly with large spreadsheets.

Reduce Clicks

Read a web page with more than a few hundred words, and you’ll need to advance the page using a mouse click or your keyboard’s “page down” key. If your work involves reading hours per day, you may do this hundreds of times per day.

On a vertical monitor, you have much more vertical space than on a horizontally positioned widescreen monitor. So you’ll need fewer clicks to scroll through the vertically arranged content, and you’ll be able to see more of it at a time.

For example, my Dell 21.5″, 1920×1080 monitor (HDTV resolution) can pivot between vertical and horizontal positions. The vertical position means 1920 pixels of vertical space devoted to a web page, while a horizontally positioned screen means only 1080 pixels of vertical space

You could theoretically get the same amount of text on the screen by filling up the entire monitor with your browser, but that stretches the text very wide. It is very difficult to read text which has 150 characters per line. Various studies show that people can read fastest at somewhere between 60 and 95 characters per line, which is what I get by positioning my monitor vertically, 34 inches away, with enlarged text.

Reduce Distraction

The advantages of working using the cloud are numerous, but endless web distractions can lead to wasted time and feelings of information overload. I’ve discussed tools for reducing distraction for both writing and reading on the web. These tools work well on vertical monitors but poorly on widescreen monitors.

For example, the simplest distraction blocker is to simply put your browser into fullscreen mode by pressing the F11 key. Try it on a widescreen monitor and you’ll see your text stretches so wide that there’s more than 150 characters per line. This is difficult to read.

Fullscreen mode works as intended on a vertical monitor. You eliminate menus, toolbars, address bars, bookmark bars, and status bars. You also get more vertical space so you’ll display more of what you’re reading, leading to fewer clicks to read a long article.

My favorite distraction blockers these days are tools like Readability or Readable. Readability is built in to the Safari browser and it can be added to Firefox or Chrome with plugins. You can also use Readability or Readable bookmarklets on any browser. These tools do work on widescreen monitors as you can specify the text width, leaving wide margins. But using these tools on a vertical monitor is better because much more text is on the screen, which means less clicks when reading a long article.

But What if You Really Need to See More than One Window?

There are times when it truly is helpful to have two Windows displayed simultaneously. You may be writing while frequently consulting one or more sources. Perhaps your work requires you to monitor numbers, graphs, or images from several different points of view. So what setup works best for this?

Two choices allow you to use vertical monitors.

1. Get a second monitor. You’ll need to make sure that your computer has the graphics card and software to support it and that you have enough desk space. If you need to spend many hours per day with two or more windows displayed, this is the best solution. You can always turn off one of the monitors if it’s a distraction.
2. Get a widescreen monitor that has the ability to pivot. Keep it in vertical position most of the time. Rotate it horizontally only when having more than one window open at a time will really help your productivity.

So What Monitor Models do I Recommend?

If you’re convinced you want to use a monitor setup like mine, you can do it with any monitor that can be arranged in a vertical position.

Inexpensive 19″, 1280×1024 monitors will do. But with 86 PPI, these monitors need to be 40” away to achieve the equivalent resolution of a Retina Display that is 10.55 inches from your eyes. Worse, you’ll need to enlarge the text in order to read it and then won’t be able to see much more information than you can on an iPod Touch. More likely is that you won’t want to position your 1280×1024 monitor so far away, so you’ll notice the individual pixels.

Luckily, high quality 1920×1080 monitors can be purchased for $200 to $400 these days. The diagonal length of monitors with this resolution ranges from 21.5” to 26”, but the larger sizes of these monitors usually cannot pivot. Furthermore, the bigger the monitor is, the farther you’ll need to place it away from your eyes.

So I recommend getting a monitor with the following characteristics:

• Can pivot (vertical or horizontal)
• Is smaller than 24” diagonally
• Has a resolution of either 1920×1080 or 1920×1200

There’s nothing wrong with a resolution higher than 1920×1200, but prices are much higher and you’ll need a powerful graphics card on your computer.

I recommend the Dell UltraSharp U2211H 21.5″ monitor that I’ve been using for the past two months. Clicking on this link takes you to Amazon, which usually sells this monitor for a lower price than Dell.

The 21.5” diagonal screen size was the smallest I could find on a 1920×1080 monitor. It needs to be only 33.4” from my eyes (to achieve the same effect as a Retina Display at 10.55 inches), as opposed to the 37.5” required for a 24” display. Closer is better so I don’t have to lean forward as far when I need to look at something small.

Other notes about the Dell UltraSharp U2211H:

• Its IPS LCD display allows for much wider viewing angles than traditional, cheaper LCD displays.
• This model has dimmer backlighting than most other models. You’ll need to set brightness and contrast higher than you may be used to.
• A modestly more expensive 23″ diagonal version of this model exists: Dell UltraSharp U2311H

There are plenty of other models to choose from, as you can see if you search Amazon for the word “pivot” in the monitor section:

Amazon listing of LCD monitors which pivot

If you’re planning to also use your monitor to watch video, you might want to go with a larger and/or brighter model than my Dell UltraSharp.

Final Comments on Vertical vs. Widescreen Monitors

Having failed to make good use of a widescreen monitor after two years of trying, I’ve obviously given up on them in the office. But many people use them for home entertainment purposes. And some people are very productive with them. Maybe you’re one of them, and you’d like to share about it below.

I’d love to hear about useful alternatives and so would my readers. So please share your comments below about your own experience with monitors or any other related words of wisdom you may have. Thanks!

But are they good for distraction-free reading of the sort I talk about so much at FilterJoe? Should you spend $500 or more on a tablet for use as a dedicated reader? Or should you stick with a less expensive iPod Touch or Kindle for reading?

Bleeding Edge Technology

Many people are happy to read on iPhones, iPod Touches, and other phone models with great screens such as the Samsung Galaxy S. They’re portable. They’re fast. And they’re flexible.

Flexible as these pocket computers are, some people prefer a larger screen for reading. Some formats like PDFs or kid’s picture books involve compromises on smaller screens. Some people will never get used to reading 30-40 words per line that happens on an iPod Touch or a phone. And reading a book on one of these devices to your small child is not a great experience. I’ve tried.

So is it time to buy a tablet for use as a dedicated e-Book reader? Not yet.

Perhaps a better title for this post would have been, “Time for Readers to Buy Tablets? No! Don’t Buy Bleeding Edge Technology!”

The reader-friendly tablet category is new. It was started by Apple with the launch of the iPad in April, 2010. This is bleeding edge technology.

Avoid Buying Bleeding Edge Consumer Gadgets

There are several reasons to avoid buying any bleeding edge consumer gadget.

• You pay a high price to be an early adopter. These $500-$800 devices will be $200-$400 within 3 years.
• Early models are never as good as later models. Expect a combination of added features, better hardware, and refined software within 2-3 years.
• Working through bugs and frequent software upgrades is a distracting waste of time. These issues mostly go away after several years of refinement.

The Garmin GPS navigator that I bought for my car for $140 in late 2009 was faster, lighter, simpler, and has had far fewer problems than the broken Garmin it replaced. The one that cost $440 in 2007. Argh!

There are also reasons to avoid buying a tablet at this time for those who primarily want a reading device:

• The screen resolution of current tablets is less than half the resolution of screens found on many high end phones and the iPod Touch. This can be the difference between experiencing eye strain or not for some people. I’m one of them.
• The iPad and many other tablets weigh more than most books, and are therefore less comfortable to hold for extended reading. Tablets will weigh less with each new generation.
• Dedicated E-book readers such as the Kindle and the Nook cost less, weigh less, and are better focused on reading. The iPod Touch is also a better reading option with its high resolution display and much lower price.

