I have never enjoyed reading physical books. The user experience is all wrong. My thumbs get soar from holding the pages open, you have to hold it to the light just right so the curl of the pages don’t cast a giant shadow, it’s difficult to search and you need your own light source. I really don’t understand people that are attached to the physical book.

This isn’t a recent feeling either; I’ve been looking forward to digital books as long as I can remember, but up until now I didn’t really have an option. The Kindle has done a lot to get books published in digital form bit up until recently it wasn’t possible to get a book legally for any device.

One of my favorite apps for the iPhone is Classics, by Tap Tap Tap. Before iBooks, this was the reading experience for the iPhone. I have read entire books standing in line. Likewise, YouVersion, a digital bible application, is always at my side at studies and I am seeing more and more iPhones pop up doing the same. The biggest benefit is that you don’t have to plan to read in line. You don’t have to decide which book you’re going to read today, and with many readers, including iBooks, you don’t even have to buy the book ahead of time. Like the best camera is the one you have with you, the best book is the one you have in your hand.

There is one thing though, that a digital copy of a book can’t replace. You see, for a lot of people, including myself, books are like trophies. When I look at my bookshelf I get rather nostalgic and think back to when I first learned PHP or when I first became interested in quantum physics. Even if those memories often involve me struggling to keep the book open while I copied code, they still give me the warm fuzzy feelings.

When people come to my house they see my bookshelf and immediately see a part of me. It’s just part of the scene of my home that reinforces that I live there. That top shelf sums up my resume better than anything else can. I always enjoy the laugh people get when they see Hacking Exposed.

When you are reading a paper book in public, people see what you’re reading. Some people don’t want people to know what they are reading, we call them anti social. Privacy always hinders communication, and someone seeing you reading the same book they are in the middle of is a conversation waiting to happen, and every conversation is a friend waiting to be made.

A social networking aspect may help the ebook’s case. It might not also. For now though, as much as I love reading digitally, I will continue to buy real books.

Filed under: User Experience Tags: Books, iPad