Steve Jobs on the "iPod of reading"

[radleyp]

We are talking about a trend, no one - certainly not I - is saying that no one at all reads today, but what Jobs (and many others) are saying is that reading is becoming less and less important. Disagree if you want, but there are many indications that this is true.

I am a reader. I wouldn't be visiting this site, if I weren't. I am not a forecaster. Steve Jobs has shown that he is and that his forecasts are often on target. We must take his views seriously and that view is that reading is less and less important in the modern world. In one sense, this is understandable as we have so many other ways to communicate these days. But in another sense, it is quite frightening: in NYC, where I live, we know that the young read less and that when they do read they often read with poor comprehension. Educators are hard put to know what to do. King (the most successful writer in history, BTW) and Rowling by themselves will not change this trend. And we should not be blinded by the fact that all of us here do indeed read a lot.

[Liviu_5]

First of all despite Mr. Jobs' recent excellent (and well deserved) press, let us not forget that he almost drove Apple into bankrupcy and Apple had to be helped to survive by (gasp) Bill Gates with a timely cash infusion.

Regarding books, Mr. Jobs is wrong on two factual counts:

- Americans never read that much at any point in US history, and when they read they read lots of practical stuff (how to do this or that, how to make money)

- While there are problems with the publishing industry (consolidation, distribution), there is a fact that there were never more books published here in the US than today, and the industry is doing quite well financially

Magazines and newspapers are going digital or down true, but that's another story. The book business is still doing very well, and I see no reason for now at least for this to change

[yvanleterrible]

He might have felt burned by the higher education market with his Next computer tentatives. Does he read ? No. He pays someone to do it for him.

He just might have something totally different up his sleeve. A vocal reading assistant? aPple (I love this Nate, it's insidious) has done this before and so has Microsoft. I dread this, it takes out all the many artful facets grafted to the reading experience and the mood creation that surrounds reading.

He will not be able to change reading that easy.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by radleyp

Jobs is no idiot. What he is saying (and illustrating via his product line) is that the visual and the aural (regularly transmitted by computer) are trumping (or already have trumped) old-fashioned reading. Reading, in his view I think, is an old technology. I hope he's wrong, but don't be too sure. In this country especially there are surveys allegedly showing that the present generation reads much less and I think that if you did a large survey of readers (especially books) today, you would find a much higher percentage of readers among those over 35 than under. The thought depresses me, but facts are facts.

Aural media require too much concentration in order to digest a 'story'. But it allows the user to believe that the story can be 'heard' while attempting other complex tasks such as driving - very bad thing! With reading, one *knows* one can't do other complex tasks at the same time. And I know I can read a book faster than someone can 'read' it to me.

As for visual... Yeah, right. Don't make me laugh. To get the richness of detail and the depth provided in a novel, I'd be looking at 6, 8, maybe even 12 hours of uninterrupted video??? Who's going to shell out the money to create the sets, the props, the background details... and then there's the pay for all those actors! Sure, one can do that, but for every single novel?!!? And who's going to want to dedicate terabytes of memory storage to hold all those expensive videos??? What do we have, about 10,000 movies? As opposed to almost 100,000 novels! I've got nearly 200 DVDs in my collection of favorites, but I've got nearly 20,000 novels! And I've been going through and buying or scanning all those into my computer to save/free-up shelf space.

The real problem with reading is that we've been training our children and ourselves to go for the quick-fix entertainment instead of the depth of novels. But we could fix that by putting more emphasis on reading for fun instead of playing football and video games.

Derek

[JohnsnowNW]

Originally Posted by ewayde

Oddly enough, we are reading his pronouncement that reading is dead.

Ironically enough,....

I remember Bill Gates saying that no one would ever need more than 640 Kb of RAM. (640 Kb = 0.00064 Gb) He also refused to have Microsoft get involved in Internet applications thinking the Internet was just a fad that would soon disappear. It was a few years later before Microsoft realized that the Internet was here to stay.

Jobs has always been so tight that he squeaks when he walks. He is the quintessential cheapskate. You can interpret Jobs comments about reading to basically mean that he realizes Apple cannot control the publishing world, even the eBook segment, therefore he does not want to compete in an arena wherein he cannot dominate and control the profits. Any dufus can see that reading is still very much alive. You cannot go onto the Internet without reading blogs, editorials, news, et cetera. Granted most of that is horribly written, extremely non-grammatical, and opinionated garbage. If he simply allows third-parties to develop eBook readers for the iPod touch I will be happy. (I own one and it can become a terrific platform for eBooks if they allow it to be.)

[sfernald]

I think the thing is that reading is undergoing a change with the Internet, in the same way that the Gutenberg changed everything.

The concept of going down to Borders to buy a novel may be dying away, but the written word is doing just fine thanks. People read (and write) more than ever, but they do so differently than they used to. With web surfing, pdfs, emails and other technologies, people probably read for entertainment more than ever. I would estimate that for every picture, video, or flash game I view on the internet, I probably read a thousand words.