Many People Will Buy Tablets

I don’t mean to knock the tablet category. Many people are happy with their tablets. I’d happily buy a version of the iPad at half the current weight, half the current price, and double the current pixel density. It would be a great device for reading material such as PDFs and picture books that are hard to squeeze onto smaller devices. It might become my main reading device for both work and home.

And who am I to argue with the success of tablets? These devices can do far more than e-book readers. Many people bought tablets in 2010 and many more will buy them in 2011. Reasons will vary from the practical (fits my needs) to fandom (It’s Apple. I have to try it!) to experimentation (It’s new. It’s all the rage. I have to try it!). For many people, $500 to $800 is not a big deal.

Early Adopters Spend More Time and Money

Tablets are winning many fans and I expect them to rapidly improve as reading devices. However, tablets are currently bleeding edge technology.

Early adopters of bleeding edge technology spend more time and money on their gadgets. Avoid distraction and extra expense by avoiding bleeding edge technology.

You may not care about a few hundred extra dollars or the extra time spent on your bleeding edge tablet. And you may find your tablet so useful for so many things besides reading that it’s a great value for you.

But if your primary use will be reading, then you’ll benefit from a lighter, lower cost tablet with a better display. Wait a year or two, and you’ll get it.

• as easy on my eyes as a paperback book
• as portable and convenient as a paperback book
• simple to read for any kind of format
• simple and free to get reading material onto the device

I tried reading anything on a second generation Kindle. The e-ink screen is easy on my eyes and Kindles are great for reading novels. But the software has many shortcomings for reading other material such as PDFs or long articles on the web. I devoted considerable effort to making my Kindle overcome these shortcomings, but in the end decided to try a more flexible device lacking an E-ink display.

An iPod touch and a Kindle

Enter the iPod touch, 4th generation (or iPhone 4), with double the screen resolution of prior models. Reading with the “Retina Display” is easy on my eyes and the software makes reading a breeze for a surprisingly wide range of reading material.

The iPod touch 4G works well for reading. It works so well for me that I stopped using my Kindle and sold it. Read on for details, including many tips along the way for using an iPod for reading.

Contents of this Post

For both the iPod touch 4G and the Kindle, I describe below various aspects of the hardware. I also describe the experience of reading a variety of different materials, including novels, collections of short stories, mixed text/graphics, PDFs, web content, and Google Reader.

As with my Kindle-only post, this is part evaluation and part reference guide, organized by sections so that you can read what is relevant for your and skip the rest. Part of why this post is so long is because the iPod has so much software available for it—but that is a large part of what makes the iPod touch 4G so great for reading.

iPod touch 4G and Kindle Displays

A big advantage of the iPod touch 4G over prior models and competing devices is its 3.5 inch Retina Display, which is 640 x 960 pixels, or 326 pixels per inch (PPI).

The 6″ Kindle display area has 600 x 800 pixels, or 167 PPI.

Why does this matter so much? It has been observed that the unaided human eye can generally not differentiate detail beyond 300 PPI (see here). So all else being equal (including the distance from your eyes), higher PPI will be easier on your eyes, until you pass around 300 PPI.

My eyes are more sensitive than average to fatigue from computer displays, so subtle differences between display types have a big impact. The CRT displays in the 1990s were so tiring that I had to print out anything more than a couple pages long to avoid bleary eyes and headaches. LCD displays are better, but typical 80-140 PPI LCD displays cause eye fatigue if I’m reading text for hours, and mild headaches if I spend more than 10 hours on a given day. Older generations of the iPod touch (163 PPI) are a little better, likely due to the higher pixel density. But none of these have been as easy on my eyes as the paperback novel.

The first truly easy-on-the-eyes display I’ve used is the 167 PPI E-ink Kindle display, when used in well lit areas. Though less than 300 PPI, it seems to be similar in quality to reading a newspaper (see here for microscopic comparisons). Fingerprints and smudges are not noticeable.

I’ve found that the 326 PPI display of the iPod touch 4G is usually just as easy on my eyes. In brightly lit or sunny areas the iPod backlit screen is harder to read, and sometimes the collection of fingerprints and smudges gets distracting enough that I need to stop and wipe. But in most other situations it’s been as easy on my eyes as reading a paperback novel.

Many E-ink proponents believe that the human eye is designed to read reflected light, and that E-ink technology holds the promise of causing less eye fatigue. With current display technologies, this is hotly debated (i.e. see LCD vs. e-ink: The eye strain debate, including comments). Subjectively, some people prefer e-ink, others high quality LCD screens, and for others it depends on lighting conditions.

I’m in this last category, preferring e-ink in well lit areas, and the back-lit iPod in dim areas. Since I mostly read in dim areas, the iPod touch works best for me. My wife far prefers real books and E-ink over back-lit screens, though she does prefer the higher resolution Retina Display to older, lower resolution displays.

The display of the iPhone 4 is even better than that of the new iPod touch. Both have 326 PPI, but the iPhone 4 uses IPS technology which allows for much wider viewing angles. I have not yet tested an iPhone 4 so I really don’t know if the IPS screen makes much of a difference for a single person reading text straight-on. All I can report is that I can read for hours at a time with the iPod touch 4G without experiencing eye fatigue.

If you have an iPhone then you don’t need an iPod touch. However, given that you’ll also leave the phone radio and 3G data on to use it as a phone and pocket computer, the battery may not last as long as an iPod touch that is used primarily for reading.

What about the iPad? It has IPS but a much lower 132 PPI resolution. Now that I’ve experienced how much easier it is on my eyes to read with E-ink or a 326 PPI LCD display, I don’t see why I’d want to use a 132 PPI LCD display for extended reading.

The iPod is FAST

With a Kindle, many things are slow. Page turns are noticeable (especially on older models), and doing anything other than reading a novel can be slow. The browser is especially slow.

The iPod touch is very fast. Whether it’s flipping a page, downloading a book, reading a long article on the web, or opening a PDF—everything happens as fast as you can touch the screen. This is one of the key factors that makes an iPod touch easier to use than Kindles for reading anything but novels.

The thing about reading is you just pick up a piece of paper or book and start reading. If something delays you, you won’t do it as much. With the Kindle, you will experience delays when reading anything except a novel. With an iPod touch, there are no delays.

iPod touch and Kindle Form Factors

The iPod touch is a thin, hand held device, similar in size to a large phone. It can therefore be carried everywhere in a large pocket, purse or backpack. Carrying a small device like this everywhere opens up possibilities for reading in a much wider variety of settings—waiting in line, half-watching kids playing together, showing someone a Wikipedia excerpt, etc.

A subtle but important advantage of using a device this size or smaller is that the small screen forces developers to devote most or all of the screen to the task at hand. This results in a distraction-free reading experience. Sometimes text is sandwiched between strips on the top and bottom devoted to status and/or controls, which is pretty good. But it’s often better: a “full-screen mode” that displays nothing but text.

This is a big deal for me, as FilterJoe’s main focus is on techniques for working without distraction. Here’s a list of the 4 apps I use on the iPod most frequently for distraction-free reading:

• Stanza – eBook reader with full screen mode
• GoodReader – PDF reader with reflow and full screen mode
• MobileRSS – Google Reader RSS client, full screen mode
• Instapaper – Extract long articles from anywhere with a single click for later, paginated reading on your iPod or Kindle

Being a larger device, the Kindle will not fit into a pocket but can fit into a large purse or backpack. With this larger size it is possible to see more text at a time on the screen, hold the device with either one or two hands, and comfortably read on a chair.

The small form factor of the iPod touch can be a detriment when reading in a chair (you don’t want to hold it in the air, but it can slide off your leg). But it is easier to use while standing or lying down given how light it is.

A significant drawback to the size and shape of the iPod touch is that clutching it for hours tires out my hand, a problem I never had with a Kindle. I’ve learned to prop up the iPod by leaning it on nearby objects or by using a specially made stand that came with my protective skin.

