Autographed E-Books Could Be Next Thing

There are a lot of reasons that people aren’t fond of e-books: they don’t have that book smell; they’re not cozy and cuddle-worthy; plus, of course, all technology is of the devil. But at least one problem with e-books may be getting fixed soon. It seems Apple has filed a patent idea for a way to make e-books autograph-able.

The idea seems to be that some sort of special autograph page or autograph widget area would be encoded into e-books which an author could then sign or — in a really bizarre move, could be downloaded from an author’s tablet or smartphone onto another device. Although this is unspeakably weird, it would save popular authors from losing feeling in their hands while on book tours, I suppose.

Still, there's something about the whole thing that's a bit... incongruous, I suppose?

But luckily we should have plenty of time to get used to it. Right now the idea is just an idea, and there’s no telling when — or even if — it will happen. But you might want to start mentally preparing yourself for a world of downloadable signatures, just in case.