Because the Internet provides so much access to the written word for free, the value of the written word may be changing. It may become impractical to sell the 100,000 words of a novel for $20. Maybe the future will be providing a tiny google text ad on every 200 word page, but providing the text for free. I don't know.

But I think the eReader is just an attempt to try to figure this out. What works in regard to the written world in the digital age. It's a convenient, portable means of reading that provides long battery life and is easy on the eyes for extended reading.

The funny thing is that Jobs is probably in a position to change the world. If he built a really cool ereader with the apple branding and marketing, it just might become cool to read like it is to listen to music - but no that's just a dream, reading has never been cool. Even in Shakespeare's era, people didn't want to read (even if they could, most people probably didn't even know how), they wanted to watch fun plays with music and drama and have the story unfold before them.

[mdhuang]

Originally Posted by Liviu_5

First of all despite Mr. Jobs' recent excellent (and well deserved) press, let us not forget that he almost drove Apple into bankrupcy and Apple had to be helped to survive by (gasp) Bill Gates with a timely cash infusion.

I think you should learn a bit more about Apple's history. Jobs was brought back to save Apple in 1997 along with some Microsoft investment. He is the one who rescued Apple from bankrupcy by introducing iMac and iPod later.

[Greg Anos]

Perhaps Mr. Jobs should have been a little more specific. The market he <targets> does not read. That market is the people who prefer style over substance and convienence over price. (Or as The Waco Kid told Sheriff Bart "The salt of the earth, the common clay, you know...------") That's a <very> large market. Remember, Apple did <NOT> invent the personal computer, the GUI interface, or the MP3 player. They just made them a little more streamlined, and marketed them massively (at a high price relative to other products). On products where price trumped convienence, Apple products went nowhere. When convienence trumped price, Apple dominated.
People who read demand substance over style. They always have. And they're not Steve Jobs' targeted market (not to imply that they may not use Apple products happily, they're just not the targeted market.)

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by sfernald

Even in Shakespeare's era, people didn't want to read (even if they could, most people probably didn't even know how), they wanted to watch fun plays with music and drama and have the story unfold before them.

... and get drunk.

We all have to agree that since life is going faster and faster it is difficult to set aside precious time to do some quality entertainment reading. jOb's life must be set at a faster pace than anyone I know. Maybe the people around him are just as frenetic as he is. Or perhaps the next series of devices aPple (I love this Nate ) builds will leave us no time to live as we know it?

As for the younger people, my 25 year old daughter is a library rat and loves books with a passion; yet she oggles my 500 any time she sees it. Unfortunately, she has come to love reading out of voluntary poverty as she prematurely left the comfort of our nest. Since any available entertainment cost something, books became her boredom abaters. She has kept to them and devotes prime time to them. I can not say the same about my 23 year old son. He's a gamer, the next addiction scurge. The only serious book (over 50 pages) he's read is a 'Beers of the World' encyclopedia.

I too for that matter came to books out of necessity. In a kids life, rural summer days without work, tv or companionship can lead to weird things. Fortunately I was presented some litterary jewels that picked me out of trouble and of torturing my neighbor's animals...

[slayda]

The wonderful thing about reading for entertainment, as opposed to video is that we each fill in the background details in our minds, based on our individual experiences. With video the director has to fill in those (visual) details for you. Of course there are some subtle individualization happening but not nearly to the same degree that books allow. This means that we each are taking in a slightly different story. Actually when we reread a book years later, we find that it is slightly different from our original reading.

Some day in the future a kid will come to their parent and say something like, "Daddy, look at this portable TV. It doesn't have any pictures or sound - just words. Isn't that neat?" Or words to that effect.

[sianon]

Interesting comments by Job. I am often asked how I find time to read by those I work with (my friends tend to also be avid readers). these same people will sit around the lunch table devouring rubbish gossip magazines or talking about the latest trashy TV show. My reply to the time question is, switch off the TV and see how much additional time they then find themselves with. I don't believe that the future of reading for pleasure is dead but there is a large section of our population who do not share a love of reading.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by slayda

The wonderful thing about reading for entertainment, as opposed to video is that we each fill in the background details in our minds, based on our individual experiences. With video the director has to fill in those (visual) details for you. Of course there are some subtle individualization happening but not nearly to the same degree that books allow. This means that we each are taking in a slightly different story. Actually when we reread a book years later, we find that it is slightly different from our original reading.

Some day in the future a kid will come to their parent and say something like, "Daddy, look at this portable TV. It doesn't have any pictures or sound - just words. Isn't that neat?" Or words to that effect.

I remember that exact same argument was used when TV started infringing on Radio shows back when radio shows had stories. The results were different than you might have predicted based on your posted.

Dale

[yvanleterrible]

Just as cuneiform symbols, will there be a day when the alphabet means nothing?

[SpiderMatt]

Originally Posted by radleyp

King (the most successful writer in history, BTW) and Rowling by themselves will not change this trend.

Define "success." JK Rowling is the only writer in the history of the world to become a billionaire (USD) from writing. She's also more widely read around the world than King.