Steve Jobs on MacBook Air, Android and Kindle

[matticus008]

I buy an average of one iTunes album a week, and an average of two books a week. Most of the books I buy are "substantial" - literature, history, scholarship, etc.

So in other words, you're nowhere near the typical consumer in this regard.

Ideally I'd like to have electronic copies and paper copies of the same books, so I could carry the Reader around and continue where I left off in the paper copy while in a waiting room, etc.

And you're now even in a smaller minority of people willing to pay twice for the same thing, but clearly would return to the paper copy wherever possible.

You, like most heavy readers, have a clear preference for an actual book and use an eBook device only where it is more convenient than having an actual book--which boils down to when you're traveling. The eBook doesn't replace books and doesn't really justify its existence--and is one more thing to carry. You don't really picture anyone curling up with a Kindle loaded up with Chaucer by the fire.

An eBook device is an evolutionary dead end and a unitasker to boot. It could easily be replaced by a full-featured multifunction device like a tablet, notebook, iPhone, or PDA.

I see enough people browsing around at bookstores to know that Jobs' claim that nobody reads is ignorant Silicon Valley prejudice.

And such an interpretation is effete superiority. Silicon Valley is an affluent area that probably has more Kindle customers per capita than just about anywhere else in the country.

That doesn't change the simple fact that eBook devices are a solution looking for a problem. They don't track with modern life--novel-format prose has ebbed.

In the bookstore, how much of that audience is there to pick up a book of prose (not DVDs or magazines or computer/home guides)? How much of that small fraction is composed of people under 35?

An eBook reader doesn't do anything useful that a subscription blog or an Internet content delivery system couldn't replace on any net-connected device bigger than a cell phone. Coupled with the fact that people truly don't chug through entertainment prose in printed form nearly as much, it's got a narrow market that doesn't invite a lot of competition.

Coffee table books, comics, periodicals, how-to guides (gardening, home projects, etc.), reference books, and capital-L literature don't mesh with an eBook format. It only really works for the novel-format (be it fiction or nonfiction), and apart from the small set of voracious readers, it doesn't really serve much of a purpose.

 

[willdenow]

Reading is for Schmucks (says Jobs)

Attention all primary, secondary and college students! Schools out for ever. According to his holiness Steve Jobs, the Grand Poohbah and Chief Inquisitor of Apple, Inc. prognosticator of right thinking everywhere, people don't read anymore. Therefore, why bother going to school to learn to learn your letters, how to spell, hell how even to read. Like the book says, everything I need to know in life I can find on my iPod Touch.

Brilliant, Steve. You may not be embarrassed by your own lack of literacy, but please let the rest of us decide for ourselves. Kindle, as a product, will rise or fall based on its design, not based on whether people read. If there were truly as little reading as you suggest, there would be no publishing industry whatsoever. Last time I looked, the pages of the London Review of Books, the New Times Book Review Section, the New York Review of Books, etc. where full of new titles, not to mention Borders, Barnes and Noble, and countless local bookstores. I'm sure the news that people don't read anymore will come as quite a surprise to them.

 

[Bonte]

Steve has it on the spot, 99% of the population listens to music but only about 10-20% reads a book regularly. A book being a non illustrated novel where the Kindle is aimed at.

We have so much more than that, a next gen ebook reader has to offer us comics, color illustrations and full multimedia next to the bare text (PDF can already do this easily). The anticipated small Mac tablet will be a much better ebook device than the Kindle, we just need PDF content in the iTunes Store and Google is already building up that library.

Still to come in 2008?

 

[AdrianWerner]

Apple never liked any competition and Amazon is the first real competitor iTunes ever had. Of course it's not like Amazon will overthrow Apple at most Amazon migh make a small dent in iTunes marketshare, but loosing even 10% of market in 3-4 years would be a big deal for Apple). SO I guess there is some bad blood there

Anyway Kindle is a huge success for Amazon. It is clunky and has problems, but it succeeds in something neither iphone/ithouch nor any other lcd device could: it replicates the experience of reading paper books. LCDs are nice, heck... I started my "ebook adventure" with PALM PDAs, but once you tried e-ink device there's no coming back. Everything else is just pathetic in comparision.
People might cite readership numbers, but the fact is that books market is growing nicely. US publishers saw AFAIR $25billion sales in 2006. And sales grew in every segment. Adult, paperbacks, children etc. So even if less people are reading than before, those that do read more than ever.
The market is there to tap into.
In next 10-15 years we'll see book market transformation similiar to the one music market did in last decade and most likely Amazon will be as big in e-publishing as iTunes is now in e-music

 

[Scarpad]

I wonder what it is that people turned away from reading books !? Audiobooks, no time, ... ??? Wonders ...

