Will Steve Jobs Save Newspapers?
And revolutionize the way we read various media?
Gregg, who always figures out what tech and life improvements I need before I even have a clue that I need them, last month got me an iPhone and a couple years of service. Because I prefer in-person, face-to-face visits with friends to those calls where somebody's on the freeway using you to pass the time, I don't use it much for chatting, but I've been happily apping up. And I have to say, it's a brilliant little machine that does so many amazing things -- even reportedly saving a guy's life in Haiti.
When I taped identity theft expert Mari Frank's radio show (airing Feb 1 on KUCI, and streamed on the Internet), she mentioned something about how she doesn't want to read the newspaper on a computer -- she likes to be able to hold it in her hand -- and she asked me about Kindle in that context.
I hadn't thought about Kindle and e-readers that way. I've always loved reading the physical newspaper. I think it's amazing that they can put out the whole thing every day (and used to twice daily). It's like a present and I love being able to hold it and thumb through it.
After getting my iPhone, and trying out the Kindle app, I was surprised to find that I love to read on it. I bought a book I needed for my column but couldn't find in bookstores near me ($9.99 on Kindle books!), and I even got a book free, P.G. Wodehouse's short stories, My Man Jeeves, which I'm reading now, whenever I'm stuck in line somewhere. The iPhone, like the Kindle, lets you highlight passages and add notes. I wrote myself a note at "location 283-286" to "blog" this bit of a line I liked:
"His chin gave up the struggle about half-way down..."
So...the question that's been on my mind...with the NYT's announcement that they're going to stick their big gray toe in the water of charging for content (after newspaper publishers there and everywhere sat by watching the Internet eat their lunch)...
And with the announcement of the Apple tablet upon us...
Will the Apple tablet save newspapers? Predictions in general of how media and our lives and habits will change in the wake of it? Yours, mine, ours?
*And yes, I'm an Apple fan-girl. Got my first on the University of Michigan student discount program in 1985, fell in love with how simple and fun it was, had many, many more, and I even got my boyfriend at the Apple store (at the Grove, at the iPod display).
> And yes, I'm an Apple fan-girl.
You people are savages.
But it will be interesting to see tomorrow. (Midnight— today! This will probably be a bigger story than the SOTU speech.)
The thing about Kindles is, they condense the entire experience of books into a freaky little appliance. Of course you can still browse and read books all you want, but I just don't see the point of making them into a super-contemporary consumer experience. I've been on maybe five vacations across a lifetime where space and packing would have been made easier by having a Kindle.
They say this could be Steve's last big public appearance. And it's not impossible that the product could be too much too soon or too little too late.... It could become, to whatever category it defines, as the 1993 Newton was to the Iphone.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at January 26, 2010 12:08 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/01/26/will_steve_jobs.html#comment-1691013">comment from Crid [CridComment at gmail]I love physical books, but sometimes I'll be out somewhere or away, and need a book, and to be able to have important ones with me without all the lugging is amazing.
After I heard Steve was sick, I wrote him a note to thank him -- for all the great computers, and for the boyfriend. Gregg likes to say we met "because of Apple's retail strategy."
Amy Alkon at January 26, 2010 12:30 AM
I do research and correct technical documents for a living, and there are two grand observations I have here as a result:
It wouldn't be possible for me to do the job I do without two monitors and five apps at once doing what I need;
It has cost the taxpayers, literally, tens of millions of dollars where I work to use the PC platform for this vs. the Macintosh. No, this is not deniable. I worked across the transition as Savannah River Site switched "the wrong way" - just in time to require massive effort due to the Y2K glitch (a non-issue with Apple). It cost millions to convert character-accurate, regulatory-grade procedures for every facet of Site life from Apple to PC character sets.
In the next room, I have an original 128K Mac. I have a copy of Excel 0.0B to run on it. No, it can't do everything my newer desktops can, but you'd be surprised what it can do. The BULK of software "innovation" you are looking at has the purpose of keeping programmers employed, not enhancing your experience. I can demonstrate that at once with a 15-year-old copy of OS 7 Pro.
And yes, Patrick, I have SATA and 1TB in my 10-year-old G4 desktop - which is entirely usable due to compact code in the OS.
I am so happy that Microsoft has apparently produced a stable and "responsive" OS - according to Maximum PC and other enthusiast magazines. I am amazed that it would be advertised as the Second Coming, as it only does what has been expected of operating systems for the last 26 years.
Radwaste at January 26, 2010 2:46 AM
Unfortunately, the charge for content model has serious issues. The "we want $0.50 for a week old article," drives people away. The whole paper cost $1 when new.