Lighting and Battery

Like many people, I do a lot of reading in bed. A Kindle requires external light in the form of a lamp or clip-on light. An iPod is back-lit so no external light source is needed, but many people feel that reading on back-lit screens is unnatural and will make it hard to fall asleep. The backlight can be dimmed however, and those who prefer light text on dark background can select night mode.

E-ink only uses electricity when pages are flipped, so when a Kindle’s connectivity is turned off, the battery can last for tens of hours of reading, and for weeks if the unit is used occasionally.

The battery life for an iPod will vary depending on how it is used but it can easily last over 10 hours if used for nothing but reading. To get the battery to last that long, simply put it into airplane mode and keep the screen as dim as is comfortable for you. Also make sure you have iOS 4.2.1 or later installed as prior versions had issues that shortened battery life.

An iPhone has a larger battery and requires less back lighting to be readable so should last longer than an iPod touch when in airplane mode and used for reading only. However, most people with an iPhone keep cellular connections and 3G data turned on, and this may cause the battery to run out faster than an iPod touch in airplane mode.

Batteries charge from zero to full in less than 3 hours for both the Kindle and the iPod.

Connectivity

Both devices have a USB capability for connecting to computers, but most people find using wireless connections more convenient.

The iPod touch has a WiFi connection only, so for downloading, WiFi must be accessible. An iPod will be much less convenient to use if you don’t have a WiFi router set up at home.

Kindles through the 2^nd generation had 3G cellular connections which was a mixed blessing. On the bight side, you could use these Kindles anywhere a 3G connection is available, which was the U.S. for some versions, and most of the world for other versions. But to keep customers from running up 3G costs too high, Amazon charged a small fee for getting some kinds of data onto the device such as PDF conversions or emailed text. This made the Kindle impractically expensive for reading some forms of everyday reading material. While there are many schemes for trying to get data onto Kindles without cost, many of them required multiple steps or complex setup.

The 3^rd generation Kindle now has WiFi connectivity. There is both a WiFi only model for $139 and a model with both WiFi and 3G connectivity for $189. With the new Kindle, it is possible to use the WiFi connection to get data into the device simply and for free, which makes the Kindle much more practical as a device for reading anything.

For comparison, the least expensive iPod touch typically costs about $210 in early 2011. If you travel a lot and primarily read novels, the $189 Kindle is likely to be the more practical device for you.

Reading Novels

I’ve read a few novels on the iPod touch and it works surprisingly well. The font size I choose gets me around 30-40 characters per line. This is fewer than a paperback but the human eye is good at reading vertically. Though initially skeptical about reading novels with so little text per page, it took me just a couple hours to get used to the smaller number of words per page.

Pages are turned by tapping the right side of the screen or swiping, which is easy to get used to. Accessing the controls varies by app but is usually a tap in the center of the screen or a tap on a settings symbol near the top or bottom of the screen.

What the iPod lacks in screen size it makes up for with great apps, many choices, and fast speeds. If I accidentally turn a page, I can get back to the prior screen very quickly. If I don’t like the line spacing, fonts, or brightness settings, most e-reader apps will let me change that to something I like better.

There are many e-book reader apps for the iPod touch and here are some that I’ve checked out, in order of preference:

• Stanza is my favorite for a number of reasons: typography, brightness controls, full screen mode, speed, ease of downloading/caching content, and a good table of contents system. The greater flexibility of Stanza makes it more complicated to use, so those who want dead simple may not like it.
• The Kindle App also has nice typography but is less flexible. When you buy books through the Kindle store, they’re available and synced to all devices; you can be reading a book on a Kindle and then continue reading right where you left off on your iPod. Books that would benefit from a table of contents often don’t have it.
• Google Books is not in a class with Stanza or the Kindle App in terms of capabilities, but it works okay. And it is impressive that you have access to millions of books.
• The iBooks App made by Apple has a number of shortcomings and very little flexibility to correct them, so I never use it.

Impressive as the iPod touch is for reading novels, novels is probably the one type of reading material that works better on a Kindle. Simply put, the Kindle hardware and software was designed from the ground up to be good at reading novels, and it shows.

A strong case can be made that for reading novels, the user experience on a Kindle is better than an iPod touch. It’s simple to get started reading, purchasing books is easy, and there is no need to download reading software or mess with a syncing service like iTunes. Just wake up the Kindle and start reading.

I won’t repeat all my detailed observations about reading on the Kindle. But I will point out that I turn pages accidentally on both Kindles and iPod touches. An accident is more costly on the slower Kindle. Apart from this one annoyance, reading novels on a Kindle is a joy.

Reading Chapter Books or Short Story Collections

In my Kindle article I already discussed the shortcomings of the Kindle in this area. The actual stories are easy enough to read but navigation is clumsy for the majority of books (both free and paid) for which authors did not take full advantage of the Kindle’s system for setting up a table of contents and way points. If you want to skip between stories, it is usually far harder to do than with a paper-based collection of short stories.

It is harder to characterize the iPod touch because it will depend on which e-book reader app you use. However, I did notice that most of the apps I use seem to have a table of contents for each book for which that is appropriate. And it was very simple to bring up the table of contents and then jump to a story or chapter.

The only iPod touch e-book reader app that seemed to be missing table of contents for most stories was the Kindle App. It is surprising to me that the general purpose iPod touch does a better job than book specialist Kindle when it comes to table of contents that are present and easy to navigate. But that is currently the case.

Mixed Text and Graphics

As I noted in the Kindle post, my experience with Kindle Store’s mixed text/graphics content was so poor that I eventually gave up trying to find a single good sample.

The iPod touch is not consistently good at books with mixed text and graphics either. However, some do work well. Download “Winnie the Pooh” using Apple’s iBooks app store to see a very fine example.

Most other samples I downloaded for the iPod touch seemed like they were not designed to fit such a small screen, but would probably work fine on an iPad.

Using an iPod or Kindle for Reading a PDF

I really wanted the Kindle to work for native PDFs. No matter how much I tried, it didn’t. The problem is that PDFs are designed to fit onto an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper and neither size of Kindle was big enough. A Kindle DX rotated sideways was almost workable, especially if the font size was fairly large, but it was far inferior to simply reading a piece of paper.

Using PDFs on an iPod touch is far better despite the smaller screen size. All PDF apps make use of built-in zooming that makes intuitive use of pinching. But even better is to buy the GoodReader app for $0.99, and use it in conjunction with Dropbox.

Dropbox is a file syncing service that causes all of your files stored in the “dropbox” folder to appear on the devices you choose. I set up dropbox so that all of my PDF files are accessible from all of my computers as well as my iPod touch and Blackberry.

The GoodReader app has the ability to reflow PDFs. For text-heavy documents, it works terrifically.

So how does it work? Just click on the file in Dropbox and open it with GoodReader. Click on the “reflow text” icon and the text reflows to fit the screen.

No matter how much I fiddled with it, I was not able to comfortably read my home inspection report on a Kindle. Kindle’s primitive PDF software is not yet cable of dealing with PDFs that have tiny fonts, like this one.

With GoodReader, I touched the “reflow text” symbol and it instantly stripped out the pictures and reflowed the text to an appropriate size for the screen. I could then read the inspection report like an e-book. I could also flip back and forth between PDF view and reflow view as needed.

To be fair, there are methods for converting PDFs into properly formatted Kindle documents. Many of the methods involve multiple steps and complication (i.e. Calibre) but the simplest is to use the Kindle PDF conversion service. This involves a charge for each converted PDF document unless you are using a 3^rd generation Kindle (or later) in WiFi-only mode. I have not owned a Kindle 3 so feel free to leave comments about the quality of your PDF conversion experience on the Kindle.

