Even with eInk, many book lovers still find that e-books are incapable of replicating the experience of reading a book made of paper.
Industrial designer Fabrice Dubuy has created a concept for an alternative version of e-book readers and tablets like the Kindle and the iPad—featuring two eInk screens instead of one, the “TwistBook” mimics the structure of paper books by “splitting” open in the middle.
I'll eat my iRiver Reader if this one is produced and becomes a hit.
Imagine if paperbooks had not existed, only screen readers. And then somebody comes up and says: "Hey, great idea! How about *two* screens next to each other, and they fold!"
"Why? You can only read one screen at a time."
And it'll be harder to hold with one hand. And probably twice as heavy.
The only upside I can see is to display illustrations or notes on one page. But that could be done on a single big page too, and that would be a much more flexible device. (They could call it an... iSlate!)
(By the way, there has been a product like this before. It failed, it was too expensive and heavy. But one of the screens was color, so it had some kinda merit.)
Also it won't even faintly feel like a paperbook. It will only have one small design aspect in common with it, "opening like a book" (an aspect which was forced upon the book because of the one-time print aspect of paper).
Everybody now: "It's the content, Silly!"
... I may be wrong. Maybe this will be a hit. And maybe they will "do a Gillette" and in two years introduce one with three screens. And a couple of years beyond that...
