Jobs Tells NYTimes: People Don’t Read
By Jane • Jan 17th, 2008 • Category: Publishing News • •
When asked at MacWorld about the Kindle, Steve Jobs replied that “[t]he whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.” So all those rumors and dreams about Apple building an iPod for Readers is dashed. Hey, Steve, many people read. They are called women. They also buy things. Like iPhones and iPods and oh, books.
The Times via Mobile Read.
Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways.
She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation!
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Uh, wow. I kinda don’t have a response for that. Other than :p to Steve Jobs. (I’m very mature for my age.)
One might take it with a grain of salt; Jobs likes to keep his new inventions under wraps until he springs them on the public. As someone posted in that response to that NYT article:
I put Steve Jobs’s comment that people don’t read anymore in the same category as his comment, not long before Apple came out with the video iPod, that people aren’t interested in watching video on a portable device. In other words, Apple is probably hard at work on an e-reader, which we will probably see within the year, and it will be in color and beautiful, and it will sync with iTunes (whose name becomes more anachronistic with each passing year).
— Posted by Nick Wagner
So perhaps there’s still hope for your ideal e-reader, Jane…
I suppose nobody has mentioned to him the epublishers that are making… what… is it in the millions every year?
Not much compared to Apple, maybe, but if nobody read, these epubs…. man, this BLOG wouldn’t be here.
Hmmmm… anybody got a contact for the higher ups at Apple? I’d love to sew what Apple could do with an ebook reader idea.
Apple will never make a product like Amazon’s, but with the iPhone SDK coming out in February, it’s very likely that someone could write a program that would do it.
The more important part of the quote is that he states that “40% of Americans read one book a year.” I don’t believe that he truly meant that people don’t read blogs, websites, magazines, and other publications.
Yeah, but those who DO read? Those compulsive readers spend thousands a year in books.
As nice as the iPhone looks, I want a dedicated e-reader. The Kindle is ugly. I’d love Sony to have one with some of the Kindle properties, but I’ll probably just get a Sony Reader and make do without the wireless purchasing that Kindle offers.
Steve Jobs is known to be an ego-maniacal, paranoid freak. I agree with Caroline’s post; I bet they are hard at work on an e-reader at this very minute!
I saw in passing reference the other day that there has been a big increase in sales of eReaders from Sony and Bookeen’s Cybook– in fact there is a big Out of Stock notice on Bookeen’s purchase page.
I wonder if the Kindle’s splash is going to be the tide that lifts as ships as far as eBooks are concerned?
Since Apple just announced the MacBook Air, I can pretty much forgive Jobs anything.
From what I’ve read, Mr. Jobs misinterpreted the survey. It’s unfortunate that his opinion (no matter how inaccurate) has that much impact on what will or will not be available on the market.