As We May Read

I speak as an unregenerate reader, one who still believes that language and not technology is the true evolutionary miracle. I have not yet given up on the idea that the experience of literature offers a kind of wisdom that cannot be discovered elsewhere; that there is profundity in the verbal encounter itself, never mind what further profundities

... See more

To call iBooks a throwaway “feature” of iOS is too dismissive, but the output does not give off the impression of a thing that must exist in the world, and must exist at the highest level of grace.

The more Springwater and Mackenzie thought about it, the more they thought they could build a better way. What they built became an app called Matter, a combination of a read-later app and a discovery engine for great content. Ultimately, Springwater said, it could be even more. "Reading right now is really simple," he said. "It's text on a page. B... See more

Perhaps the best way of conceptualizing this is to say that the device over-consolidates the materiality of reading in a way that smooths out the texture of our experience.