Sitting like an old VAX/VMS Supercomputer at the back of a shop is not the most customer friendly of designs, and the company video highlights the technological focus of its development by demonstrating how to print an incredibly ugly book.

I would agree that the 1.5 is more like a prototype, but even the 2.0 still seems to give primacy to a utilitarian aesthetic. Yes this is all about technology… to those in the industry…. but to the consumer it is about buying books.

At first look I would say the machine was designed as a back-of-house machine, while the real benefits will appear when the customer wants to be involved in the process.

The designers of the machine need to strive to match the experience of using other contemporary technology to really capture the consumer attention.

The more consumer oriented the machine is the greater the take-up no matter what technological wizardry is inside.