Steve Jobs on MacBook Air, Android and Kindle

[ChrisA]

Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.

So that means MOST people (60%) read more then one book.

Even if only 20% of the population reads that group is bigger than the group of people who use Macs and Jobs is happy to sell computers to that small minority. I'm sure that if Jobs thought he could sell a book reader to 5% of the US population he'd jump at the chance. his goal with the iPhone was to sell one to only a small percentage of the population.

Also most people buy low-end, cheap PCs. If Apple follows the bulk of the consumer market why don't they offer $399 Macs?

Apple has always "cherry picked" the top of the market leaving the mid and low end to others.

 

[digitalbiker]

So that means MOST people (60%) read more then one book.

Even if only 20% of the population reads that group is bigger than the group of people who use Macs and Jobs is happy to sell computers to that small minority. I'm sure that of Jobs thought he could sell a book reader to 5% of the US population he'd jump at the chance. his goal with the iPhone was to sell one to only a small percentage of the population.

Also most people buy low-end, cheap PCs. If Apple follows the bulk of the consummer market why don't they offer $399 Macs?

Apple has always "cherry picked" the top of the market leaving the mid and low end to others.

I'll bet 40% of the people in the US don't own ipods or macs either but I don't see that stopping apple from marketing itunes songs.

 

[deathshrub]

"seems the concept as flawed"?

 

[Kwill]

I would be insulted but I have not yet received an audiobook version of the interview.

 

[Bogie]

Those who do read read quite a bit generally. I've read 50 books for pleasure this year not counting the required reading for my classes which is an additional 20-30. I would LOVE being able to download textbooks to a kindle like device and being able to make annotations with a stylus. Then to be able to export the annotated pages to a computer and print them would be even better!

 

[yellow]

The more I think about SJ's response about the Kindle, the more ridiculous it becomes.

I have a strange feeling that Amazon might know a thing or 2 about how many books people buy and thought that an eBook might actually work. Heck, I'm thinking about it myself. I love to read and kinda miss having a Palm to read eBooks on.

His response almost seems like he's started believing his own hype and if Apple doesn't promote it, then it sucks.

(if it ain't scottish, it's crap!)

 

[SiliconAddict]

Jobs is a tard. So I guess no one reads in school. I guess Barnes an Noble and every other book seller on the planet should fold. I hate Jobs. The man thinks everything isn't worth going after until HE decides to jump into the market. Same with video. Same with TV. Same with photos. Someone needs to give him a boot to the head. He is an excellent marketer, but that is it.

 

[zimtheinvader]

If no one reads then how do periodicals stay in buisness?

If no one reads, then how do you explain all the fact that the NY Times still sells, barnes&noble is still packed around me and blogs are abundant, I think more people just read online, but hell I still read lots of books.

Also, we know Jobs is egomaniacal, this isn't something new. His being this wrong is though...

I agree though, that reading will not be as popular as listening to music, it never was because it requires effort to learn.

 

[LethalWolfe]

The displays use wonderful technology, they can be used for all sorts of great stuff, but having 1000 books in my pocket is not useful.

But it could be useful to others. Most hardware and software manuals can be found in PDF versions on-line and it would be very convenient for me to have the manuals (as well as other trouble shooting related guides/white papers) w/me for quick reference.


Lethal

 

[QuarterSwede]

Jobs is clearly wrong on this one but I do agree that eBooks will NEVER catch on. As an old future tech professor said, "There is nothing like holding a book and flipping through its pages. Electronic Books are not the future." He said this when Sony first came out with the Reader and his assertion has been spot on.

*I don't get why the Amazon Kindle is such a big deal. Sony came out with the Reader (which looks better) how long ago?

 

[twoodcc]

nice. i know tons of people are gonna yak about his comment that people "don't read anymore"

 

[redrabbit]

Jobs is clearly wrong on this one but I do agree that eBooks will NEVER catch on. As an old future tech professor said, "There is nothing like holding a book and flipping through its pages. Electronic Books are not the future." He said this when Sony first came out with the Reader and his assertion has been spot on.