Once the content is online it is relatively easy to copy and disperse -- even if illegal.
You also lose the authoritive respect -- because on the net is "equal" compared to print media.
It is just questionable if the print media can make the transition.
Jim P. at January 26, 2010 3:54 AM
I like a dead tree version paper for the Xword puzzle if not the sensation of holding the paper in my increasingly ink-blacked fingers.
BlogDog at January 26, 2010 5:09 AM
Who wants to charge 50 cents for an article?
"If print media can't make the transition..." we lose seriously in terms of what we're missing in terms of reporting. Sure, there are some bloggers breaking news. You can't do for free what you can do for a salary on a newspaper, and newspaper salaries and newspapers are disappearing.
A lot of really good people I know have left the newspaper business. I just ran into a Pulitzer winner in NYC, who won his for LA Times stories -- and most deservingly -- who ran out the door and didn't look back after Sam Zell took over the paper. As did many good people.
Amy Alkon at January 26, 2010 5:25 AM
Jeeves and Wooster! Have you seen the DVDs? They are pretty awesome.
Will the tablet save newspapers? No, because the same people who are willing to pony up for the tablet are already the ones paying for newspaper.
I get that Apples are better, but my 3-year-old $400 Acer is fine, and the Apple fanfolk replace their computers just as often, if not more often, than I do. The difference between better and fine isn't worth the difference in cost.
Robin at January 26, 2010 6:43 AM
Oh, and House (whatever his name is) is a really good actor.
Robin at January 26, 2010 6:44 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/01/26/will_steve_jobs.html#comment-1691038">comment from RobinOh, and House (whatever his name is) is a really good actor.
Hugh Laurie. He's hilarious, hot, very smart. Amy has crush. Love "House."
Amy Alkon at January 26, 2010 7:15 AM
Hugh Laurie.
Jeeves & Wooster is entertaining, but it doesn't hold a candle to the books, not a candle.
kishke at January 26, 2010 7:19 AM
Back off, Amy. Hugh Laurie is MINE. :D
Count me in as another Apple addict. I don't know that I'll buy a tablet, or a Kindle for that matter, but I am cheap and probably won't ever pay for a newspaper online unless they all go that way.
I love reading the news online but I have a really hard time parting with my paperbacks. There's something to be said for the feel of holding a book in your hands. Of course, I could just be channeling my inner English major.
It will be interesting to see how newspapers evolve over the next several years, that's for sure.
Ann at January 26, 2010 7:23 AM
Apple tablet or no, the newspaper is doomed. Journalism will survive, but the newspaper in its present form will not. The cost of a paper has never paid publication costs, merely helped to offset them somewhat. Advertising is where papers make the bulk of their dollars, and online advertising revenues
Whatever at January 26, 2010 7:42 AM
8 year old home-built Athlon XP with 500 GB SATA and Windows 7. Your point? Hardware lasts longer than software. I could whip out my Apple //gs and run Appleworks on it. Or Visicalc on my TI 99/4A. NewDos/80 was the shit in 1979.
You know what software makes Windows XP unstable most of the time? iTunes. Second most? ATi video drivers. (ok, I may have exaggerated for effect. They might be the other way around).
I've been running XP since it came out. It's been remarkably solid considering the amount of baggage it carries. Programs written for Windows 3.1 still run on it. Can you run anything written for System 6 or System 7 on your OSX mac?
And this is one I don't know the answer to, but can you run 32 bit binaries on 64 bit OSX? You can't on Linux, I know that much. But you can on Windows 7.
You know how they made Windows 7 more stable? By virtualizing all the backwards compatibility out of the Kernel. A lesson they learned from OS/2.
brian at January 26, 2010 7:43 AM
Classified Ads. The elephant in the room.
Craigslist is the real killer of the newspaper.
Journalism is killing itself with persistent bias and groupthink, but that's another story altogether.
brian at January 26, 2010 7:45 AM
I read books on my phone all the time. I started ibecause it made travel easier. I'm interested in a dedicated e-book reader, but they're still too expensive and too big for me. The ones that include netbook functionality are compelling, though. Maybe a future phone will have one of those Pixel Qi screens.
I don't buy e-books with DRM. Mostly I buy from Baen Books, which also publishes much of their back catalog for free. They say that adding a book to the Baen Free Library stimulates physical book sales.
Pseudonym at January 26, 2010 8:31 AM
>>Jeeves & Wooster is entertaining, but it doesn't hold a candle to the books, not a candle.
Agreed, kishke.It's great fun, but oh the books!