No matter how much Amazon improves its PDF capabilities, it is hard to imagine them catching up to devices based on Apple’s iOS platform such as the iPod touch. Software such as Dropbox and GoodReader combined with pinch zooming makes it pretty easy to access and read PDFs without complication.

Web clipping and using RSS with Google Reader

In the Kindle post, I wrote extensively about how people not only use Google Reader to read blogs and other feeds, but also anything clipped from the web. I’ll summarize all those details by saying that among many complicated ways of getting arbitrary reading material onto a Kindle, using Google Reader and a “Note to Reader” bookmarklet was simplest for me. If you want to know more about what RSS is and why it can make it easier to read things from the web, read the extensive section on it in the Kindle post, here.

But even though it was simpler than other methods, it was still very slow and cumbersome to use the Kindle’s sluggish browser to actually read things in Google Reader. It was so much overhead, that I only did it for really long articles.

I’m sure it’s better now with the Kindle 3. It has a faster browser. Alternatively, you can send documents to a Kindle 3 for free when in WiFi-only mode. And that enables you to use something like Instapaper as an alternative and simpler way of getting anything onto a Kindle – without having to pay for each sending.

But all this pales in comparison to using iOS device like the iPod touch. For one thing, the iPod’s Safari browser is far faster and better. You can just use it to read an original article if you like. You can also use the Google Reader Web App that Google so kindly optimized for the mobile Safari browser.

But it gets even better. There are so many options available that it would be a pointless exercise to list them all. I’ll just list two:

You can get a dedicated RSS reader app that syncs with Google Reader. Several of the better ones include Reeder, Byline, MobileRSS, as summarized here. Why use these instead of the Google Reader App on Safari? Mainly, it will allow you to cache articles automatically for later reading. It may also give you features you like—in my case the feature I most care about is reading in full screen mode, which I do with MobileRSS. I do so much reading and bookmarking for later reading using Google Reader that having these few extra features is very helpful—but if you only use Google Reader a little then the web app may be plenty.

You can also get Instapaper, either a free version limited to 10 articles or the $4.99 version that includes pagination. I don’t care about pagination when I’m reading a few hundred words but when reading something long, I use Instapaper to clip it and read later on my iPod touch with pagination.

Instapaper can be used on the Kindle as well but I haven’t tested it so I’ll leave to readers to comment below as to how easy it is to use on the Kindle. I want to reiterate that using Instapaper in conjunction with the Kindle is free and relatively simple on a Kindle 3, but more complicated and costly on older models.

Multi Purpose vs. Single Purpose Devices

The Kindle is a device that facilitates one activity really well: reading novels. Some people think this dooms the device to be eventually replaced by multi-purpose tablets once prices become comparable. Others think that multi-purpose devices have too many distractions to be used for reading. I think it remains to be seen which model becomes more widely adopted.

With regard to general purpose devices, my take on iPhone versus iPod touch versus Kindle is as follows:

Smartphones in general including the iPhone are interrupt driven communication devices. In other words, if a call comes in you want to know immediately and some people feel that way about texts or e-mails as well. If you’re trying to read on such a device, you may get interrupted by calls or various notifications. You can go into airplane mode but for many people that would defeat the purpose of having an interrupt driven personal communication device.

With a Kindle, Nook or other e-book reader you read. It is possible to do other things besides reading but not easy. So it is nearly as easy to stay as focused on reading as with a book.

The iPod touch is in between. I don’t know what most people do, but I use my smartphone for interrupt driven communication, while I use my iPod mostly for reading. There’s no phone, there’s no 3G connectivity, and I don’t really need to do communication with the iPod because I do that with my phone. So 90% of the time I use it for reading, and I often just leave it in airplane mode to further reduce distraction and save battery life.

I don’t have an opinion as to which of the above scenarios is best for the most people. But I’ve become used to the idea of my smartphone as an interruption device. So for me, a smartphone is not a good device for reading without distraction.

Buying Recommendations

If all you want is an inexpensive device to use primarily for reading novels, then the obvious choice is:

Kindle Wi-Fi, Graphite

But if you want the flexibility to read anything, you’ll likely be happier with an iPod touch 4G. The least expensive 8GB model has more than enough memory to store thousands of books and and the 5-10 reading-related apps you may want to install:

Apple iPod touch 8 GB (4th Generation)

If you use your iPod touch 4G to store large amounts of music or video, then you’ll need one of these larger models:

Apple iPod touch 32 GB (4th Generation)
Apple iPod touch 64 GB (4th Generation)

If you buy a used iPod touch, you want to be certain it is the 4th generation as the 4G display is much better for reading than older models.

Conclusion: Which is best for reading, the iPod touch 4G or the Kindle?

For me, the iPod touch 4G is better for reading, according to the four criteria listed at the beginning of this article. Why? It’s faster, more portable, and more flexible. It’s simple to read most formats and it’s usually easy and free to import reading material. The high resolution screen is as easy on my eyes as a Kindle and is much easier to read in dim light.

But the iPod touch won’t be best for everyone. If you’ll be doing most of your reading in bright light, on arm chairs, while travelling, and/or away from electrical outlets for days at a time, the Kindle will be more appropriate. If you want a device to read novels and nothing else, the Kindle is slightly better than the iPod touch for that specific function. It’s also less expensive.

But if you want the most flexible device, you want the iPod touch. It doesn’t work perfectly for all reading material, but it works far better than a Kindle for chapter books, mixed text and graphics, PDFs, web browsing, RSS, and arbitrary clippings from the web.

I spend many hours per day reading things from a variety of sources. I find myself shifting ever more of this reading onto the iPod touch. I tried to do that with a Kindle but too much effort was required.

Of course, some avid readers own both Kindles and an iOS device. I will as well as when Kindles drop further in price. I would use it for rare occasions when I want to read in a chair or in bright light.

What about tablets? That is the subject of the next post: Is now a good time to buy a tablet for distraction-free reading?.

Can you read anything on a Kindle?

Now the price is lower, the browser is faster, and getting many forms of content onto the Kindle is easier, especially if used in conjunction with Google Reader.

UPDATE 11/3/11: Google recently removed many features from Google Reader, making it useless as a platform for sharing arbitrary content with any device. At the same time, Amazon recently added a personal document service, allowing you to use Kindle’s Whispersync platform to sync your content to your Kindle(s) and all of your devices that have a Kindle app installed. The sections towards the end of this post related to using Google Reader to read anything on a Kindle are therefore no longer useful.

There are two reasons I bought a Kindle 2 and the larger Kindle DX with their eye-friendly screens:

• to read books and short stories (what the Kindle was built for)
• to see if I could read anything (what I really want)

Below I describe the experience of reading a variety of different types of material – novels, collections of short stories, mixed text/graphics, PDFs, web content, and using Google Reader to read RSS or arbitrary web text. While the only truly original part of this post is how to get any web content onto a Kindle (in the Google Reader section), this post may also be of use for laying out in one place what it is like to use a Kindle for a wide variety of reading materials.

FilterJoe readers know that I have an obsession with wanting to read and get work done without distraction. If I completely forget I’m using a Kindle to read, then it’s working. The more I have to think about the Kindle while trying to read, then the less enthusiastic I am.

The Kindles

I bought from Amazon a refurbished Kindle 2 for $140 (occasionally spotted for $110 in July 2010) and a refurbished Kindle DX for $249. The Kindle 2 has a 6” screen, while the DX has a 9.7” screen.

A newer version of the Kindle DX just became available for $379 which has a higher contrast display and a dark frame. There are rumors that the Kindle 2 will soon be replaced by a higher contrast Kindle 3, with possibly other new features.

