Comments on: Steve Jobs on Reading

By: Tom Nocera

Tom Nocera — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:43:46 +0000

New media lead to new habits, new skill sets, and new outlooks. Who can argue against that? Generations ago, TV, when it was the “new medium” brought about shorter attention spans for an entire generation - due to the placement of commercials about every 7 minutes.

Unfortunately, new media do not very often promote long-term beneficial habits, skills or outlooks. Kindle, however, may prove be the exeception to this trend - because it brings the amazing capability of offering convenient access a vast library full of choices along with portability. It will spare some forests, and reduce the print runs of books, possibly putting some printers out of work - and giving them more time to read.

By: Magazines: LPs of the Future? | Tropophilia

Magazines: LPs of the Future? | Tropophilia — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:31:43 +0000

[...] a comment to one of our most popular posts, I suggested that books may be the vinyl records of the future [...]

By: Round-Up: What’s So Special About Blogging? | Tropophilia

Round-Up: What’s So Special About Blogging? | Tropophilia — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:32:48 +0000

[...] their roles and obligations to their audiences has grown to proportions rivaling some of our other popular posts. I learned of Steven’s initial post through Corvida at SheGeeks, who had added her own [...]

By: Schoolhouse Blog? at Tropophilia

Schoolhouse Blog? at Tropophilia — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:45:33 +0000

[...] talked about the future of reading here in the past. But what about the future of writing? Or more specifically, the [...]

By: Whoa whoa whoa…. dunces? « Tropophilia

Whoa whoa whoa…. dunces? « Tropophilia — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:12:33 +0000

[...] makes some good points in her column. Arguably, people are reading less. We rely more and more on gadgets and the web to be our second [...]

By: New York Times to Steve Jobs: “You Are Wrong” « Tropophilia

New York Times to Steve Jobs: “You Are Wrong” « Tropophilia — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:52:22 +0000

[...] statement Steve Jobs made last month about the decline of reading. I covered Jobs’ quote here, and a lively debate ensued in the comments. It’s been our most popular post by far, [...]

By: 6 statistics on reading » Ali Bytes » byte-sized strategies for modern living

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 05:10:13 +0000

[...] Recently, Steve Jobs also made a remark on this very topic. Specifically commenting on Kindle, Amazon’s new book reader, he said “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product 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.” (Tropophilia) [...]

By: What About the Future of BookSTORES? « Tropophilia

What About the Future of BookSTORES? « Tropophilia — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:57:56 +0000

[...] Published February 8, 2008 — Taylor Tags: Books, Business, Reading So a while back we had a rousing discussion about the future of the book. Spawned by Steve Jobs’ comment that books (and technologies [...]

By: Magdalena Ball

Magdalena Ball — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:38:09 +0000

Of course people are reading. Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Random House all grew by an average of about 10% in 2007 according to Publishers’ Weekly. Just look at the Potter frenzy last year: the rock start type queues. Check out the book sales stats for books that went into film like Atonement or The Golden Compass. Assuming Jobs’ comment is accurate, there are still 60% of people who read more than one book (some substantially more, judging from the community at compulsivereader.com and the posted profits at the big 5 publishing houses). There are also people who read books in other parts of the world. For those who might not be aware of these places, there are huge communities of English readers in Australia, England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, South Africa, etc, and many more readers in other parts of the world who read in other languages. 40% of America isn’t 100% of the book buying world! Most of those people will continue to want to hold a book in their hands, but there are others who will welcome being able to carry around a whole library in a handbag, or who will have already filled every bookshelf in the house and who will find an electronic reader a cheaper investment than another shelf. Jobs may find himself mistaken. Let’s hope so. The decline of reading (and it isn’t the first time that the book has been erroneously declared dead…) would be the decline of civilisation. Maggie

By: Jarred

Jarred — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:40:15 +0000

Could Jobs’ real point be this:

People may may still read, but they just don’t “consume” books at a rate high enough for an e-reader to be worth developing?

Jobs got into the music and movie business with iTunes and the iPod because people consume those products at regular enough rates to make the business profitable. If we only listened to six or seven songs or albums a year, or just five or six movies a year, the iTunes Store and the iPod would not be nearly as valuable. But people consume music and movies so frequently that it makes developing those products worth the investment. The return on an Apple investment in an e-reader, however, would just not be enough to justify the development of that sort of product.

Yes, the Kindle is selling like madness now… but is that because of its novelty or because of its innate long-run usefulness? Will the trend last? I think Jobs is betting that it won’t. I bet he thinks that for the average person, books — as opposed to albums or movies — are consumed at too slow a rate to justify a device to ease consumption of them.

How often will the average Kindle owner download a book? Once a month? Does that justify the device? Will Kindle owners return to books on their devices like they relisten to albums and rewatch movies and TV shows? The inclusion of blogs, newspapers, etc. helps with the justification of the device and its purchase, but does it solidify it? I think Jobs is betting that it doesn’t, and believes that a more ubiquitous device with e-mail, web browser, document editing (in short, a Mac Tablet) is the real product that needs development. Having a specialty device just for books is probably myopic in his opinion.