*I don't get why the Amazon Kindle is such a big deal. Sony came out with the Reader (which looks better) how long ago?

the reader looks better, sure, but it doesn't have free wireless delivery over Sprint's network. that's whats so awesome about the kindle. (yes, i am one of the few people judging it that actually owns one). amazon also has a far better collection in its store. almost 100,000 books now (and that's not counting wireless auto delivery of newspapers and magazines)

 

[zimtheinvader]

Maybe he's just bitter about how Apple stock fell after releasing that abortion of a Macbook the Air...

 

[chicagdan]

Jobs is clearly wrong on this one but I do agree that eBooks will NEVER catch on. As an old future tech professor said, "There is nothing like holding a book and flipping through its pages. Electronic Books are not the future." He said this when Sony first came out with the Reader and his assertion has been spot on.

*I don't get why the Amazon Kindle is such a big deal. Sony came out with the Reader (which looks better) how long ago?

It may not be a mass market phenomenon, but I like eBooks ... I've been using one since the Rocket eBook came to market in the late 90s. One big feature of eBooks is that if the text is in the public domain, you can download it from the web and read it for free. So, for example, any book 75 years old or more is free ... the caveat is that translations get copyright protection, so you'll need to download an older translation of Don Quixote, for example, to read for free.

The backlight is also a huge advantage over book lights if you want to read in bed and since I like to read really big tomes, it's much easier to carry around an eBook than War and Peace or Gravity's Rainbow.

The Kindle has some big advantages over Sony ... for one, you can buy a book basically anywhere. I can't tell you how many times someone has told me about a book or I've read something in a newspaper and I had to write down the name and hope I didn't lose it before I could go online or make it to a store. With the Kindle, I could just buy it on the spot. Also, the selection for the Kindle is much, much better.

Final thing ... reading on a eBook is much FASTER than with paper. It's hard to explain it until you've done it, but you can just get lost in the text and not pay attention to how many pages have gone by, which is a psychological barrier that breaks the pane of immersion.

 

[gctwnl]

Reading is a particular pleasure

Jobs often has an uncanny feel for what people want/like but it is not 100% perfect. Reading is not in decline at all, here at last, we see record breaking book sales, year after year. Many people do not read books, but many, many do and they read a lot.

As soon as the digital technique has a few things paper have (e.g. equivalent of flipping through pages, I've seen prototypes of software doing this 10 years ago and also do not forget innovations like the iPod's scroll movement), the book will go the way of the CD. It will take time, but like your iPod works without a CD, a iBook works without having to carry the books around.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Imagine the iPod touch. Now make it bigger to match the standard paperback book size. Replace the screen by an e-ink screen and have a switch to enable the backlight. The cool thing about e-ink is that is only needs power when changing the display's content. You need a few minutes to read a book page so the battery could last for days when reading. You don't need much memory since text barely takes up anything. 1GB is plenty considering you can fit tons of PDFs and a complete book library on it. Add a "previous" and "next" button next to the home button so the user does not have to smudge the screen ever time he turns a page. Sell books on iTunes. If that thing also played audio books (come on, everything plays mp3s these days), I think it would make lots of people enjoy books again.

You don't need to imagine it, that's a pretty good description of the Sony reader. (sans iTunes, but they have their own store.)

It's not a bad device, but the question si what people will pay for it. I have the same concern about the Apple TV- I love the new features and the convenience of downloading rentals, but I don't like having the pay the entry fee. I understand it can't be free of course. But that's the issue with reader devices- is the price worth the benefits over regular paper?

 

[iAFC]

Steve, I prefer a Kindle over that huge amount of crap that is your lovely new MacBook Air, a PC that's stupid like you.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Your post illustrates Jobs' concern quite well. It's great that you did read 2 books. So would you pay $300 or whatever for an ebook reader to read those 2 half books per year?

His general point is that there aren't that many people in which a $300 e-reader really makes sense, due to the price of the reader itself.

So THAT means that 60% of America read MORE than one book last year. Apple's market share is what, 7% or 8% (know my figure is off) and yet he invests boat loads into that small percentage of those computing. (I know that the percentage of computing AMERICANS is not specifically stated, so this is just for illustrative purposes) Seems like to book readers are an UNTAPPED MARKET!!

