I can see where Mr. Jobs gets his idea about the death of reading because I went ahead and read the whole article that this quote came from. His claim is that 40 percent of people only read one book a year, and that is probably true. But that is not the only kind of reading that people do anymore a lot of reading these days is informational and is largely found on the internet. People now like to read forums and blogs, news feeds and wikis. In contrast to what Mr. Jobs said, I think that people read more these days then they ever have before, but it just isn't measurable. In our society when someone is asked if they read they may say "not much" but in reality they could have just spend a few hours on their computer reading blogs and news feeds.
In the traditional definition, it is true that people don't read as much but that does not mean that there is no market for ebook readers. I think that amazon had the right idea when they set up their Kindle with the ability to easily subscribe to newspapers and blogs because that is where a lot of modern reading is, and to be able to do it without eye strain now is wonderful.
I think if Steve Jobs was to change his definition of reading he would see a huge market for an ibook device.
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