Because they've been zombiefied by the likes of Jerry Springer, Dancing With the Stars, and Wife Swap... Kinda explains the situation we are in , in the world.

 

[Scarpad]

Steve, I've been reading plenty on my New Sony Reader, so there.

 

[Scarpad]

I love reading, and preferably actual books. I also spend way too much time in front of an LCD every day to feel OK about cozying up to another LCD to read. Though the Kindle has definitely intrigued me, but I haven't yet found a steady supply of eBooks in my genres (steampunk, new weird, future dystopia, and more standard sci-fi and fantasy) to justify the expenditure. Maybe Kindle II for me, although the library would always be my first choice, followed by the local bookstores.

Steve's just trying to do what any CEO would do - promote his stuff at the expense of other companies' stuff. Though that his comments mirror his competitors' from a year ago, well, that's the patina washing off. Someday he'll realize that the emperor has no clothes.

Kindle isn't an LCD it's E-ink.

 

[Smaugg]

"People don't read any more" Has Steve gone bonkers?

I do resent the fact that Apple is only interested in providing the most populist forms of entertainment: trendy, ephimerous music, blockbuster films, the latest TV shows, etc. I wish they put a bit of effort in, for example, building a library of classics and hard-to-find films, TV shows, music and--why not?--books, and making them available through the iTunes Store. A proper Apple e-book reader would be fantastic. Everything else in the market is kind of flawed. The Kindle is interesting but the fact that it is a fest of DRM and proprietary formats, not to mention unglier than a monkey's ass, makes it unappealing to me.

The bottom line is not that people are not reading, it's that you can make more money selling mindless ringtones than literary works.

 

[ikir]

I think he is right, people red much more less nowdays.

 

[Smaugg]

Attention all primary, secondary and college students! Schools out for ever. According to his holiness Steve Jobs, the Grand Poohbah and Chief Inquisitor of Apple, Inc. prognosticator of right thinking everywhere, people don't read anymore. Therefore, why bother going to school to learn to learn your letters, how to spell, hell how even to read. Like the book says, everything I need to know in life I can find on my iPod Touch.

Brilliant, Steve. You may not be embarrassed by your own lack of literacy, but please let the rest of us decide for ourselves. Kindle, as a product, will rise or fall based on its design, not based on whether people read. If there were truly as little reading as you suggest, there would be no publishing industry whatsoever. Last time I looked, the pages of the London Review of Books, the New Times Book Review Section, the New York Review of Books, etc. where full of new titles, not to mention Borders, Barnes and Noble, and countless local bookstores. I'm sure the news that people don't read anymore will come as quite a surprise to them.

You are spot on. The world hasn't turned into a menagerie of moronic serial ring-tone downloaders, as Steve might be under the impression it has.

 

[AdrianWerner]

Kindle isn't an LCD it's E-ink.

Yeah... people really have no idea how good e-ink looks untill they try it. Pictures and videos just can't show it. It really does look like paper, so much that after a while you can actualy forget you're reading from a screen.

 

[ikir]

Attention all primary, secondary and college students! Schools out for ever. According to his holiness Steve Jobs, the Grand Poohbah and Chief Inquisitor of Apple, Inc. prognosticator of right thinking everywhere, people don't read anymore. Therefore, why bother going to school to learn to learn your letters, how to spell, hell how even to read. Like the book says, everything I need to know in life I can find on my iPod Touch.

Brilliant, Steve. You may not be embarrassed by your own lack of literacy, but please let the rest of us decide for ourselves. Kindle, as a product, will rise or fall based on its design, not based on whether people read. If there were truly as little reading as you suggest, there would be no publishing industry whatsoever. Last time I looked, the pages of the London Review of Books, the New Times Book Review Section, the New York Review of Books, etc. where full of new titles, not to mention Borders, Barnes and Noble, and countless local bookstores. I'm sure the news that people don't read anymore will come as quite a surprise to them.

OMG... comments like this is nosense. Attacking Steve it is soo easy behind a monitor lol. About the topic: you misses what his comments are about. Most of people i know read 1 book a year... He is just saying that people don't read too much. why you must read another things?

