Steve Jobs on the "iPod of reading"

[radius]

Hmmm... I read an article in the Globe and Mail (Canada's national newspaper) this morning about publishing and reading doesn't seem to be dying out in Canada at least...

Here's a quote:

While Canadians, unlike Americans, continue to be book buyers and readers (average time spent reading: 4.5 hours a week; average number of books read each year: 17; percentage of Canadians who buy at least one book a year: 81)

[snookums]

There's a good article over at teleread blog that thrashes this out. A choice quote:

Just for fun, let’s compare this to a rough approximation of dog owners in the U.S. (stay with me…there’s a point to this!). Based on a completely unscientific Google search, it looks like the number of dog owners in the U.S. is around 60 million to 80 million. Additional rough estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that the approximately 300 million Americans represent about 110 million households. So there are about 70 million dogs in approximately 110 million households, or roughly a 64% penetration rate, right in the middle of that book readership rate range cited in the previous paragraph).

Even though the percentages are about the same, nobody is running around saying the dog food/toy/care industry is in trouble. And while literacy rates are obviously more important to an economy than dog ownership rates, I think it’s interesting to study the similarities. The most important aspect of all this isn’t so much the number of readers or dog owners as it is the number of truly passionate readers and owners. Quite a few dog owners spend enough on their pets to more than make up for all of those families who don’t have a dog. The same is true for books. If you were to plot it out you wouldn’t wind up with a bell curve, you’d have a double-hump curve where the left side represents all those people who don’t read any books and the right side with all those who read lots and lots of books.

[AdrianWerner]

Originally Posted by snookums

There's a good article over at teleread blog that thrashes this out. A choice quote:

He's right. Even in US, while percentages of people who read a lot are going down the actual numbers in book business (sales, revenues etc) are actualy going up.

[kartu]

iMacs are only a few percent of the PC market, yet it is a profitable business.

Even if looking at US market alone A HUGE number of books is sold, about 17 per person afaik. That's a lot.


Every product Jobs build recently was based on very mature technologies. (eInk is not)

Jobs just cannot come with something more or less "revolutionary", he cannot simply admit that his company cannot produce iReader (it's hard to do something exceptionally more stylish than what Sony already has, and you are bound to eink displays that PVI is producing, so nothing fancy), so he has to say BS he said.

[gwynevans]

Hmm - don't really agree with the dog similarity - for a start, there's not quite the same pressure to buy a couple of books every month as there is to keep your dog food supplies up!

Also, there's a huge jump from 81% of Canadians being willing to buy at least 1 book ($5? $10?) to the number willing to buy an ebook reader ($300?)

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

Also, there's a huge jump from 81% of Canadians being willing to buy at least 1 book ($5? $10?) to the number willing to buy an ebook reader ($300?)

Not only the $300 reader, but still having to buy the books too. In general only fairly frequent readers & gadget junkies are going to buy a device (at least one using newer tech) at todays prices.

[astra]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Not only the $300 reader, but still having to buy the books too. In general only fairly frequent readers & gadget junkies are going to buy a device (at least one using newer tech) at todays prices.

Unfortunatelly, that's true.
Whenever I show my reader to someone who might be slightly interested, and they learn the price of the reader and the price of ebooks, they usually say - no way. Too expensive. We see no savings in this scheme, moreover it is much more expensive...why should we bother?

[nekokami]

That's why I think a multi-purpose device with a large enough and sharp enough screen is likely to be the tipping point. Since so many people carry a phone, that seems a likely candidate.

To be honest, I'd prefer a multi-purpose device, too -- that's why I got an iLiad. I like the size of an ebook reader for a lot of other purposes, as well. But I think I'm in the minority on that one.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by nekokami

That's why I think a multi-purpose device with a large enough and sharp enough screen is likely to be the tipping point. Since so many people carry a phone, that seems a likely candidate.

The problem with smartphones is form factor. To keep the phone compact, screen size is smaller than I think most folks would prefer for reading ebooks.

To be honest, I'd prefer a multi-purpose device, too -- that's why I got an iLiad. I like the size of an ebook reader for a lot of other purposes, as well. But I think I'm in the minority on that one.

