Jeff Atwood recently wrote a fantastic piece on the current standard of eBooks:

Because I love words, I want to love eBooks. I want to buy lots and lots of eBooks. But unless the publishers are willing to treat eBooks with the same respect and care that they give to their printed books – and most importantly of all, adjust their pricing to reflect the brave new economy of bits, and not an antiquated economy of atoms – they’re destined to eventually suffer the same fate as the Encyclopedia Britannica.

This article couldn’t be more correct.

I’ve recently decided to stop buying print books under most circumstances¹ for reasons that include both personal convenience, and a desire to consume less resources.

Unfortunately, as Jeff has pointed out, eBooks just aren’t 100% there yet. Traditional novels are fine from Kindle/iBookstore, but I read a lot of technology books, and the instant you get into screenshots or diagrams the formatting goes straight out the window. Many of the tech-related publishers are providing the option to go for PDF instead but this still feels like settling for second-best until they get their act together.