Improving the Digital Reading Experience There is a difference
between checking Google Maps on your iPhone and asking a
stranger for directions. It matters whether you listened to
Beethoven’s 9th in a concert hall or in your living room,
whether it plays from a vinyl LP or from your iPod. King Lear is
not one and the same experience when seen at the theatre,
studied on paper, or scanned on your Kindle. It is not always
easy to discern digital and analog experiences. A lot of
seemingly analog devices have digital technology built in
without us realizing it (tape decks, ovens, cars), and, as you
might have noticed, more and more digital devices try to look
and feel like analog tools. The technology below the surface —
whether it is manual, mechanical, automatic or digital — is not
what matters. What matters is not the schematic of a device, but
what we think, do, and feel when using it. What makes a CD
digital is that we do not need to turn it over half way through,
that it can play single songs precisely, that