For the record, I read half of TWO books last year and LISTENED to ZERO. A case in which 1/2+1/2 does not equal...much.

Audio MAGAZINES I would be interested in!!

Seems like no idea is a good one unless it's Apple's. I'm not an Apple basher, I have three machines and three iPods, but sometimes they get a little egotistical.

 

[slu]

I think I know why. I don't know how much you know about company policies, but Amazon is a publicly-traded company and therefore can't release how well it's sales have been doing until certain quarters or designated points in the year. They're simply not allowed to.

Wrong. I don't know Amazon's policy, but there is no regulation or law in the US that says a public company can't release sales figures daily if they want to.

 

[madmaxmedia]

Jobs is a tard. So I guess no one reads in school. I guess Barnes an Noble and every other book seller on the planet should fold. I hate Jobs. The man thinks everything isn't worth going after until HE decides to jump into the market. Same with video. Same with TV. Same with photos. Someone needs to give him a boot to the head. He is an excellent marketer, but that is it.

Yes, he ended up becoming the single largest shareholder of Walt Disney Corp. and Apple by pure luck and snake oil...

He has chosen not to develop an e-book reader, and simply gave a general explanation as to why. I don't understand why you have a problem with that.

He doesn't think a market is going after, hence he decides not to jump into the market. No need to draw any other conclusions than that. He's not perfect, but his track record is far better than most business leaders.

 

[madmaxmedia]

I've said this before, but I'd buy eBooks from iTMS if they were available and priced decently. All the other ebook sales I've seen are pretty much the same price, if not sometimes more expensive, than the actual book.

I'd also subscribe to 'emagazines' via iTMS given the option. There's already success in that market with Zinio and others doing it, so this seems like a pretty big no brainer.

It would be interesting to see what Apple or other companies could come up with regarding magazines. But I think magazine are particularly ill-suited for ebook readers.

I owned a Sony Reader for a short while. For reading a novel, flipping page after page, it is not bad. But typically you browse through magazines, go back and forth, etc. Doing that is not well suited to the current crop of ebook readers. They're also purely black and white (grayscale), which alone probably kills magazines as ebook subscription.

 

[rockosmodurnlif]

The thing I like about books and magazines is that they don't require batteries or wifi or any type of memory. Books and magazine are always on and can take a pretty good fall. The only problem is they don't have ambient light sensors and aren't backlit but then again, that's what your brain is for.

Although with no Harry Potter books coming out in the future, Steve may just get proved right.

 

[acslater017]

Has there ever been a time when more than 40% of Americans read more than one book a year? Stating the current stat without comparing it to history is meaningless.

Well, since the Kindle is being marketed toward the current market, and not the past, it's not meaningless.

Look, everyone - I know Jobs' statement was a bit blanketing (and everyone loves to talk about how much they read). But he was simply looking at it from a financial/business point of view. I think what he meant to say was, "Not ENOUGH people read to justify INVESTING TENS OF MILLIONS OR MORE on a niche device." And not many people, for the time being, will be willing to drop $400 on a book reading machine. And I agree with him.

The iPod was successful because it allowed you to carry a thousand songs in your pocket. The Kindle allows to carry a couple hundred books in your backpack. How many people would even care to do that (for $400)? It's not like people enjoy reading one paragraph from one book, another page from another book, etc. The need is just not there.

But, if anyone's in the position to market/produce such a device, it's Amazon.

 

[Spades]

He has chosen not to develop an e-book reader, and simply gave a general explanation as to why.

There's plenty of good reasons that e-books aren't likely to ever take off. People not reading is not one of them and giving that as his explanation is why people are criticizing him.

 

[nxent]

jobs should be careful about these types of remarks. it's the same type of arrogance that microsoft and companies alike used when they dismissed the ipod. as an innovative company that prides itself on philosophy and innvation, i expect the leadership at apple to show a little bit more respect when referring to another company's product, even if it is a crappy idea. in the end, it comes down to what the consumers want. otherwise you come off sounding a lot like the boys over in redmond. i think the kindle is decent idea, along with open platform mobile phone being supported by google. even as an avid mac fan, i wouldn't rule out buying a potentially more capable open sourced phone or kindle-like device. so long as it interfaced well with my powerbook.