The new Nook is slated for release on June 10th, so imagine my surprise when mine arrived Friday.  I was very excited.  I believe a lot of things need to change in the e-reader market.  Could this be the beginning?  Let’s review.

The Packaging:

The packaging was nice.   I opened the box, and my Nook was right there, in true presentation form.  I could tell that they had really thought about packaging, which is a good thing to me.  They still have a long way to go before getting what I call “The Apple Effect” down, but it was a nice touch.  I took it out of the package and it felt nice.  Very light, but not too cheap.  The concave on the back felt natural, and the new ‘coating’ they put on it adds a secure feeling.  the coating does smudge easily, but I’m ok with that.  I was surprised by how much smaller it was then the original nook, and also surprised because the screen, if anything, is a little bigger.  I also didn’t like how the page turn buttons were not labeled.  I guess the comfort of having arrows on them was nice for me.  (More on that later)

Initial Setup:

When I took the nook out of the package, there was a label that was clear, but not annoying that said, be sure to charge the nook all the way before using (It also said I could use it while it was charging).  So, I plugged it in, it turned on and setup begins.  It was very simple to setup, and the touchscreen worked great, but I noticed almost immediately I did not like the placement of their “Back” or “Cancel” button, on the keyboard.  When putting in my password, I pushed back twice on accident when trying to switch from letters to numbers.  Other than that, the setup was simple.  All I needed to know was my wireless password and my Barnes & Noble login information.  I did not have to plug it in to a computer, which, while that wouldn’t have been a huge deal, it was nice.

Settings:

Before I sat down and actually started reading, I wanted to play with some of the settings, and, well… just learn my Nook.  The home button is nothing new.  it’s right where you would expect, if you’ve ever used any Apple touch device. I went through my settings and there are a few things that jumped out at me.  1.  I get to choose which direction the buttons turn the page!  That’s why they’re not labeled.  Sweet.  I have smaller hands, so having the forward page turn on the bottom could certainly be a perk for me.  Great touch B&N. (no pun intended)  The next setting that caught my eye was “Social”.  I click it, and immediately see an option to link to Facebook, Twitter and Google.  Suh. Weet. There are also options to manage my contacts. (Which can be imported from Google, thank God, because I dreaded adding contacts)  Manage my Nook friends, and Manage visibility of my LendMe books.  I linked everything up, it imported my contacts, and I now have the ability to share with Facebook or Twitter.   The rest of the settings are pretty basic.

Actual Use:

First thing I notice is, whatever screen I am on, in the top left hand corner, there is a book icon.  That icon will take you directly to whatever book you’re reading now.  That’s awesome.  Not necessary, but awesome.  To me, that means that B&N are finally reeling it back in to being an eReader.  When I’m reading, if I touch any word on the page it highlights it and an option menu comes up.  Highlight, Add Note, Share or Look Up.  I can extend the highlighting to a sentence, paragraph or page.  It’s pretty simple to do, but just like any touch device I’ve used, it’s kind of hard to stop the highlighting where I want.  It’s made a little more tricky by the flashiness of the highlight function on the Nook.  Bookmarking is a breeze now, since all I have to do is tap the top right hand corner of the screen.

Highlight, add note and look up do what you would expect.  I love how easy it is to do all of those things.  The best part is, when using my wife’s iPad and the nook app, I see that all of those things sync (As does the bookmarking).  There is a little lag on it, and I’m trying to figure out exactly how, but it works.  I’ve proven that.

Share.  The share button is great.  You can find it when you highlight something, or even when you’re just looking at the details on a book.   Sharing is a great touch, and makes reading on my nook so much more convenient than reading a book.  Too many times I read a quote and immediately want to share it, but getting out my computer, typing it up, and blah blah blah is just too much work.  This takes that away.

Page turns are still flashy.  Not as bad as on the original, (and not that they bothered me then) but I think B&N oversold this one a bit.  It is better, but in hearing them talk about it, I seriously felt like they would be almost nonexistent.  I think it was a silly thing to advertise in the first place, especially with all this other stuff they didn’t even mention.

What’s Missing?

I’ve made it no secret that I think the eReader makers have made some pretty big mistakes.  The main, to me, was the fact that they seemed to be straying away from making eReaders, and instead, have been focusing on making the eReader everything but.  This time around, I don’t think that’s the case.

They have removed the web browser all together. That’s huge.  I love it.  I’m sure some people are gonna be annoyed.  I’m excited by this.  If I wanted a web browser, I wouldn’t buy an eReader, I’d buy a tablet.

They have also removed the mp3 feature.  I’m 50/50 on this.  By my previous logic, I should say, “If I want to listen to music, I’ll buy an mp3 player.”  There was something nice about having that on the back burner.  If my phone or mp3 player got stolen, it was nice knowing that I did have some music on my reader, just in case.  In the end, I think they did the right thing.  Focus on the eReader.

My overall thought on this device?  B+.  I think there are things that could be done better(Which I will write about later), but most importantly, I think all of those things can be done with software/firmware updates. (Which is awesome because I won’t have to buy a new device.)

By far the best eReader on the market today, but all together, the eReader has a long way to go before they’re at their prime.

Today Barnes and Noble is supposed to be announcing something about the Nook.  It could be an onslaught of new features, including a touch screen e-ink model, getting rid of the ribbon at the bottom or even, *gasp* a lower price point.  Of those, I think 2 are more possible the the other, but we’ll see.  I was thinking about this a lot last night, and I realized that a few things have to happen in  the e-reader market, before they gain as much ground as they’d like.