Using a Kindle for Reading Novels

Reading text-only novels is where the Kindle shines. It is very easy to use the 5 way controller to navigate to the Amazon store and purchase a book. Many public domain books cost little or nothing, while modern titles typically cost $9.99. Purchased books show up on the Kindle home screen. You click on a book to open it.

Text is chunked by page, and the size of the page will vary depending on font size. Clicking the “next” button takes you to the next page. For reading a novel, the navigational controls work well.

With excellent font and typography, I found the screen as easy to read as a newspaper when outdoors, but more difficult indoors, where some form of lighting may be needed unless natural light is plentiful. At night you’ll need either a bright night lamp or clip-on light.

There is a key devoted to bringing up a menu to change font size if you want something bigger or smaller than the default (though I found the default size reasonable). This same menu includes other appearance options, such as “words per line” which I set to “fewest” when reading novels on the Kindle DX.

For books purchased through the Kindle Store, a key advantage over regular books is that you can read them on whatever device you have in your possession, whether it’s a Kindle, an iPad, an iPhone, a Blackberry, or an Android-based device. Bookmarks, annotations, and last reading place are seamlessly synced among devices if you leave your wireless 3G connection on. So, you can be reading the first three chapters of a book on your Kindle, then continue reading right where you left on your smart phone while you’re on the go.

The Kindle does get in my way a little with page turns. With each page turn, there is a brief delay, a distracting flash, and the possibility that I’ll hit the next button too early by accident. I hit the next key accidentally many times at first, but now make this mistake rarely. I make far fewer accidental page turns when using software such as Stanza on touch screen devices.

Though both Kindles work fine for reading a text-based novel, I prefer the Kindle DX because there are fewer page turns. The downside of a Kindle DX is that it’s too heavy to hold in one hand, which is why many people prefer the Kindle 2 over the DX for reading novels. The difference in feel between the two devices is similar to the difference between a hardback and a paperback.

Using a Kindle to Read Chapter Books or Short Story Collections

Some people read chapter books or short story collections straight through without ever looking at the table of contents or flipping around in a different order. For such people, the experience will be the same as reading a novel.

Personally, I want to be able to look at a table of contents and choose where I want to start reading. I would also like to be able to flip through the book, preferably section by section. And I would much prefer to see stories and/or chapters start at the top of a page.

The good news for Kindle owners is that this works pretty well for books which are formatted to take full advantage of the Kindle. Such books will have a table of contents, chapters which start at the top of the page, and waypoints. Waypoints are little dots that appear on a bar at the bottom of the page, and they typically represent the beginning of a chapter or the beginning of a story. They give you a visual representation of how long each chapter is and how far you are in the current chapter. They also give you the ability to flip through the waypoints one by one, forwards or backward, using the 5 way controller.

I like this system, though I would prefer to be able to access the table of contents in one step rather than having to hit the menu key, click on “Go To,” reposition the cursor to “table of contents,” then click on it. Amazon – if you’re reading this – can you please include an Alt-T shortcut in the next Kindle software update?

The bad news for Kindle owners is that most of the free and low cost books on the Amazon store do not include an active table of contents. So far as I have been able to gather, there is no simple way to shop the Amazon store in a way that only displays books with an active table of contents. You might be able to find out if a book is properly formatted by reading the description or reviews. But only by downloading a sample or buying the book will you know for sure if a table of contents is present. For some public domain books there are over a dozen different versions, most or all of which have no table of contents, so it can be somewhat time consuming to download, examine, and delete numerous samples to examine formatting.

I wish that Amazon had a set of rigid formatting guidelines in place that insured only books formatted to take full advantage of the Kindle could make it to the Amazon Store. Amazon has begun to weed out some of the lowest quality books from the store over the past year but they are not weeding out books without table of contents or waypoints.

Thankfully, there is a better way to get well formatted books for the Kindle. Don’t use the Kindle Store.

By far the easiest experience I’ve had is to download Feedbook’s “Kindle Download Guide” (here) and use it as the primary method for obtaining public domain books. It’s a simple matter to search your Kindle from the home screen for your favorite book or author, click to the book, and then click to download it. These books are all properly formatted with waypoints and tables of contents.

The Mobipocket Guide available here is also pretty good but the few books I’ve downloaded did not include waypoints. It is also possible to use the Kindle browser to download books from a number of different sites. Andrys Basten has a complete guide to free or low cost downloads here, but quality varies.

The downside to skipping the Amazon store is that you no longer have the benefit of Whispersync, Amazon’s system for keeping books in sync among multiple devices. If you read all your books on a single Kindle, then you won’t miss this feature.

Lack of table of contents and waypoints in some books were distractions. But setting these issues aside, chapter or story books which are formatted to take full advantage of the Kindle are easy to read and to navigate. If all Kindle books were formatted as well as Feedbook content, I would actually prefer reading chapter books on the Kindle over paper.

Using a Kindle for Mixed Text and Graphics

I downloaded a few samples of books with a mixture of text and graphics and was very disappointed. The graphics quality was mediocre and text that should have been on the same page as a graphic was often not. Changing font size can improve the experience on the Kindle DX, but the Kindle 2 is generally too small for a reasonable reading experience.

Picture books typically assume that the reader is looking at two pages at a time. I tried out two different samples of Curious George books to see if they would even come close to the experience of the paper version. They didn’t. For now, I’ll continue reading traditional Picture books to my son.

My experience with Kindle Store’s mixed text/graphics content was so poor that I eventually gave up after some fruitless tinkering. I hesitate to buy anything from the Kindle store that contains even a small number of graphics and will not do so unless I can see a sample from the book that includes one of the pages with a graphic (Nook owners have an advantage here as they can browse any part of an E-book at a Barnes and Noble store). There may be some good books with pictures or graphics in the Kindle Store but I have yet to see one.

Using a Kindle for Reading a PDF

Both Kindles include a basic PDF reader. My attempts to read PDFs on the Kindle 2 proved futile, as the screen is too small. Text does not reflow to fit the screen, so the only way to read a typical PDF text document is to zoom in. While zooming allows you to read individual words, it is impractical to read a single column 8.5 x 11 page which is divided into 4 or more rectangles, as you have to flip back and forth for each line of text.

The 9.7” screen of the Kindle DX is barely large enough to read a full PDF page. My experience after reading several PDFs is that documents with large font sizes can be read “as is.” However, most of the documents I read use 10 point or smaller fonts. For these, I had several choices:

• Zoom—not a good option, as described above
• Rotate the screen—practical for many documents, though charts and graphs often get chopped in half
• Reading glasses—the best solution in most cases

There are a number of features I hope Amazon adds to future versions of the PDF reader. First and foremost would be a text reflow option. If this is not possible, I’d like to see more flexible zooming that allows me to center in on a particular chart or graph, perhaps by allowing scrolling. Margin cropping would be another useful option.

Overall, reading a PDF on the Kindle DX is worse than reading PDF on a computer and much worse than paper, when the font sizes are small. For documents that use a large font size (12-14pt depending on the font), it works reasonably well, but still not nearly as well as paper. Amazon continues to add PDF capabilities so this may improve over time.

Using a Kindle for Reading a Long Article on the Web

The Kindle browser is faster than it used to be but still slow. So you’re unlikely to use it for general browsing or to read a number of short articles. But it is surprisingly useful for reading long articles on very simple web sites, such as FilterJoe. First turn off JavaScript and Images to make the browser faster. Then navigate to where you want to read a web page that has lengthy text. The Kindle may take many seconds to load the page. But once loaded, the entire text is loaded in memory. This means you can read the entire text of the page like a short story, even if you turn off wireless access.

I find myself not using the Kindle this way. It takes too much time to browse and load pages. Many web pages are too complex to be navigated easily (or in some cases, at all) by the Kindle browser. But the main reason I don’t use the browser is because there are easier ways to get chunks of lengthy text onto the Kindle.

