Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in an interview posted on AppleInsider that "It doesn’t matter how good or bad the [Amazon Kindle] is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore... Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because PEOPLE DON'T READ ANYMORE."
9:39 AM * PERMALINK * 12 comments
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Your RSS subscribers might beg to differ...
Okay, okay, I know he's talking about BOOKS. But I'm not so sure i buy into his contention that people don't read books. Maybe it's a generational thing - I'm on the extreme trailing edge of the Boomers and I do still read books. (I definitely prefer those that are paper-based.)
I keep seeing on-line references to these things called "books". What's a book?
I don't think he means "books" in the literal sense. I think he is referring to the business model explained in "Crossing the Chasm" where the early adopters are the ones who will be enthusiastic about buying a new piece of technology... but once the early adopters phase out, you have to convince the general public that it's not a nuisance for them to go out of their way to use the technology.
In this case, what amazon has to offer is simply a way to read a book... and the mainstream of people aren't so enthusiastic about
paying $400 just to read books.
So, what Jobs is referring to is that once the early adopters phase out, Amazon will have to convince and market the majority of the average book users to buy a kindle... Unfortunately, it's just a book and people don't read books on material they're not use to...
It's sort of like when Rio came out with the first mp3 players.. or when Iomega Zip/Jazz drives were being sold... it didn't take off after the early adopter phase passed.
Who sees a zip disk these days?
iPod's success was that they marketed their product to the average user... that's the reason for their widespread popularity. It's so easy to use and apple did a good job convincing the average non-computer user that it's not something they have to go out of their way to adopt to a different style.
If people are just buying th
It remains to be seen whether or not the Kindle will make it... if not, it will probably be because of the high initial cost, or perhaps features that don't work as great as advertised (download a book anywhere, anytime?). To say it won't work because people don't read is just an ignorant statement. Uh, doesn't Amazon.com already sell a lot of ... books?
i use amazon.com, but i rarely buy books from them :)
Uhhhh! I think someone is jelouse! Jobs is just down playing. I bet you anything that he will jump on the E-Ink technology as soon as the market picks up... If he hasn't allready started tinkering.
Most enovations come from small start up companies anyway. When was the last time Apple created something new. Sure Apple created the PC but that was their start up.
ipod? Nope! mp3 players were already around.
iphone? Nope! PDAs and cell phones already existed.
Laptops? Nope! Don't think so.
Kindle is only the stepping stone. People are already using these things for reasons other than books.
Go to youtube and you will see major companies already creating the next evolution.
Yeh riiight and libraries are there to just look pretty? No need for PDF's or Newpapers either..
In one sense, he's partly correct, people don't read many books these days. Of course, when they do, they are already buying them from Amazon so it seems that the book readers who read books from Amazon will use the Kindle to read eBooks from Amazon.
Plus, as Mike has pointed out, the Kindle will surf the Web. I read A LOT of Web information, particularly news sites. To have something as small and convenient as the Kindle to get my news anytime, anywhere may very well be worth the $400 price tag.
I just read this Blog, so I guess I am not People.
I read somewhere that Soylent Green is People.
His statistic of 1 book last year per person is meaningless without context, how does that compare with previous years? How many readers replaced books with Blogs? Even 1 book per person in the US of A would be over 250 million books! Thus why Amazon.com exists!
I hope Kindle comes to Canada soon! I WANT ONE!
sad, but so very true.
While you wait for the market to shake itself out wrt eReaders you can enjoy some great novels on your cell phone. Regular cell phones can make great eReaders, I quickly forgot the small screen and found that simply adding books to my phone was a real boon. You can get hundreds of free titles from http://www.booksinmyphone.com Check it out a technology like this might do an end run around the dedicated eReaders.
ahaha.. that's got to be an eye strain.. more over, imagine trying to bookmark your location in a 100 page book and a phone call comes in.. i can see that for an iPhone, but not a standard tiny screen cell phone.
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