[aetherson]

Reading at length is, you know, fine on a phone or laptop. Tablets (small tablets, at least -- I don't think that 10"ers are good for this) are superior. But I've read on both my phone and my laptop/desktop, and both basically work okay.

Perhaps more importantly, I don't think that 80%+ of the population reads in long-form commonly enough to make this a big deal. You can deal with a slightly inconvenient long-form reading experience if you only read long-form four times a year, say.

Finally: e-ink dedicated readers deliver a superior value for a big chunk of the long-form reading out there (not all of it), thus further-narrowing this use-case.

[mercer]

Perhaps we're in agreement and I'm misreading your comments, but it seems to me that tablets are clearly useful enough to be considered 'successful'. They're just not the kind of thing everybody wants or needs. And I'm not sure tablet makers ever really thought that.

Using the term 'languish' just seems a bit too negative to describe this particular outcome. Tablets are finding (or found) their market, and are doing okay. Smartwatches will probably be a similar kind of thing. Setting the bar for 'success' at smartphone levels seems a bit too high to me.