Instapaper,  Calibre, and KindleFeeder are three common ways to get content onto the Kindle (which you can read about here, here, and here). All three of these methods require a USB connection or paying Amazon .15 per MB for wireless delivery.

UPDATE: It is possible to configure Kindles with WiFi (3rd generation and higher) to receive free wireless delivery of content using services such as Instapaper. Instructions here.

I’ve discovered another way that uses a little known feature of Google Reader, which I describe below. Google Reader can be used as a flexible, free and wireless conduit for getting information from computers onto my Kindle.  I find it so useful that 90% of my Kindle Browser use is Google Reader. Below I explain why and how.

The Basics of RSS

As described in Wikipedia here, Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works, such as blog entries and news headlines. Consider: Would you rather pick up your Pizza or have it delivered? Similarly, would you rather have to spend your time fetching content from your favorite sites, or have it delivered to you automatically? A feed reader can deliver you content like a pizza delivery man delivers pizza, though with far more flexibility.

One of the most popular feed readers is cloud-based Google Reader which can be used on virtually any device, including the Amazon Kindle. The Kindle does support a proprietary system for reading RSS but it is expensive, inflexible, and offers few feeds, so I have not even tried it.

I use Google Reader to track over 100 feeds. While this sounds like a lot, most of my feeds publish less than 1 post per week, and only one more than 3 times per day. Google Reader provides tools for organizing, pruning, and rapidly reading or skipping content. The main downside of using Google Reader is the potential for self-induced information overload (subscribe to many high volume feeds and you’ll see what I mean). Some of the main benefits include a nice reading format, consolidating your news and blog feeds into one place, discussion tracking, search, archiving, and mobile access.

Using a Kindle for Reading RSS with Google Reader

The mobile version of Google Reader is reasonably fast on the Kindle, especially with the Kindle browser in “basic mode” and images disabled. Before you can use it, you’ll need to set up Google Reader on your computer, and add a few of your favorite feeds. Here is an article that can help get you started:

Google Reader Guide

Then you can access the mobile version of the Google Reader from the Kindle, by typing in this URL:

www.google.com/reader/m

Enter your user name and password. Bookmark the home screen, as well as the screen yet get when you click on “tags.” The Tags screen shows you the tags “starred” and “shared” as well as any tags you have assigned to your feeds. Tags work like folders for the purposes of this discussion.

Once logged in, you can see a list of all unread items on Google Reader Mobile’s home screen. You can also see lists of unread items by a specific tag or specific subscription. A drawback of the mobile version of Google Reader is that you can’t view items you’ve already read unless they are “starred” or “shared.” However, using the “starred” and “shared” tags, you can view almost any web text on your Kindle.

The “starred” tag simply displays any Google Reader items for which you assigned a star, something you can do on every version of Google Reader. I tend to star interesting items either to archive them or because I want to read them later. So I may rapidly go through my list of items on a computer, reading shorter items, skimming some long items, and “mark all as read” the rest. But I “star” long, interesting items for reading at another time. Later, I can easily read them on my computer, my phone, or my Kindle. I prefer to read items with more than a thousand or so words on my Kindle DX.

The “shared” tag displays items that you have decided to share with the world in your own public feed. The intended purpose is to share items with people you think will find the items you select interesting, and you can include a note if you want to comment about the content or explain why you think it is interesting. I have actually never used “share” for this purpose. I use it to read arbitrary web content, as follows:

Google has provided a bookmarklet which allows you to share any piece of content from the web. Follow Google’s instructions to set up the bookmarklet on your computer browser. (UPDATE: I removed this link in November, 2011 because Google no longer supports this bookmarklet or any other method for sharing content with Google Reader). Now, any time you find something on the web that you would rather read on your Kindle, just select the text and click on the bookmarklet “Note in Reader.” You can now read it on your Kindle.

If you simply leave your Kindle’s browser loaded with Google Reader’s Tags you essentially have a way to print to the Kindle. Just select text from a browser, click “Note in Reader,” and the item becomes available on the Kindle. In the Kindle, you need to click on “Shared” then click on the item to open and read it.

So how does all this work in practice? It is more cumbersome than printing to a piece of paper as there are twice as many steps, and the browser is slow. You’ll need to keep battery-draining wireless 3G turned on when navigating Google Reader. And there are some glitches. “Note in Reader” bookmarklet sometimes cuts off text after certain HTML characters, which happened when I clipped a Google 10-K financial document. It is also possible to overload the Kindle browser with a very long item in Google Reader that contains many graphs and charts, which requires a reboot.

However, for text-only documents with basic formatting it works well. It works especially well to accumulate articles and then read a batch of them on the Kindle.

Overall, I find the benefit of reading long posts on a hand held E-ink device outweighs the hassles I just described, but I’m wishing for more. What I really want is to be able to select “print to E-ink” on my computer and it just shows up on my Kindle, as if I had just clicked on it. No limits. No hassles. No Hacks. No complicated setup. Whoever can do this one simple thing well will sell a lot of E-ink devices. Amazon, are you listening?

Conclusion – Can You Read Anything with the Kindle?

The answer is no, the Kindle does not quite work as a device to read anything. Both sizes of Kindle work well for pure text novels and properly formatted chapter books. Both work poorly for picture books or anything image intensive. PDFs are barely acceptable on a Kindle DX, and not acceptable on the smaller Kindle 2. But with a bit of effort, both sizes of Kindle can almost read any web text using several possible methods, the most flexible of which I believe to be Google Reader. Overall, the Kindle DX can be used on a wider range of material than the Kindle 2 due to screen size. But “reading anything” is by no means a seamless experience.

To be fair, “reading anything” is not the intended function of a Kindle. Amazon’s intention is for the Kindle to be a device that makes it easy for people to read books, collections of short stories, and periodicals available on the Kindle Store. This makes sense for Amazon as a business model, as the Kindle store is the primary means by which Amazon makes money off the Kindle platform. Amazon mostly succeeds at this, though there is room for further improvements to the user experience with tables of contents and the average quality level of Kindle store content.

However, I want to be able to read anything on an E-ink screen. For content other than text-only books this is currently cumbersome on a Kindle, and in some cases not workable.

UPDATE: I’ve used an iPod touch for several months, since writing this post. I’ve found that it’s a better general purpose reading device than the Kindle. For my detailed comparison, read iPod touch vs. Kindle: Which is Best for Reading?.

The Future

E-ink devices powered by Android will become widely available in 2011. Some of these devices may make full use of Android’s reading capabilities, including a good mobile browser that can access an Android-optimized version of Google Reader. Third party Android apps such as Evernote, Dropbox, Kindle for Android, and Nook for Android will make it far easier to effortlessly “read anything” on an E-ink screen. The Nook is already based on a restricted version of Android, so Barnes and Noble may choose to take greater advantage of Android’s reader friendly features.

For a very long time I’ve been looking forward to the day when reading anything electronic is comparable in quality and effort to reading traditional books and newspapers. That day is almost here. But not quite.

Is the pen mightier than the computer?

Distraction-free reading is not a fully solved problem–which is why the last article was so long. Distraction-free writing is a solved problem, which is why this article is short.

As mentioned previously (here), FilterJoe aims to be a starting point for anyone wanting to enhance their ability to effectively focus, process information, and get work done. Some content will be original, while other content (like this post) will summarize and reference the great work others have already done.

The Key

For many people, the key to being able to write something lengthy or complex is to eliminate distractions, just as with reading. For some people, using pen and paper in a room without a computer or telephone may be the best answer. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.

For those who can type faster than they write, or just plain prefer word processors over paper, read on.

Get Rid of the Interface with Full Screen Mode

Full screen mode is the answer to many computer distraction issues, and so it is with writing on a computer. Most major word processors have a full screen mode which gets rid of all toolbars and menus. Use it. Avoid formatting, spelling correction, researching fine points, etc. until the first draft is done. Just keep your word processor in full screen mode and keep writing.

