| The new iPhone 4 has an attractive new feature | | | | a headache". It isn't surprising. Until this week, |
| that enables readers to finally break down the | | | | hand-held readers have been blurry. The human |
| barrier between print and the digital world. It will | | | | eye, accustomed to the sharpness of a book, are |
| likely spell the end of the book. This iPhone has | | | | constantly trying to "unblur" the image of a book |
| what is called "retinal display". What this retinal | | | | to make it as sharp as the printed image they |
| display does is to break the barrier at which the | | | | are used to. This strains the muscles around the |
| eye can no longer discern the difference between | | | | eye, creating headaches. |
| a digital display and a printed text. | | | | All this has now changed. At 326 ppi (pixels per |
| Hand-held readers have had a great deal of | | | | inch), the new iPhone has reached the point |
| difficulty making headway against the more | | | | (around 300 ppi) where the human eye can no |
| popular book. One common explanation for this is | | | | longer discern between a digital image and the |
| that it is the result of a certain snobbishness. | | | | printed word. |
| People like to "smell the pages", or people like to | | | | As a result, it is quite possible that, this week, we |
| "hold the book in their hands". | | | | quietly saw the death of the book. The blurriness |
| This hasn't affected other hand-held devices like | | | | and the attendant headaches are likely the real |
| games. No one insists that the Gameboy ruins the | | | | reason why people are so adverse to the current |
| ability to hold a Rubik's Cube in one's hands. | | | | hand-held readers. Without those disadvantages, |
| Perhaps, then, the reason hand-held readers | | | | people will no more insist on "smelling books" than |
| haven't made headway is because books are just | | | | they insisted on "smelling candles" when the |
| better? | | | | electric light bulb was invented. |
| People complain that hand-held readers "give them | | | | |