Why Windows 8 Rocks My Socks, And Why It Affects You As A Reader

Let Me Explain

I post some rather random articles here.  A lot are techie kind of things because, well, I’m a geek.  But they usually have something to do with booky kind of things.  Today is another such article.  I decided to jump the gun and share a little why Windows 8 rocks my socks. 

First, some background information.  Why would I choose Windows 8 to share something about?  The new computer OS doesn’t even come out until later this year.  I downloaded the beta copy and decided to run it as my primary OS because I have a laptop with both a pen and a touch screen capabilities.  Windows 8 has been redesigned from the ground up graphically to function vastly different than the normal start bar that we have been accustomed to with Windows 95 up until now with Windows 7.  That start bar and everything you are accustomed to have been thrown out of the window.  The personal laptop computing experience has opened to touch world with media having the most to benefit.

Off Track Here A Bit, Explanation Of My Use

If you have ever used a Windows 7 phone than you already have an idea how Windows 8 navigates and works.  It’s different, yes.  But it’s awesome.  The navigation is super quick and easy.  The combination of touch optimized “metro” styled apps and normal applications give me way more versatility than a smart phone or a tablet.  Basically I get the best of all the worlds with the power of a laptop.

Microsoft Office and OneNote are amazing with the pen.  I can scribble out all of my notes for anything and everything with my pen.  The days of me using paper and ink are kind of over.  This includes book review notes, general shopping lists, blueprints for book shelves, and everything else.

I recently switched back to an iPhone right about the time that Amazon allowed the mobile Kindle app to receive emailed documents.  A portion of the books we review are received via e-book format.  Traditionally I have been forced to the Kindle device itself for such review reading.  The app was never a solution, although it was more convenient.

E-books really are much cheaper for the publishers.  I kind of stopped using my Kindle and switched solely to my iPhone for my e-book reading needs.  It was great.  I always have my phone with me whether it is in the line at the grocery store or at work.  I could read a few quick pages whenever I had time.  The trade off for a smaller screen was worth not carrying around the extra device.

Now I have Windows 8 and a touch screen laptop, which completely replaces the need for any tablet and a smart phone most of the time.  I foresee many more articles regarding Windows 8, reading, and touch screens in the future.  But for the moment, Adobe Digital Editions has been great, especially on Beta software (Windows 8).

My Experience

The beta version has only been out for a couple of days now.  I installed it the first day it was released.  After adjusting my settings, my very first thing to try was the various reading apps.  This included Copia, Kindle, and Adobe Digital Editions.  Keep in mind that none of these apps are optimized or designed with touch for laptops on the exception of Copia.  They were meant for a mouse and keyboard.

I also have been playing with the USA Today app and various RSS feed apps.  These have become my digital newspapers and magazines.  The integration and ease of use is so magnificent that it really has to be experienced to really understand it.  We would expect this kind of experience from an iPad or Android Tablet, but not on a laptop. 

Windows 8 is touch optimized system wide right out of the box.  Even with popular browsers like Firefox and Chrome I had very little extra to configure to scroll, pinch to zoom, or any other normal touch response you would be accustomed to on things like the iPhone, iPad, or any other Android based phone.  With Windows 7 I spent countless hours playing with tweaks and file add-ons to make these programs more touch friendly.  In Windows 7 and Firefox I can’t just touch the screen and drag to scroll like I can on my iPhone.

My point behind this is that although Adobe Digital Editions and Kindle are not engineered for touch response at this point, touch navigation was fluid and easy to operate right out of the box.  The buttons may have been a bit small, but scrolling between pages, zooming, and browsing my book library was a breeze.  At this point, after I’m done reading my current book on my iPhone, I believe I will be switching to my laptop only with Windows 8 and Adobe Digital Editions as my primary e-reader of choice.  That full fledged experience will be an article for a different day.

I will not have the portability option that I do with my iPhone but there are other factors that influence this decision.  One would be the versatility of having the laptop.  The other is that I just simply wish to slow down my life a bit and not be multitasking every second of the day. 

