Steve Jobs is Supposedly a Smart Guy...

Apple’s Steve Jobs on the Amazon Kindle book reader:

“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. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

[Thanks to NYT Bits blog.]

I live in Silicon Valley so Steve Jobs is something of a god here. People flock to MacWorld and clammor for tickets to the keynote of which Steve is the speaker. So, when Steve Jobs says something is doomed...well you can't help but take note. And my ruffled feathers don't come so much from the fact that Steve Jobs said that the Kindle was doomed, but why he said it was doomed. So, 40% of the U.S. don't read books? What are the other 60% then, schmucks? They don't count? How many bookstores, used bookstores, libraries, websites for books are there out there? Too many to count. So, regardless of the 40%, people ARE reading.

Saying that Kindle will fail because people don't read is missing the point entirely. I have seen the Kindle, played with the Kindle and have definite opinions on the Kindle. First and foremost, the thing is ugly...uuuuuugggglllly. I think, more than anything, Steve Jobs would have something to say about the design flaws of the Kindle. Apple creates elegant, sexy, beautiful products that one lusts for. The packaging of an Apple product is generally just as gorgeous as the guts in terms of usability. The Kindle comes across as someone trying to copy part of the Apple style (the clean white plastic cover) but decided to stop half-way. The angles are gawky and the buttons make it difficult to find a place to hold the Kindle while reading, sometimes causing the user to hit buttons they didn't intend to hit. Whereas the Mac Air gradually angled bottom is symetrical, the Kindle just comes off as so 90's.

The Kindle has some amazing concepts though. You don't have to go to your computer to download a book, you can do so anywhere there is a Sprint cell phone signal. Once you have purchased a book, Amazon keeps a record so you don't have to purchase the book again or keep it stored in the Kindle and run out of room. Take it from a serious bibliophile, not overloading myself with books is a good thing. The only reason, really, that I keep books is that maybe someday I will want to reread that particular book again. If I could just "get" the book again without purchasing it, I would.

You can also surf the web as well on the Kindle, going to other websites and someday downloading other books. In other words, for me, the Kindle is definitely appealing...just not attractive.

As for the Steve Jobs quote, well, here are some other statistics. Only 55% of American households have a computer hooked up to the web (that 5% less than the 60% of people who read) and Apple has, at last check, 6% of that market. Apple has survived on a total of 3.3% of American Households. If the packaging were better, I bet Kindle could survive as well.