Quote:
Originally Posted by Jellby
Not really... they can say "people didn't read before, now with the new (put the device's name here) they will read non-stop!"
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I'm with Harry on this one. Jobs has said "people don't read." It doesn't really matter if he's right. What does matter is that he's saying "Apple's market target is not people who read."
All the posts on this topic seem to be centered around whether Apple's new device will compete with the Kindle. But another way to look at the question is whether Apple's target consumer is the same person as the Kindle target consumer.
If you think about it, I believe you will realize that they are not the same person. It's hard to see here on Mobileread, because we are the exceptions to the rule. We are both kinds of consumers.
It's not that an Apple tablet, or even an Apple netbook, won't have some impact on the eReader environment. A larger platform for the Kindle App will sell more Kindlebooks, and enlarge the niche for ebooks in general. The pricepoint of the Apple device might exert some downward pressure on the pricepoint of the Kindles.
But the people who will gravitate to the Apple device will not go there for the reading experience. They will go there for the interactive experience - movies, games, mobile communications. The people who will gravitate to the Kindle will go there to read, and do their interactive stuff on laptops.
There is, however, one big factor that might make the Apple tablet the eReader of choice for some. That is that the Apple tablet has the potential to be the only truly open eReader, because it will be able to run Apps to read any filetype from any eBook provider, DRMed or not. But how many people will be interested in paying Apple prices for the marginal ability to get ebooks from other providers?