Steve Jobs on the "iPod of reading"

[rixte]

Jobs also swore up and down that Apple would never make a video version of the iPod.

So I'm taking this whole annoucement with a huge grain of salt.

The inability to read an ebook on an iPhone is what made me decide to go with another Palm Treo (Centro) instead of the iPhone, though. And then ordering my Cybook a week later!

[snookums]

I'm copying a comment I made on teleread blog.

I seem to recall that particular stat was in reference to books bought new not read. It may be that many people buy used books, trade with friends, or go to the library. And hey. Guess what. If 40% read only one book a year, that means that 60% read more than one book a year. Factor in college students and high school students. Both groups are notorious for not reading. Even if only 5% of the population were reading more than five books a year, that’s 15,000,000 freaking people. If only 8% of those people bought a Kindle or other eBook reader, that’s an audience of 1,200,000 people. Would you ignore a demographic that large just because it wasn’t a majority? Jobs is spoiled from selling mp3 players.

[Penforhire]

Why do I get the feeling that if we MobileRead users totaled the number of books we read annually it'd match the reading volume of one America's states? Not our biggest state but more than our smallest...

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by slayda

But how much of that income came from the sell of books?

AFAIK, most of it.

She made a healthy bit from movie rights, but I believe she was already in the billionaire bracket before those happened.

And she's been very fussy about licensing. You'll notice there haven't been things like Harry Potter Action Figures.

For that matter (and relevant to us), she hasn't authorized any electronic editions. (I have no idea why not.)
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

Today Apple is an extraordinarily successful company, but then it was regarded as an also ran due especially to early decisions (in which Mr. Jobs had lots of input) not to license their OS. Of course nobody knew about iPods and mp3's then, how they will take the world by storm.

Among other things, Jobs neatly relegated the Macintosh to a niche market in the early days when the IBM PC was becoming the standard.

The Mac didn't have a numeric keypad because Jobs didn't like them. IBM PC users in business setting lived in Lotus 1,2,3, where a numeric keypad was a necessity. For that matter, the PC replaced Apple ][s, which the users bought to run VisiCalc. You would think Apple might have taken the hint about what people in a corporate setting actually did with their machines.

As an aside, this episode (Microsoft putting money in Apple) is a good example of how quickly fortunes reverse in the market, since in the late 90's when Apple's stock was stagnant to down and Microsoft was going up and up exponentially, nobody would have bet that by 2008, Apple's stock will be about 10 (1000%) times higher, while Microsoft would be roughly about 50% lower from its highest level and just about where it was in 1998.

It's rather inevitable, really.

For many years, Microsoft was the quintessential "growth" company. The posted regular double-digit revenue and profit increases, and got a stock price in the stratosphere. These days, MS is on the brink of becoming a "mature" company. Mature companies throw off enormous amounts of cash, but don't have stock prices in the stratosphere. Microsoft's challenge is where to find continued growth.

Their prinicpal lines of business are Windows and Office, and those markets are largely saturated. Just about everything that can run them, does. Unless MS can dramatically open the Indian and Chinese markets, they aren't going to see much growth from Windows and Office. Their attempts to become a web power through MSN have been failures, and their attempts to be a major player in gaming via the XBox have been less than inspiring.

The cynical part of me thinks Bill Gates picked a good time to get out of day to day management and concentrate on philanthropic efforts. He can leave a winner. Steve Ballmer gets the unenviable job of trying to support the stock price...

Jobs has demonstrated that design sells. Apple products look good, and are very well executed. People buy iPods and iPhones as fashion statements as much as for useful devices. The down side of that is a "Have it our way" attitude about what such devices should do, and a closed architecture that makes peripherals and components more expensive. Right now Apple is on a roll with the iPod and iPhone. The question is whether it can sustain that momentum with innovative product introductions.
______
Dennis

[Zoot]

Originally Posted by LazyScot

Someone should tell the likes of J K Rowling that reading is dead....

Perhaps, but compare the total number of books sold with the number of people who go to see the movie of the same book. A lot of people with experience of the Harry Potter franchise will not have gotten it from reading I think.

But I think Jobs is premature in writing off reading.

Z.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Zoot

Perhaps, but compare the total number of books sold with the number of people who go to see the movie of the same book. The majority of people with experience of the Harry Potter franchise will not have gotten it from reading I think.

Agreed. But I think the Harry Potter movies shared a characteristic with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films: a much larger percentage than usual of the people who went to the films had read the books.
______
Dennis

[Zoot]

Yeah, and in retrospect looking for numbers to back up my assertion, it's not clear that the movie revenue suggests drastically more viewers than books sold. Supposedly 325 million books have been sold (for the entire series) and the first four movies did around 3 billion $US worldwide. So not knowing the worldwide average movie ticket price nor the number of pass-along readings-per-book-sold it's hard to tell accurately.

Z.

[Eutychus]

Steve was being kind to Amazon to refuse to comment on the Kindle as computer hardware. If you have seen and used an iPod you can imagine his opinion of the Kindle's hardware.

His comment about market share from book readers is significant only for dedicated eReaders such as the Kindle. I imagine various companies will release eReader software for the iPhone and iPod Touch when the developer kits are released. Apple itself could end up producing such software since it produces GarageBand for a smaller market share group (the software is included when you buy their computer). The more interesting question would be if Apple might release an iPod touch the size of an iRex iLiad or a Cybook that could be used as an ebook reader.

