When I’m right, I’m right. In a previous post Why You Shouldn’t Get Too Excited About Apple’s iBooks 2 Textbooks, I argued that e-textbooks won’t catch on anytime soon because not everyone has an iPad, and the high price will be prohibitive for many students to buy one.

This is especially true for poorer school districts. Even if Apple has a iPad lending program, or discounts for school, you’re still trusting high school students with a very expensive device.

In college, you can’t teach a class with some students using an e-textbook and other students using a print textbook. It just won’t work. You can, however, give every student an iPad by adding the cost to an already high tuition bill. Overall though, I don’t think e-textbooks will catch on soon. There are too many barriers to overcome first.

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NOTE: Check out my follow-up to this post: E-Textbooks In iBooks 2 Won’t Catch On Anytime Soon

Now that Apple has released iBooks 2, which is enhanced for e-textbooks, everyone is excited about how this new feature will revolutionize learning. My advice: Don’t get too excited, at least, not yet.

Yes, the new iBooks 2 is very impressive. I’ll give it that. But there’s a huge difference between being “impressive” and being “practical” in the real world.

How dare I question Apple’s innovation! Just hear me out. I’m predicting e-textbooks aren’t going to catch on anytime soon. Here’s why.

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Apple introduced iBooks 2 for iPad today that adds a new e-textbAfter ook feature that will allow students to interact with the material, not just read it.

These electronic textbooks are enhanced for graphics, videos, interactive features, students notes, highlights and anything else you can think of to make a boring subject like chemistry tolerable.

I found a cool video on engadget that demonstrates all the features mentioned above. Take a look for yourself:

There’s an exciting new product at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that will have ebook fans drooling: An eReader that has a color e-ink display. Before you get too excited, there are a few details you should know.

The eReader is called the Ectaco Jetbook Color eReader. Ectacto is a Russian company, and the device is already available for sale in Russia (no word on it will be available in the US).

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Yes, we all know the iPad is still the king of all tablet computers. And like I said in this earlier post about Russian eReaders, it’s easy to forget there are other tablets out there.

I’ve become interested in what other tablets are on the market. Don’t worry, I’m not giving up my iPad anytime soon (I’m saving my pennies for the iPad 3). But it’s fun to see how the technology has evolved over the last few years. While the iPad is king, it’s being surrounded by more and more tablets.

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There’s a new Kindle case on the market that offers a unique twist on your run-of-the-mill boring eReader cases. This one is also a charger. The front cover has a solar panel that always keeps your Kindle charged. As an added bonus, it comes with a built-in reading light.

The cover is called that SolarKindle Cover. It retails for $79.99, which is not a bad price for something that has an unlimited power supply.

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Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are other tablet computers out there other than the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet. The Kindle and Nook aside, the iPad remains the large fish in an expanding pond.

One of the newer tablets on the market is the Asus Eee Pad Transformer. Asus is known for making cheap netbooks for those who need a laptop, without all the frills and gimmicks of a Macbook or PC.

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You’d think a science fiction author would be one of the first to embrace emerging technology, like ebooks, for example. But there are some holdouts. One of them has been famed Sci-Fi author Ray Bradbury.

I wrote about him back in 2009, mostly about how much he loathed the internet. Well finally, Bradbury fans can read his classic Fahrenheit 451 (aff link) as an ebook.

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Do you do most of your writing on a computer, or still use good old fashion longhand? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because my writing habits are a hybrid of the computer and a pen and paper.

I know this post seems to come out of left field, especially considering I recently wrote a review about how much I love the writing software Scrivener. That hasn’t changed. I still use (and love!) Scrivener for all my writing projects.

And I do a majority of my writing on my computer, or iPad, whichever is more convenient. Though sometimes it just seems easier to pick up a pen and paper to scribble out a scene or section for a current writing project.

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Amazon’s Kindle Fire is now available to order. I’ve read a few reviews of the Fire, and they all seem pretty positive. A lot of reviews do point out the big differences between the Fire and iPad. Overall though, I think the Fire will be a viable, lower cost alternative to the iPad.

Here is a good video review from laptopmag.com that shows the Kindle Fire being put through the paces. Enjoy!