To elaborate, here’s a simple checklist:

1. Research until ready to write a first draft
2. Invoke full screen mode of your word processor
3. Write, and then . . .
   • Don’t style your text: stay in full screen mode
   • Do not research: stay in full screen mode
   • Write zzz to mark places that need further research
4. When done first draft, revise (replace each zzz)

Word Processors that Support Full Screen Mode

Following is a link to a post with many different products that support full screen mode:

Full Screen Text Editors from techmalaya

Note that Microsoft Word is on the list – choose “full screen” from the view menu to blank out everything except the text area.

I personally use Google Docs’ word processor (with fixed-width page view selected from the view menu), so I can access the document from home, work, or elsewhere. Control-Shift-F, F11, and I’m ready to write.

Get Rid of External Distractions

Getting rid of external distractions can be the hardest part to implement, as it may involve habit change for some – such as not answering the phone.  Here are two articles with a number of good suggestions:

Lifehack Tips and Tricks for Distraction-Free Writing

Writetodone on How to Write Without Distraction

The Lure of Research

A common reason for writers to take so long to write (myself included) is the need for research when writing. The research is necessary, but even a simple look-up can lead to endless surfing once you’re on the web. Here’s a way to keep working, while noting the need for research:

One more thing to look up before getting back to writing . . .

Do enough research to get a decent amount of background. Then write your first draft. Do not look up anything while doing this draft. If you’re unsure of a fact, mark “tk” or “zzz” or some other nonsense letters where you need to do further research or revision to a certain part of your text. After the draft is finished, you can look up every instance of “zzz” and research or revise as necessary.

That’s It

I didn’t mention how to block out every possible source of distraction. I didn’t tell you about a piece of software that automatically writes for you. But for those who haven’t yet worked out their own system for staying focused while writing, perhaps some ideas in this post and in the above-mentioned articles will help reduce distraction.

If you have any further thoughts, questions, or links to other great articles, please leave a comment – that will help make this post an even better starting point for people just learning to write without distraction.

Will reading on the web ever be as good as reading a book?

Will reading lengthy text on the web ever be as comfortable as curling up in your favorite chair with a paperback? In theory, computers offer some reading advantages such as fast look-up and infinite storage. In practice, conflicting priorities of site design and current display technology get in the way.

For people like me who read hours per day, there has to be a better way. Luckily, there is.

Why Reading on the Web is so Difficult

The paperback novel is the easiest of all formats for me to read and the benchmark against which I compare all forms of reading. Currently, reading text on the web is not even close. Here is how I classify the various reading issues on the web that make it so much more difficult to read than a paperback:

1. Typography choices
   • fonts
   • type size and line spacing (usually too small)
   • colors (too bright, over-contrast, under-contrast)
   • page layout
2. Distracting web page elements
   • ads (blinking text, pictures, animations)
   • branding
   • links
   • site navigation
3. Distracting interface (browser and operating system)
   • tabs, icons and buttons
   • menus and search boxes
   • windows, title bars, and scroll bars
   • status and tool bars
   • pop-up messages
4. Hardware
   • light emitting monitors unnatural for human eyes
   • monitor resolution lower than print resolution
   • reading at a desk for long periods is uncomfortable

Some people address these problems by reformatting and printing most long articles. This is fairly easy to implement and comes close to addressing all four reading issues, though the 8.5 x 11 format is not as good for sustained reading as the paperback book. More of a problem is the act of printing, which uses up paper, ink, time, money, and storage space. This is not for me.

How to Vastly Improve Reading on the Web: Three Filters

If you suffer from distraction, eyestrain, or reduced concentration while reading on the web, the following three filters should help. If you spend a lot of time reading on the web, the combination of all three is best:

1. Readability button from arc90 (or Readable)
2. F11 key on your browser (Windows and Linux only)
3. Small device or narrow screen

Continue reading for more detail on each filter and additional help for widescreen monitors.

Reformat with the Readability button

Before installing the Readability button, your bookmarks toolbar must be enabled. On Firefox Menu: View > Toolbars > Bookmarks Toolbar. Then you can follow the instructions here to install the Readability button. Before installing the Readability button, choose the style, size, and margins you think will be most readable for you. On a vertically aligned, 19 inch monitor, I like Style: Novel, Size: Large, Margin: Medium.

After installing, click on the Readability button in the Bookmarks Toolbar. It will extract the main body text from the current web page, formatted beautifully. There are no drawbacks (except that it doesn’t work on all web sites). If you don’t like the formatting style, delete the button and reinstall with different style, size and margin choices.

An alternative to Readability that (as of March 2011) is faster and provides more options is Readable.

I love the Readability/Readable button approach and use it extensively – with one click, the issues of typography and distracting page elements go away.

Eliminate distractions with F11

There’s a very simple and effective method for Windows and Linux users to eliminate all interface distractions:

Press the F11 key to put Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Opera into full screen mode. Read.

F11 works terrifically on small screens, especially on a narrow display. F11 completely gets rid of all interface clutter from the browser and the operating system. If used in combination with the Readability button, it cleanly and easily takes care of the first three web reading issues. Just click Readability then press F11.

F11 used alone does not always work so well for reading on large and/or widescreen monitors. It does work well for sites like FilterJoe where the main page width is fixed and there is a dull colored background color outside the main page. But most web sites are not designed this way. Pressing F11 may cause text to stretch wide, may expand a distracting background, or may cause the menu or other elements to slide far to the left.

UPDATE: The rest of this section is no longer necessary. Readability now fixes the width of the text instead of the margin.

For F11 to improve reading on a widescreen monitor, you’ll want to create a second Readability button designed to work in combination with F11. Here’s how:

1. Right click on the Readability button you installed
2. Choose properties
3. Rename to something else, perhaps “read” in small letters
4. Go to arc90′s Readability site again, here
5. Choose Style: Novel, Size: Large, and Margin: Extra Large
6. Drag this Readability button to your toolbar
7. Rename it to something else, perhaps “READ”, that will help you remember that this version of the Readability button will produce very large type with very wide margins.

Now click the new button you created followed by F11. The browser will fill the screen and you’ll see very large text with a very wide margin.

While the above procedure works, a preferable solution would not require jumbo fonts.

Effectively using large monitors is a topic in and of itself with benefits far beyond reading. After much testing, I’ve concluded that it’s very hard to eliminate distractions on large, horizontal wide-screen monitors. Thankfully, large monitors are now available that can rotate into vertical position, which is the best monitor setup to reduce distraction.

Use a narrow screen or better yet a small device

Many people now use large, wide monitors with their desktop computers. As described in the prior section, such monitors are not very well suited for reading lengthy text. A vertically orientated monitor is a big improvement, and is what I recommend for online reading at a desk. Those of you with a large or widescreen monitor can hook up a second, smaller monitor to your computer for reading. Alternatively, a second computer with small monitor can be used.

The first two filters work well with any device whose width is 1080 or fewer pixels. Unfortunately, this still doesn’t take care of the fourth reading issue, “Hardware.” I’m not yet aware of a hardware solution as simple and effective as the filters I’ve mentioned so far.

What I would really like to see is all four reading issues go away with one click. Can someone please make the following a reality?

Go to web page. Click. The text appears on a piece of E-paper (Electronic Paper), well formatted for reading. You can carry it with you and therefore read it anywhere.

