Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Reading is itself rather a "niche" activity, so I don't think that an eBook reader will ever reach the same kind of sales levels as an iPod.
Prices are determined by the cost of the screen. I'm sure that will fall over the next few years, but at the moment, that's what they cost.
I don't think that the price is unreasonable, personally. It's pretty much the same price as one of the higher-end PDAs.
|
I don't get this assertion that reading is a 'niche' activity. Fact is that listening to mp3's used to be a niche activity till someone (Apple) figured out that it's not about just the device it's the interface and the user experience. There were plenty of mp3 players before the iPod- but you never saw wide adoption till the iPod came out.
Personally I don't know anyone who doesn't read books. My wife reads books, my coworkers read books, and all three of my kids read books. There are more bookstores where I live than music stores, and every Wal Mart and grocery store I shop at carries at least a few hardcover and paperbacks. I can find the latest Harry Potter novel easier than I can find the latest Carrie Underwood CD or the movie 300 on DVD. This would tend to indicate (to me anyway) that purchasing books is at least as popular an activity as purchasing movies or CD's. So how is this a "niche" activity? The largest online retailer in the world is Amazon.com, and they started as a online bookseller- and I believe that is still their core business, despite branching out to sell everything else under the sun.
Personally I see no reason why a beautifully designed reader, with an elegant UI coupled with a seamless cross platform store (ala iTunes) wouldn't do as well as the iPod. Unfortunately nobody out there has both the resources and the vision to have put it together. Yet.