One last comment sparked by Steve Job's view of potential market share for dedicated ebook readers: Amazon released the Kindle to make money. I don't think they can become the iTunes-iPod of the ebook world. (Competition from other eReaders and UMPC's; publishing industry learning its lessons from the music industry.) If the Kindle does not reach and maintain adequate profit, Amazon will drop it as they have other low profit ventures.

[Jaapjan]

I can also quite understand his comment about books.

Not many people nowadays read books. Of my age category anyway. Meaning younger then thirty. Plenty of my friends, I think all of them, hardly ever read a book. I do not think I need more then one hand to list all the people I know who have a collection of books.

Now from that small percentage take those who read electronic books.

From -that- batch take a percentage who would pay for apple-priced design hardware.

And I think you'll know why he made his comment. Those who are willing to read between the lines and are willing to think about a statement can see something in it. The fact it came from Steve shouldn't make a difference. If Nate said it I would feel the same way about it.

[CommanderROR]

Well, it's sad to hear that there is a decline in book-reading numbers, but I really don't see any danger of the market vanishing anytime soon.

I must admit however, that I'm rather glad Apple is not going to go into the ebook market...
The iPod is a very nice device, and iTunes works very well with it, however, Apple products as a whole rub me the entirely wrong way. They are incredibly pretty and always make me want to buy immediately, just for the design, but the lacking useability (I simply could not get used to that bubbly, garishly coloured interface...) and high prices just because they are "Premium" annoy me no end.
Apple is all about status symbols and due to their fixed hardware configs they have a certain stability advantage compared to PCs, but the quailty has been getting worse and worse (burning and overheating macbooks, iPods with crooked screens, ...) and Apple seems to try their best to lock you into certain software-hardware ties...look at the iPhone.

The Amazon Kindle is a pretty locked affair, the iPod of Reading would probably be even worse and it would almost certainly use outdated hardware at outrageous prices...

[Jaapjan]

Originally Posted by CommanderROR

....They are incredibly pretty and always make me want to buy immediately, just for the design, but the lacking useability (I simply could not get used to that bubbly, garishly coloured interface...

I know many of you will surely be upset to hear it but the first thing I did on my Macbook was to install Linux instead of OSX because I coulddn't get used to that bu... never mind. Bootcamp would probably not make a problem in getting Vista or XP or .. anything really .. working on your Air, Macbook, Pro or iMac.

But yes, you pay way much for regular hardware ... in a very pretty package. You can judge products several ways. Performance/price, which are usually the most vocal against Apple (since they do not deliver at all in this area), Looks/price (which almost noone does except pure mac zealots) and something in between which search for good looking hardware for an at least affordable price.

[CommanderROR]

What I mainly do with my computer is upgrad it, it's my hobby...if I can afford...
Can I do that with a mac? Nope, that's why this is a Mac-Free home...

[Jaapjan]

Originally Posted by CommanderROR

What I mainly do with my computer is upgrad it, it's my hobby...if I can afford...
Can I do that with a mac? Nope, that's why this is a Mac-Free home...

I have had personal computers since many, many years and I handbuild more then half of them from components bought at various places or in later years, over the internet.

All the notebooks I have ever had have been Macs. Which are impossible to upgrade anyway.

[JerryEF]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

People are NOT going to be paying $300-$400 to read newspapers and magazines. Especially when the reading experience is better via the paper copies.

Well, perhaps MOST people are not going to. But enough have already to sell out the initial stock level of Kindles and, I understand, of the $700 iLiad. Early adopters will spend. I purchased (and received) a Kindle. The decision was not based on economics. It was based on convenience. People will spend incredible amounts of money for convenience.

The first issue one needs to get past is whether ebook readers make any sense in the first place. I travel a lot. I could all carry a few novels around with me everywhere I go, but I find the new way more convenient. Likewise, I could carry a CD player and my CD collection around too, but opt to carry my music around on an Ipod. Likewise, I could carry around an old fashion address / appointment book, but choose to have a cell phone that syncs with my PC's Outlook. And so on... I subscribe to the WSJ and NYT on the Kindle too --- real convenient --- but not the same experience as the real paper versions --- but real convenient.

The second issue one might need to get past is the DRM issue. I do not buy any music that has DRM associated with it because I have various devices I use to listen to music: PC, ipod, my car's hard disk, ... I can honestly said that I do not recall ever re-reading a book. So, for me, that is not an issue, for some people it will be a major issue. The one thing about DRM that does piss me off is the inability to share books. My wife an I have a few authors that we both enjoy. DRM makes sharing books a PITA. I have never sold any used books, so that isn't an issue for me. I have recently started donating some of my older pbooks to local nursing / home facilities. Unfortunately, I will not be able to continue that with DRMed eBooks.

My final point is the Kindle approach to eBooks. While I do have some issues with the physical ergonomics of the device, the simplicity they have brought to content delivery (and purchasing) is a big deal. For most readers of this blog, the process of going to a web site, buying a book, downloading it to a PC, hooking up their ebook reader, copying the book to some folder on some obscure disk drive using windows explorer is no big deal. To most people I know, it will just never happen. The wispernet approach to delivering (and even purchasing) content makes this device something the somewhat-less-than-geek can do.

Maybe this will be what will make the eBook experience palatable to the masses - doable and convenient --- not necessarily the most economic --- just like the ipod did to music.