There are a number of small, portable devices that are superior to reading at a desk, but they all have shortcomings. Briefly expressed, here is my opinion regarding current portable choices for reading:

• E-book readers by Sony and Amazon–easy to read but slow, restricted web access
• Nokia tablet–too small, no rotation
• iPhone and iPod Touch–great interface but even smaller (UPDATE: the new higher resolution display makes the iPod Touch 4g great for reading)
• Netbooks–currently best–see below

Until a better device is released (like my E-paper idea or the oft-rumored Apple tablet), the best full computing experience for reading is a 9 or 10 inch netbook, in my opinion. For example, owners of an Asus EEE PC netbook with EEErotate and the Readability button installed, can read a web site as follows:

1. Click on Readability button
2. F11
3. Control-Alt-RightArrow

The last step rotates the screen 90 degrees, which means the text display is similar to a book. To return to the original state:

1. Control-Alt-UpArrow
2. F11
3. F5 (refresh)

The following screenshots show a New York Times article. The first image shows the article on a 24 inch monitor before any filtering. The next image shows two screen shots from an EEE PC 1000h netbook, after all three filters are applied.

Before: 24 inch monitor (no reading filters applied)

After: 10" EEE PC after all 3 filters applied, pages 1-2

This combination is not as good as a paperback book. The netbook is far heavier, emits light, and takes three actions to get into a highly readable format, and another three actions to return to the regular browser window. But I’ve found it to be the simplest and most effective method for using a computer to read lengthy text off the web at this point in time.

The Future

Thanks to rapid innovation on several fronts, reading on the web could soon approach the experience of reading a book. E-paper displays are as easy to read as regular paper and are perhaps a year or two away from mass adoption.

While devices like the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader already use E-paper, they will likely remain a niche product if data access and connectivity continues to be purposefully restricting.  (NOTE:  Kindle connectivity has improved enough since this post was written that I bought one and wrote about it here)

Safari on an iPod Touch combines unlimited web access with a great interface for reading on the web. If Apple comes out with a moderately larger model, I think it would do for reading what the iPod did for music. If my print-to-E-paper idea becomes reality, that would be even better.

I know there are many other tricks out there to increase readability and reduce distraction. I’ve found most to be excessively complicated or not effective enough for the average person. Be sure to let me know in the comments if you’ve found anything as simple and effective as Readability, F11, and using a small screen.

Typical Priorities for Site Design

To be fair, there are many conflicting priorities behind site design. Priorities usually include most of the following:

• Look great
• Draw attention to the brand
• Draw attention to online ads to generate revenue
• Draw attention to other page elements, as needed
• Be sure to include links to affiliates or other parts of the site
• Take care of necessary chores like navigation, RSS, credits, contact information, etc.
• Make it readable

While readability is usually a part of the mix, I suspect it is not usually the top priority for site design. The overall design philosophy which permeates the web seems to encourage skimming and rapid movement through many pages, not lengthy reading and contemplation. The end result of all these competing priorities reminds me of the following hilarious video about packaging design.

Microsoft Design Philosophy Applied to iPod Packaging

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0

The Goal

The site design for FilterJoe is driven by one overriding goal: make it easy to read content. Make reading so easy, that a user with a default browser setting has no temptation to print it out, copy/reformat text, or use some other trick to make it more readable, even if it’s a long article. Make the medium on which the words are written so unnoticeable, that the only thing a reader notices is the content, which he or she can stay with and contemplate. Just like a book. Or at least a lot closer to a book than the typical blog. And it should remain readable on any size screen, any type of device, with any amount of scaling.

The Realization

With thousands of themes in existence, I thought it would be a simple matter to pick an existing theme that had been designed with reading as the top priority.

How wrong I was. I rejected first dozens, then hundreds of potential WordPress themes. With surprise, shock, and dismay, I realized I’d have to design my own theme!

What? Say again?

I Must be Missing Something . . .

The idea of me designing my own theme is crazy. Here’s why:

• Everything I know about design was learned during the past two weeks. Prior to that I knew nothing.
• Surely some blogs are easy to read? Yes, I found some. But all were proprietary, custom designs.
• Starting a free blog using WordPress.com as host is really easy. Going with an independent host and designing your own theme is not so easy if you’re new to this.  Couldn’t any of the 74 themes available on WordPress.com suffice? No.
• Were there any other themes, anywhere, that were close? Yes, I gave serious consideration to a few, especially a number of themes that described themselves as minimalist. However, virtually all of them had white backgrounds for the main content area (including Contemp and Day Dream from wordpress.com which I seriously considered using in order to save myself 10-20 hours of research and 30-50 hours to build a theme). My eyes tire quickly from maximum contrast (black print on bright white background). There were a number of other shortcomings, but the black on white in and of itself was a deal killer.

In the end, I discovered the fantastic Thematic framework, which is the parent theme to my custom designed child theme, FilterJoe.

Blog Design Elements for Easier Reading

After straining my eyes looking at hundreds of themes and websites (and reading about site design), I identified the following elements that contribute to easier reading for me:

General

• Page navigation menus should be just words in a title bar
• Ample white space helps readers focus on content
• Needs to remain readable when scaled up or down using browser commands like control+
• Two column (main text left, sidebar right) makes scaling work better than 3 column (One column design also possible, if navigation can be gracefully handled)
• Outside of the content area, there should be very little clutter (This means no ads, graphics, bright color, boxes, etc. – only the absolute minimum needed by the user)
• In general, use of color should be restrained (This means no bright colors anywhere, not even traditional uses like the bright orange RSS icon)
• Link color cannot be in high contrast to the background color (Make it easy to continue reading and contemplating without distraction, as opposed to getting lost in an exploratory journey)
• Outside the web page, there should be an unnoticeable bordering color such as gray (This makes it easier to stay focused on reading, especially after hitting the f11 key which causes most browsers to fill up the screen)
• If ads are present, they need to be very unobtrusive

Main Text

• Font: Sans Serif Verdana at <=10pt, Ariel or Verdana at >10pt. Among widely installed fonts, default Sans Serif fonts are the most readable on the low resolution screens most people use – FilterJoe uses Sans Serif. This article (backed by tests) describes in depth the best Sans Serif font choices.
• Black or very dark text
• Ample line spacing
• Background color a light, neutral color, but not bright white
• No more than 66 characters wide for content, because:
  • Paperback width is 45-65 characters
  • This is conventional typographic wisdom
  • Works well on rotated netbook screens (600px)
  • Works well on cell phones
  • Allows site to be enlarged (control+) without spilling off the sides of the screen. Appreciated by people various vision issues or who set up monitors further away, as I suggest here.

Sidebar

• Insure sidebar is less noticeable than content
  • dimmer is better
  • perhaps background a different color
  • perhaps no color unless mouse hovers over sidebar
• Bullets or dots or arrows to help see where items start
• Keep as little as possible in this area

Banner

• Banner should both recede from and set off content.
  • Dark color (Blue? Green? Dark Grey?)
  • Slim
  • Site name and tag line in light color
  • No pictures
• Menu needs to be part of the banner.

None of this should be taken as gospel.  It’s just a list of what makes various sites more readable for me, based on careful observation.  I fully expect to stumble across a site that does it far better than FilterJoe, motivating me to overhaul the site interface.

The End Result

Stanza e-book reader on iPhone

Interestingly, the end result is similar to the Stanza e-book reader’s iPhone interface. I didn’t consciously start with that in mind – but I now see why reading with a dedicated e-book reader on the iPhone is easier than reading on a computer, despite the much smaller screen. The site design of FilterJoe is easy for me to read (though I’m not yet satisfied with the right sidebar interface – I’d prefer that to be less noticeable). However, it may not be so easy to read for others. So please comment below with both praise and constructive criticism – the more specific you can be, the better.

What About Other Sites?

While there are quite a few blogs out there that are easy to read – and I hope this is one of them – what about the vast majority of sites out there that aren’t? Thankfully, there are 3 very simple steps which make nearly any text heavy web site easy to read. That is the subject of the next article:

Filters for Reading on the Web