Predictions

To this point reading e-books on the laptop has been mostly hindered by ease of use.  It just plain sucks sitting there and reading a book with your clamshell laptop opened in front of you.  Beside the price, this is one of the reasons the iPad, Kindle, Nook, and other various e-readers have progressed so well.  They are lightweight, easy to hold, and simple to use and navigate.  Laptops are not.

Right now my laptop is still much thicker and heavier than a typical e-reader.  And a device of this size still is not the most comfortable thing to read on, even in tablet form.  But technology progression is being made quickly.  The PC industry has realized the impact tablets have made.  And as such various companies have started to design specs to merge the worlds of laptops and tablets.  If you haven’t heard of an Ultrabook I would suggest reading up on that a bit.  That will be the future of the laptop.

An interesting note with the Ultrabook spec is the size.  They are small, ranging from 10 inches to 15 inches by spec, although most currently released range about 13-ish inches.  In the future we will be seeing swivel displays and capacitive touch screens, much like what is used on the iPad and iPhone.  This means we will be seeing full fledged laptops that are the size and portability of an iPad with a traditional clamshell design and keyboard that will convert to a tablet, about the same weight as an iPad and a little bigger in screen size.  This suddenly makes the realm of e-book reading on a laptop much more alluring.

The Digital Future

I believe in the publishing world this will open up all sorts of avenues to the consumers.  Currently, if you want a dedicated device for e-reading you have to choose a device with a dedicated market, like the Kindle or Nook.  You can still purchase e-books from various other markets and side-load them on to your e-reading device, but this process is often cumbersome and kind of stupid.  Using the laptop as a comfortable e-reader that is open to all markets and apps allows for very easy expandability and use for us.  We will have much quicker access to an e-book title from any market, anywhere in the world, without all that extra hubbub to read and access it.  The e-book is simply downloaded and ready to go.

Even still to expand the possibilities, publishers can add a multimedia experience to the e-book and to the magazine.  They won’t have to worry about formatting each “book” for specific devices like they currently do now.  One size will fit all.  Imagine reading a tech magazine with a video explaining exactly what they are explaining (think Harry Potter) or reading a book with background music and short graphics.  You turn a page and a video clip breaks in showing the villain blowing up the current page and segwaying to the next. 

We wrote an article with our predictions for multimedia publishing months ago.  A little while after writing that article my wife was asked to read an online multimedia book called BZRK for a review.  She devoured it and said it was an amazing experience.  Imagine that experience being the norm.

Finishing My Hoopla

I’ve gone off on a few rants now.  But they were important.  They painted a wide picture to the point I have been trying to make.  If you are still reading this I commend you. 

This is certainly not a tech blog.  This is a book review blog.  But as technology progresses it effects us all, in all industries, in all forms of entertainment, in all aspects of life, in every single way.  I have been enjoying my brief stint with the new version of Windows for the past few days.  Microsoft has been a personal computing standard with Windows since the early 80’s.  Apple has decided on their road map years ago with the release of the iPad and kept the personal computing (desktops and tablets) and the portable touch environment (iPads and iPhones) separate.  Microsoft will keep being a major player in the personal computing world.  And as such we should keep watch of them as we progress into future.

The world of digital publishing is about to change heavily over the next few years.  Multimedia digital publishing will be ushered in with all sorts of creativity.  The laptop will reintroduce itself as a major key player to life organization reducing the need for smart phones, tablets, and e-readers. 

Before the dawn of Windows 8 has even emerged I have enjoyed the simplicity and continuity of being able to better combine all of my life elements back into one place and not having them spread between multiple devices.  This includes my reading.  Adobe Digital Editions has become my new e-reader.  Windows 8 has become my new platform.  The combination of both with the power of a laptop and the web have become my new paper to turn.  And my smart phone has become nothing more than a simple extension to reach out to my laptop.  Windows 8 has allowed this.  This has been my point.  That Windows 8 will be a major catalyst that changes the digital landscape the same way it did back in 1995.  The operating system hasn’t even been released yet but I tell you that the revolution is coming.  We will be seeing titles like BZRK become the normal reading experience. 

My reading digestion habits have become more open and widespread with better access to everything.  The grass is truly greener on the other side.  And this is why Windows 8 Rocks my socks and how it affects you as a reader.