The clip above is some recent work by the well established and much respected design firm Ideo. It does however perfectly illustrate the flaws I feel every ebook reader has.
 
Ideo has called this the “The Future of the Book” but each concept completely fails to understand the book as an object and instead adds an unnecessary new layer that is almost entirely disconnected from the books essential form. There’s very little interaction between book and new media with the exception of the final concept which instead, changes the novel from a linear based narrative to a multi choice quiz game with details filled in somewhat pointlessly.
 
Whilst music made the digital transition fairly easily due to the bulky nature of CD’s and the simple fact that in the end, you still get audio through the same headphones. Digital books simply haven’t been as compelling due to the format of a traditional book still being desirable. Simply adding features on top of a traditional book isn’t enough to make a compelling use case, we as readers rarely switch randomly between multiple books or dip in and out of books in short ten minute bursts. If the core experienced can’t be enhanced then these new devices will struggle to take hold and only devices such as the iPad which do many other things and just happen to have books available on them, stand a chance in the longterm of taking books into the digital age.