I prefer multi-purpose devices too. I'm not a customer for a dedicated reader because I want the device to do other things besides display ebooks. I also want hi-res color, which current generations of eInk devices don't have.

My current device is a Palm OS PDA with a 320x480 screen. The next step may be a Nokia 800 tablet. the Iliad is nice, but lacks color, and is way too expensive for me to justify now.
______
Dennis

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

My current device is a Palm OS PDA with a 320x480 screen. The next step may be a Nokia 800 tablet. the Iliad is nice, but lacks color, and is way too expensive for me to justify now.

I was able to get mine used for half price. I wouldn't have been able to justify the list price, either. (Even if it had had color, which I don't consider critical for my needs.) I think the Nokia 800 would have gotten more of my attention if I'd known about it earlier. But as a graduate student, I like the PDF support of the iLiad.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I was able to get mine used for half price. I wouldn't have been able to justify the list price, either. (Even if it had had color, which I don't consider critical for my needs.) I think the Nokia 800 would have gotten more of my attention if I'd known about it earlier. But as a graduate student, I like the PDF support of the iLiad.

Color can be nice in ebooks, as I have an assortment with color illustrations. But my PDA is also my photo viewer and video player, so color is a necessity, not an option.

The one drawback is PDFs. I have a very good open source PDF viewer for Palm devices that handles everything I throw at it, but opening PDFs is time consuming because of the pre-processing the viewer must do, and most PDFs require side-scrolling to read properly. I get PDFs only if I have no other option for the content, and am starting to use Mobipocket Creator to rip PDFs to a more handheld friendly format.

I wouldn't mind a device the physical size of the Iliad, but I'd need color, and I'd need to more easily get to the underlying Linux OS to install software and tweak the configuration. The Nokia Tablets are basically handheld Linux platforms, with a lot more flexibility, but the screen size will still bite on PDFs.
______
Dennis

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by radius

Hmmm... I read an article in the Globe and Mail (Canada's national newspaper) this morning about publishing and reading doesn't seem to be dying out in Canada at least...

Here's a quote:

While Canadians, unlike Americans, continue to be book buyers and readers (average time spent reading: 4.5 hours a week; average number of books read each year: 17; percentage of Canadians who buy at least one book a year: 81)

No 'The Globe and Mail' is not the Canadian National paper, 'La Presse' is.

Of course we Canadians buy a lot of books, we need something to stuff the wood stove with! Seriously being stuck inside during long winters in rural regions might be a cause for this.

[snookums]

Originally Posted by gwynevans

Hmm - don't really agree with the dog similarity - for a start, there's not quite the same pressure to buy a couple of books every month as there is to keep your dog food supplies up!

Also, there's a huge jump from 81% of Canadians being willing to buy at least 1 book ($5? $10?) to the number willing to buy an ebook reader ($300?)

I think they were referring to the insane amount that people spend on stuff like toys, pet grooming, and dog walkers.

[hidari]

Originally Posted by AdrianWerner

To be precise they have 7% of US market share and 3% of worldwide share (somewhere around Fujitsu numbers, but HP has over 20%, they dwarf Apple, Macs aren't in top5 most sold computers in both despkops and laptops).

But less than 2 billion people use computers at all, so overall less than 1% of worldwide population uses Mac computers.
So I would have to ask mr.Jobs why does Apple bother making software for it then?

That about says it. However, do not say that too loudly to the Macheads.. The truth hurst. Yes, they have good computers. but Mostly, Apple has good marketing and "kool" in marketing their products.

IPHONE..Yes it is good. I have seen it used a bit. However, There is nothing under the cover that has not been around for a while. My ACER N311 does a bout what the Iphone does.. Yes it was expensive too. But, IT came out a year before the Iphone.

Plus, for reading ebooks..I'd say My Acer wins hands down.. plus a slightly larger screen.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by snookums

There's a good article over at teleread blog

<snip>

..So there are about 70 million dogs in approximately 110 million households...

I know snookems is quoting from somewhere else, but is it just me or is there some way that these numbers work? 70 million dogs living in 110 million households? So, is someone sharing their dog?