First of all, I’ve noticed that there’s not one dominant force.  Remember when the iPod came out?  That was it.  That was what every other MP3 player was striving to be like. From the organization of the music, and loading up the iPod with songs, all the way to the user interface, that was simple, and easy to use.  Anyone could use it, and everyone wanted it.  I haven’t seen that in the e-reader market yet.  No one has jumped in as the leader. 

That brings me to another point.  File format.  One way the MP3 player market was so successful is, well, they all played mp3′s.  There was one (for the most part) format that was universal.  Every player played that file type, and you could buy your music from any source.  It triggered competition.  Right now, in the e-reader world, that’s not the case.  There is epub, but you have to make sure the e-reader you’re buying will read epub files.  That’s not  how the market should be.  It doesn’t encourage competition, and it locks the consumer into a singular market, so they don’t have much of a choice of where to buy.  Right now, if you buy an e-reader, you have to decide on the e-reader, and in turn, where you are going to buy your books for the remainder of the life of your e-reader. Not only that, when your device does, eventually get stolen, break, or outdated, if you want to keep your books, you have to keep the same brand e-reader.  No bueno.

What needs to happen? 

Someone needs to come out as the leader.  The leader in file management, the leader in user experience, the leader in all things e-reader.  Developers who actually use an e-reader, need to be hired.  Developers who won’t say, “That’s good enough.” or, “They’ll figure it out.”  Developers who instead think of some of the major demands from an e-reader and make it happen.  A few things I can think of.  Easy ‘dog earing’ of pages.  Ease of bookmarking, note taking, and highlighting.  Syncing of bookmarks, notes, and highlights  over multiple devices.  Dare I say the ability to send notes to my e-mail or evernote?   Page turns are slow, and to top it off, if I do have a device that can read epub files, I have to load them on to my device, through the file system. 

That brings me to another point.  There’s no app to load my device.  Why can’t someone develop an application that has my ebook library, while we’re at it, why can’t that same app connect to book stores?  Why can’t that same app, manage my library on my computer and keep it organized?  

The market has been flooded with new, cheaper, devices that do, essentially the same thing as the old models.  Nothing is a game changer and, from what I can tell, any decent developer is being used to develop apps for tablets, not to work on the interface of the device.  Some may see this as a good thing, I see this is a flaw. 

So, e-reader companies everywhere, hear my cry.  You could be so much better.  You could sell more devices, and the consumer could be way happier.  I’m very serious when I say this.  Step up your game, or just settle for making all of your money on book sales through an Android Tablet or iPad, and give up production of the device.  Right now, you’re failing.

By now it should not be a secret to you that my iPhone 4 was stolen yesterday on MARTA.  Probably because of my ridiculous ADD and carelessness.

I felt mad. Sad. Depressed. It affected my mood for the entire day.  I was short with my wife.  I was frustrated by my daughter’s screaming and crying. I was pissy.  All I could think about was finding it, or finding the man (or woman) who took my phone.  All the way to last night, I was in a horrible mood.  To be honest, if I had 1 second to myself yesterday, I would have cried.

Now here’s the thing.  IT’S A PHONE. Seriously.  IT’S A PHONE. Is it not insane that a phone can make me feel that way?  It’s probably a great thing that I lost that phone.  Not because the phone, in itself was bad, but because what the phone represented to me. (Which, I didn’t recognize until it was gone.)

I just finished reading “Radical” by David Platt.  At the end of the book, he challenges you to make some pretty dramatic changes.  One of them is how you spend your money. (Not JUST that, but it’s the core thought of the challenge)

To be honest, I was a little relieved that i was tied in to a 2 year contract, so while I was convicted to change something, it COULDN’T be my iPhone.  I was safe in my conformity.

Well, crap.  Looks like that was all made up in my mind…

So, I guess my timing is bad.  Reading that book, making that excuse and then this happening, has me thinking it’s a ‘sign’.   It has me thinking I need to amp up my faith.  It makes me think I’m not living right.  It makes me think my faith needs Caffeinated.

Unless “Love Wins” tells me it doesn’t really matter….

This is great.

Talking about the miserable-ness of our generation. It defines us perfectly. It reminds me to sit back and be amazed sometimes.

“New York to L.A…. That used to take THIRTY YEARS!”

“Give it a minute, it’s going to SPACE!”

Watch this.

So, to keep you in the loop, I record a podcast with some buddies of mine.  We talk about all sorts of junk, and have a really good time doing so.  We have some awesome news for our upcoming podcast we record this Wednesday:  Check it out.  This is what Brad had to write about it:

This Wednesday, August 12th we have the opportunity to interview Mike Dawson.  Now for most of you, that might not be a household name.  I understand that, but in the coming months, after you hear the story that Mike’s going to tell, all that will change.  Mike is one of the writers responsible for the new riveting film, “The Enemy God”.  The film is a wonderful depiction of a TRUE STORY about redemption and how Christ is constantly intervening and saving the Yanomamo people!  Believe me when I tell you that some of the things Mike is going to talk about is going to ABSOLUTELY BLOW YOUR MIND!!

I had a chance to go to a screening of the film on Friday and it just blew me away!  Even the intro that Mike gave the film blew me away!

For more information, you can go to the film’s website here, or you can contact CaffeinatedFaith.com for more info.  The podcast should be available August 14th so be ready!