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Apple tablet said to be focus of Steve Jobs: So, Steve, no one reads, eh? No e-book app?
August 25, 2009 | 7:46 am
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By David Rothman
Steve Job is famous for his comment that no one reads these days. So does this mean that Apple’s rumored tablet won’t have e-book apps?
According to the Wall Street Journal, none other than Jobs is micromanaging the tablet team. Also see Techmeme roundup.
I’m guessing that Apple will promote the tablet for e-book use, among others—but you may have to pick up the actual apps from other companies, through the Apple App Store.
And speaking of hardware: Google roundup on Nokia’s new netbook. Also get ready for whatever news comes out of a Sony news conference today—related to the Sony Reader line.
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Comments:
didn’t steve also say something (before the ipod was introduced) to the effect that apple had no interest in getting in the music business? it seems like when he said “nobody reads” that it was just a bit of a distraction or marketing sleight of hand to get everyone’s attention off of what they were really doing, or to throw competitors off the scent.
Come on Sony. Wi-fi ereader for Canada. And, a Sony app for the iPhone. Can hardly wait for the news conference.
I think the “nobody reads” comment was, and continues to be misinterpreted. What he meant (IMO) is that there’s not enough people who read to support an e-book-only device to a level where the costs of manufacturing can drop to reasonable levels. Cory Doctorow explains the numbers here:
http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2008/03/cory-doctorow-put-not-your-faith-in.html
He’s right, and one of the biggest reasons Kindle sales are limited is the high price. If you could get the price down to $99, or even give them away for free (and make money from book sales), the e-book market would take off.
I’m willing to bet that any new product from Apple does more than just allow you to read books, which will let it reach more people and cut the costs of manufacturing.
David Rothman isn’t predicting Apple is going to release a single-purpose, dedicated ereader device. No one has said that. I do totally agree with Rothman’s comments here. It’s almost unimaginable that the Apple tablet won’t have ebook capabilities.
First off, it doesn’t cost Apple anything to allow others to take the risk and sell ebooks just like the company does now on the iPhone/iPod Touch platform (and Apple still gets a nice cut of almost pure profit on some of those). Second, they gave prime time promotion space to Scrollmotion’s ereader app at their World Wide Developer Conference in June (one of the one’s padding their bottom line). And third, its been reported by the FT and others that Apple was talking up the tablet to book publishers.
Jobs’ January 2008 comment, shortly after the Kindle debuted, was pretty ignorant in a business context and proved to be wrong. While the popularity of reading has certainly declined and 40% of America might not read any books, books remain a $24 billion business, in part because there a huge minority of people (tens of millions) who buy lots and lots of books every year. That’s about four times the money people spend acquiring music and double what’s spent going to the movies, by the way. Either the comment was a mark of Jobs’ arrogance and ignorance or, more likely, just the same misdirection he’s occasionally prone to uttering (as in the video on an iPod comment).
Cory Doctorow’s year-and-a-half-old analysis of why ebook readers would flop (oops) isn’t terribly illuminating here. And price-wise, as mentioned, several free or low-cost ereader apps are available for the iPhone/iPod, Blackberry, Android and PC platforms. The books category in Apple’s app store is said to be one of the most popular and Amazon says 35% of sales of books that have a Kindle edition are sold in that format.
@Aaron–I think we’re in agreement in general, other than the purpose of Jobs’ comment. Jobs is in the business of hardware sales. It doesn’t matter how big the book market is, his concern is how big the market is for a given piece of hardware. His statement is accurate, not enough people will buy a standalone book reader to make it reasonably priced. The future lies in multipurpose devices, particularly ones with mass appeal well beyond the small group of dedicated book readers. Things like iPhones or Gameboys. Note how rapidly Apple was able to cut the price of the iPhone (from $599 to $99) as sales scaled. How much has Amazon reduced the price of the Kindle over the last few years? Go read the comments on any article about the Kindle and I guarantee you, many of them will declare it way too expensive to bother purchasing. Compare sales numbers for the iPhone or the Gameboy to the vague estimates of Kindle sales, and you’ll see at least a 30:1 ratio if not higher. Seems to me Jobs (and Doctorow for that matter) was 100% accurate.
And your inclusion of low cost e-reader apps for multi-purpose devices just further reinforce Jobs’ point. That’s where you’re going to see e-book sales, sales which don’t require you to invest $300 plus for a one trick pony device. It’s a lot easier to sell someone a book that they can read at no additional cost.
Oh, and as far as the 35% figure, it’s highly dubious. That figure comes from a talk Jeff Bezos gave where he showed a one month spike in sales, the month when the Kindle 2 was released, where sales for the relatively small number of titles with Kindle versions available did indeed show an increase to that point. But as far as I know, Amazon has not released any continuous month to month sales figures for Kindle books overall, nor have they released any data showing device sales. Ever wonder why that is?