Steve Jobs on the "iPod of reading"

[ewayde]

Mr. Jobs is also likely referring to the masses who prefer 60 second around-the-world news reports vs. those read, study and absorb. The instant, everything all the time communications mediums we have are having the effect of shortening our collective attention spans.

[mlbspike]

It's so easy to sneer at "the masses". For many people, it's not a short attention span ... they want info, and they have a limited time available. If I'm going to sneer at anyone, it's the news media sound-byte machine that "in my opinion" underestimates the public, and caters to the lowest common denominator.
Mike

[Alisa]

I think the media, here in the US at least, promote an anti-intellectual sentiment. From a young age we get the message here that enjoying any kind of study or being "bookish" is dorky. You have to hide it in school to avoid being picked on. I think there are a lot of people who would enjoy reading but never gave it a chance, not even lightweight fiction.

Still, I think readers are a sizable enough population to make a huge profit. It's just not going to happen until the hardware is cheaper and better. We'll see what Steve says then.

[astra]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

My 19" 1600x1200 LCD.

You sure it is not 1280x1024?

Steve Jordan

I, myself, am perfectly happy reading LCDs all day long

I wonder what actually you are going to say after you read eInk for 1 day...

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by mlbspike

... the claim that people don't read "any more", is ludicrous. He's a talented huckster, but keep in mind ... he claimed with seeming conviction, earlier, that no one was interested in carrying around video in an ipod.

Mike

This may lead to a way to obtain a free or reduced price Apple ereader, if they ever build one. 5 weeks before Apple released the ipod video, I bought an "ipod photo." Did pictures, but not video. When video was released, I called Apple and complained loudly, pointing out Jobs' statements regarding ipod video, and I received a free ipod (but not a top-of-the-line model).

IMHO, Jobs is way way overrated. The same "genius" that defines Microsoft products characterizes Jobs/Apple- the genius of marketing.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

I wonder what actually you are going to say after you read eInk for 1 day...

Well, I have a Sony and I rarely use it; I vastly prefer my Nokia 770 and after it the Itouch for e-books for several reasons, most important being navigation inside and in between books which is just too slow on the Sony; also the 770 screen is much nicer in my opinion.

It's not like paper true, but many times I find it much better, being able to read on black background with orange-yellow fonts, having a lot of control on fonts, encoding...

[nekokami]

The number of people who read books may be too small for Jobs to be interested in making a dedicated eBook reader, but I doubt he'd turn up his nose at a chance to make money on eBooks using existing hardware. I would not be at all surprised if the iTunes store ends up selling ebooks for the iPod Touch, etc. The interesting question is whether the books would be the same as those currently available, or whether Jobs might go for books marketed toward younger readers, which is a segment currently being largely ignored by publishers and ebook vendors. If he could get the "Harry Potter" marketing segment (and especially if he could convince Rowling to release the HP books as legal ebooks for his platform), he could conceivably sell a lot of books, with very minimal investment.

I know not only kids use iPods, but I'm just observing that a lot of kids do have iPods, whereas they don't usually have other portable reading platforms (e.g. PDAs). Apple has also been cozy with schools in the past. If they put a pile of literature aimed at kids into iTunes, especially the stuff schools are assigning or encouraging kids to read, and then offered some kind of school-based discount on the books, I think they could see a lot of benefits, both financial and PR.

Of course, the books would probably be locked into yet another new proprietary format.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by astra_lestat

I wonder what actually you are going to say after you read eInk for 1 day...

Yeah, I know, I know, "e-ink is soooo nice..."

Actually, I have managed to check out the Sony, and I don't have anything bad to say about e-ink. If the Sony was cheaper, and e-books from any store could be read on it, I'd have one at home right now.

I'm just saying that, right now, I read on LCD screens (my PC, my laptop, and my PDA) all day long, with no fatigue or eyestrain. And there are others who have similar experiences with LCDs, they're not optical death-dealers for everybody! In fact, I've had more trouble reading glossy magazines in bad light situations, you might as well say they are worse than LCD.

That's why, as nice as e-ink is, I'd rather focus on the e-books themselves, their formats and delivery systems, and not worry about the hardware so much. Who cares if e-ink is the greatest thing since sliced bread, if you can't get a book to read on it?

[astra]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Who cares if e-ink is the greatest thing since sliced bread, if you can't get a book to read on it?

Only too true

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by nekokami

....The number of people who read books may be too small for Jobs to be interested in making a dedicated eBook reader, but I doubt he'd turn up his nose at a chance to make money on eBooks using existing hardware. I would not be at all surprised if the iTunes store ends up selling ebooks for the iPod Touch, etc. ...(

Don't want to disagree with you neko, I hold your opinions in high regard, but everything is pointing the wrong way for the moment, especially with what concerns the iPod. The only way to display any form of text on any aPple portable device but a laptop is via Notes and authorizes only 4k at a time. (Email is an other thing) There are small software patches available to convert texts to notes and web sites catering to the same. aPple knows about this, worse I found those on their own site. Doesn't this denote a complete refusal of dealing with text?

Working with text is one of the oldest of tasks to do on a computer, why would aPple cease most any activity having to do with it?

Are there secret deals of 'non implication' with other entities? Have they forfaited text in exchange for other services? I can not understand this as anything other than a willfull act. aPple will not do books.

[grimo1re]

I dunno. Ebook sales in Q3 2007 were $8,000,000. Seems like a fine, and still increasing market, to me. That Steve Jobs doesn't read doesn't mean other don't. <shrug>

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by grimo1re

I dunno. Ebook sales in Q3 2007 were $8,000,000. Seems like a fine, and still increasing market, to me. That Steve Jobs doesn't read doesn't mean other don't. <shrug>

What's despicable is that he's taking that decision for 'The Rest of Us'. If you remember that add campaign.

[AdrianWerner]

Originally Posted by radleyp

Check this out:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...erland&emc=rss

It's the New York Times interview with Jobs and it gives you the FULL quote from Jobs which includes this: "forty percent of people in the U.S. read one book or less last year." If we do consider ourselves readers, then we must read carefully. This part of the quote makes it clear to me what point he was making.
He was talking about reading books and various commenters on the quote point out that that number was not taken out of thin air.

Well..99% of people don't use Apple computers

[Penforhire]

Foldable or rollable e-ink displays WOULD be nice to have in a portable device. It'll be pretty funny if, some day, we walk around reading electronic scrolls. Any bets that someone names one the Papyrus?

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Foldable or rollable e-ink displays WOULD be nice to have in a portable device. It'll be pretty funny if, some day, we walk around reading electronic scrolls. Any bets that someone names one the Papyrus?

ePapyrus or my favorite the PapiRex