Apple launched the iPad, its multifunctional tablet, in the U.S. in April 2010, with an iBookstore of 60,000 ebooks. The iPad was available in a few European countries in June 2010. After the iPod (launched in October 2001) and the iPhone (launched in January 2007), two cult devices for a whole generation, Apple has also become a key player for digital books. The iPad 2 was launched in March 2011 in the U.S. and two weeks later internationally.
There are many other ebook readers and tablets, but I will stop there. Some of my friends now wait to read multimedia / hypermedia content and stories in 3D on flexible devices.
2011 > THE EBOOK IN TEN POINTS
[Summary] Here is a conclusion in the form of quotes. The dates indicated here are the dates when these texts - excerpts from email interviews - were written and first published. Their authors are Michael Hart (August 1998), John Mark Ockerbloom (September 1998), Robert Beard (October 1998), Jean-Paul (June 2000), Nicolas Pewny (February 2003), Marc Autret (December 2006), Pierre Schweitzer (January 2007), Denis Zwirn (August 2007), Catherine Domain (April 2010) and Henk Slettenhaar (June 2011).
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Here is a conclusion in the form of quotes. The dates indicated here are the dates when these texts - excerpts from email interviews - were written and first published.
# August 1998
"We consider etext to be a new medium, with no real relationship to paper, other than presenting the same material, but I don't see how paper can possibly compete once people each find their own comfortable way to etexts, especially in schools." (Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg in 1971)
# September 1998
“I've gotten very interested in the great potential the net has had for making literature available to a wide audience. (…) I am very excited about the potential of the internet as a mass communication medium in the coming years. I'd also like to stay involved, one way or another, in making books available to a wide audience for free via the net, whether I make this explicitly part of my professional career, or whether I just do it as a spare-time volunteer." (John Mark Ockerbloom, founder of The Online Books Page in 1993)