E-readers 'will survive the Ipad'

THE CAPPUCCINO COMPANY'S Ipad is not about to kill off the e-book reader, a director of mobile design agency Fjord predicted Wednesday at the Open Mobile Summit in London.

Christian Lindholm said that, unlike many e-readers on the market, the Ipad is too big to be used with one hand or carried in a pocket. And it would not appeal to the kind of people who like e-readers because of their simplicity.

He predicted that the Ipad will be most popular among teenagers and people in late middle age, but less so among those aged between 20 and 40 who are most likely to have to work on the move. This is because the Ipad was no substitute for either a laptop PC or a mobile phone, and no one will want to carry around three devices.

However the Ipad could turn out to be a "new paradigm" in computing that could transform the laptop by changing people's expectations, Lindholm said at the Open Mobile Summit in London. "It is so fast to boot and you really can use it all day."

Well, that's if you don't get too tired of having to hold it, or can lay it flat or prop it up somehow, we guess.

Other speakers at the conference stressed the Ipad's potential as a device for delivering next-generation multimedia newspapers and magazines.

Richard Titus, managing director of Associated Northcliffe Digital, part of group that owns the Daily Mail, said a digital edition of the London freesheet The Metro will be launched next week for the Ipad following the appearance of the device in the UK. µ