 

[Philter]

40% read less than a book a year... what about the other 60%?

Steve Jobs doesn't seem like a genius, he seems like a prick, and an anti-intellectual one at that.

 

[Philter]

Steve has it on the spot, 99% of the population listens to music

Being stuck in an elevator doesn't count. What percentage of the population BUYS music?

 

[tsvb]

Did anyone mention that the last part of the article isn't ironic it is coincidental.

 

[evilyankeefan]

Ordered a Kindle

What's humorous is Steve's comment on the Kindle made me revisit looking at it. Blew it off when it was announced as it was pretty ugly looking (well still is), but upon reading reviews and looking at the videos, it's a slick device. Yeah it's got faults, but what 1st gen product doesn't.

Ordered one and I'm going to have to wait for weeks to get it as it is so backordered. That's fine, I have a few books I need to finish reading.

I think it's made at the same plant as Wii's.

 

[AdrianWerner]

OMG... comments like this is nosense. Attacking Steve it is soo easy behind a monitor lol. About the topic: you misses what his comments are about. Most of people i know read 1 book a year... He is just saying that people don't read too much. why you must read another things?

oh..come on..everything apple makes is a niche product. even ipods. I mean..merely 10% of all albums are bought through digital distribution.
Plus.. it's not like MBA is aimed as mainstream market.

 

[TMay]

Where's the beef?

I have yet to find ANY figures on sales of ebook readers. I realize that people are buying them, and that they have been on the market for awhile.

Sony had an exclusive at Borders. How did that work out? (closest that I came to was about 10,000 units a year sales expectation in 2006)

Kindle. Sold Out at Launch! Selling great! Backordered!

Yet, no sales figures.

My opinion. Steve is correct.
ebooks not ready for primetime.

We will see a reader application when an Apple tablet arrives, but we will never see dedicated reader hardware from Apple.

 

[zedsdead]

What's humorous is Steve's comment on the Kindle made me revisit looking at it. Blew it off when it was announced as it was pretty ugly looking (well still is), but upon reading reviews and looking at the videos, it's a slick device. Yeah it's got faults, but what 1st gen product doesn't.

Ordered one and I'm going to have to wait for weeks to get it as it is so backordered. That's fine, I have a few books I need to finish reading.

I think it's made at the same plant as Wii's.

I also decided to re-look at it...I didn't buy it, but I am considering it since I usually carry around books with me at school...It would be nice to have...maybe the next generation version.

 

[bigfib]

40 Percent

40 Percent of people in the US don't have a computer either...
Maybe Apple needs to find a new business model???
The dumbest most illiterate comment Mr Jobs ever made...
But then, I'm a writer :-/

 

[sanford]

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

That is the scariest thing I've read in a long, long time and we've had some plenty scary stuff in this country in the last decade or so.

As for eBook readers. Lovely. For textbooks for students, or anyone who as part of their daily work requires carrying around a huge stack of reference materials; or must run and fetch what they must leave behind because they can't carry it.

For, like, *reading* books, reading them on an eBook reader, a computer screen, an iPhone, a PDA, if people are compelled to do that, this should up that mortifying 40 percent to around 80.

As for the couple people who mentioned thinking that 40 percent figure is wrong, perhaps sort of an excuse for not competing in the eBook market, unfortunately it's accurate. If anything, it's inaccurate in the other direction. Some people lied. Reasonably, probably 35 percent read at least *one* book or a portion thereof last year, 15 percent read a couple books -- that 15 percent, probably that book or two was pop/humorous political rhetoric either to the far left or right, or a self-help bestseller, or a faith-based inspirational bestseller, or a novel Oprah gushed about -- and then perhaps 20 percent read one book after another all year long, about half of that 20 percent it was mostly genre: SF, mystery/suspense, or romance. Maybe ten percent just flat constantly read books of all sorts. The market of diehard readers is still there, it's just small and perhaps is still shrinking bit by bit; that market prefers books of the cardboard, glue, paper and ink variety and is just not suited to eBook readers; they won't buy them or eBooks.

Most people watch TV. Lots and lots of TV. The writers' strike, they still watched TV, and were more likely to rent or buy entire old TV series on DVD they'd never before watched, and watch those in preference over movies.

I'm in the 10 percent, although I've slowed down the pace a bit since we had our third child. But I'm a writer, so reading goes with the territory. I turn on the TV to watch a movie, play a video game sometimes for entertainment, mostly for work, or right before I go to bed, typically between midnight and two in the morning, I watch FOX News for about 15 minutes. (There will be two camps on that last statement about FOX News: Hooray, this guy knows his stuff; and the opposite, oh Lord this guy gets all his news from FOX, what an idiot, I can happily disregard everything else he wrote above. For the former bunch, sorry for the following, but you can watch what you wish, so don't take it personally... For the latter camp, I watch FOX News because although at least some portion of what they report may be straight, not skewed or manipulated, if it's just too depressing or idiotic, since it's FOX News, I can always pretend it's biased and inaccurate.)

 

[macdaddy57]

About Reading

Yea Steve, but your target audience isn't the 40% of the US population that doesn't read. I would bet that the people who can afford and use Apple products read quite a bit more than the typical American. I'm one of your target consumers and I read, on average, one fiction and one technical book per month, the daily WSJ, plus at least six business magazines per week. I would love to read electronic editions of all of this reading material on a Mac tablet. Even better, I'd like to be able to store, tag, and search articles for future reference on my Mac.

 

[sanford]

40 Percent of people in the US don't have a computer either...
Maybe Apple needs to find a new business model???
The dumbest most illiterate comment Mr Jobs ever made...
But then, I'm a writer :-/

It's an accurate number, as I wrote below your post. Maybe even it's too high, since people don't like to admit they don't read. It's pitiful, but Jobs didn't say *he* didn't read, he said American don't read. You expect him to have Apple design a product they can't sell?

As for 40 percent of people in the States not having a computer, I don't know how accurate that number, but even assuming it is accurate, it's 40 percent *do not own one* -- almost all have access to a computer, most of them on a daily basis.

 

[sanford]

I'm one of your target consumers and I read, on average, one fiction and one technical book per month, the daily WSJ, plus at least six business magazines per week. I would love to read electronic editions of all of this reading material on a Mac tablet. Even better, I'd like to be able to store, tag, and search articles for future reference on my Mac.

Yes, you're a market for eBook readers. But a notebook Mac will suit you. For Apple, an eBook can't be a Mac-niche type of device; they can't charge enough of a premium for them. They have to be mass-market consumer devices, like iPods and iPhones, and they or someone has to be able to sell lots of content, like music or video.

Note that you read the Journal and six business magazines per week. No offense because none is intended -- indeed you no doubt know your field backwards and forwards -- but you're not a "reader". You read for information, because your work requires it, or you wish to stay that far ahead in your field. You don't qualify as a "reader". You're in the segment that has no underpinning in classical or even significant 20th century works, typically the fairly small segment who "reads". If you didn't read it in college, you haven't read it. And if you took a degree in the last 10, 15, approaching 20 years, you likely didn't read it in college if you weren't an English major. Outside your majors classes, you read what was required for your general education English credits, which was nothing, because at most all public universities and many, many private colleges -- institutions considered at least "good schools" -- the standard is now and has been for a while, *six* credit hours of English composition. You wrote some papers, for which you perhaps read portions of reference material, but you weren't required any literature courses, therefore you weren't required to read anything outside your field. Assuming your field is business, finance, law, medicine, computer science, something similar, that may be a long list of required reading you polished off in undergrad and even a graduate program, but it's of a very limited scope.

In other words, you well know your field, but you can't tell me a thing about Dickens's London, Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg, Orwell's Paris or Sartre's angst over his belief in Marx's brand of communism and its inherent conflicts with his own personal conviction that people above all must have true freedom. And to you, although I don't know, specifically, your field -- and this is completely understandable, as, for example, I'm a white American male living in America, I can comprehend the concept of racial discrimination and its effects on society, but I can't tell you what it's like to experience it -- you know your field, but you'll never understand how much better in your field you'd perhaps be with a more well-rounded picture of the world today and past, as told not only in history, but in good literature and philosophy.

 

[sanford]

I think it's made at the same plant as Wii's.

It can't possibly be made there. There's no room for all the Wiis sitting around. Nintendo is throttling Wii supply to create and sustain high demand, and perception of high demand. This seems stupid or inaccurate, considering games console manufacturers make money off first-party games or third-party games licensed via the console maker, while losing money on each console. Any games console manufacturer should want as many consoles in the hands of consumers as possible so they will buy games so the console manufacturer can make money.

Except Nintendo. Nintendo makes a tidy profit on hardware, for a long time, I think perhaps since their first console.