There are so many, many lines like the one Amy quoted ("His chin gave up the struggle about half-way down...") that really deserve to be savored on the page.
Jody Tresidder at January 26, 2010 8:56 AM
I got an Ipod Touch (the Iphone without the phone) only because I got it free with points with points I needed to use up. I didn't think I'd use it much. But I love love love love LOVE it!
I still prefer reading a physical book or newspaper (I'm one of the people keeping those industries alive -- still get a daily paper delivered and I'm a big book buyer.) But the Touch has absolutely revolutionized my life when I travel. No more carrying a big pile of books -- I've just downloaded 10 books and a few movies for a month-long trip I'm about to take. And I can Skype on it! I can check email! I always have access to the Wall Street Journal and NY Times! I can surf the web! I can even edit documents on it! And it fits in my handbag!
However much money they are making at Apple, they deserve every last bit of it.
I've read every last bit of Wodehouse's Jeeves/Wooster stuff. It's delightful -- you're in for a treat. The Hugh Laurie videos are awesome as well -- I share your crush on Laurie. (I have a slight crush on his "House" character, too, which is a lot more disturbing, given that he's both fictional and ornery.)
Gail at January 26, 2010 9:00 AM
I read an interview with Hugh Laurie in which he said reading the "Jeeves and Wooster" stories helped him overcome a bout of depression.
For those who are interested, Laurie has written a book, The Gun Seller. It's a decent beach read.
"...there's an undeniable pleasure in stepping into an open-top sports car driven by a beautiful woman. It feels like you're climbing into a metaphor." - Hugh Laurie (The Gun Seller)
Conan the Grammarian at January 26, 2010 9:09 AM
Gail,
I am the very last one in my own family still without an iphone - just an abominable piece of Virgin crap.
Good to have Wodehouse to cheer one up:
One from the many wiki "best of P.G." quotes:
"Whenever I meet Ukridge’s Aunt Julia I have the same curious illusion of having just committed some particularly unsavoury crime and—what is more—of having done it with swollen hands, enlarged feet, and trousers bagging at the knee on a morning when I had omitted to shave."
Jody Tresidder at January 26, 2010 9:09 AM
Another one I love: "She fitted into my largest armchair as though it had been built around her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight around the hips that season"
I don't know if it's on the wiki "best of P.G. quotes, but I think of it whenever I'm on an airplane next to an obese person.
All of the books are on my shelves at this moment. I pull them out and re-read them when I have the flu or am feeling grumpy.
Gail at January 26, 2010 9:17 AM
Apple OS is just a proprietary Linux operating system. I just bought a $300 laptop, wiped the (Windows 7) and installed Ubuntu 9.10 on it. Runs like a champ! I was working on a (hobby) project with my husband last night doing video editing on a AMD 64 bit processor with 3 GB of memory.
Plus I bet 95% of windows users could make an easy transition...and all of the software is open source, so it is FREE!
I avoid Apple products mostly because I don't want to pay for them. They cots significantly more than PC products, and I can buy a PC and install Linux on it and end up with all of the security and user friendliness without the additional cost and with the added advantage of thousands of free applications to run.
-Julie
JulieW at January 26, 2010 9:56 AM
I keep hearing that people love the Kindle and the newer one, the Nook? As an avid reader, I've always loved the feel of a book in my hand but cannot argue with the convenience of having an ITouch handy and not always carrying a pile of books. I didn't know it could be accessed on the ITouch. I'll have to check it out.
We have news 24 hours a day on a million channels. Your average person is lazy and would probably rather flip a channel that pick up a paper. I read 3 to 4 papers a day but have found that I am reading more news online. Brian is right though. With Craigslist now, the classifieds are getting killed.
Kristen at January 26, 2010 10:16 AM
I received a Nook for Christmas. I was wary. I had never considered an e-reader because I love paper books so much. But I have to say, I am really loving my Nook. I was sick last week, and didn't want to leave the house, but I was able to download books strait from my Nook since I've set up an account with B&N. The only downside is that I can't give books away anymore. Whenever I read a good one, I like to share.
Laura W. at January 26, 2010 10:39 AM
Sheesh, I don't want all you guys to think I'm just an illiterate, TV-watching slob!
So: Yes, the books are great, but sometimes I'd rather watch something good that read something great.
Signed,
Illiterate, TV-watching Slob
Robin at January 26, 2010 10:54 AM
I adore my nook and am increasingly less impressed with Apple. Apple is great as long as you never want to deviate from what Apple wants you to do. Buying music off of iTunes was wonderful until I traded my iBook for a Dell and wanted to get my music off my iPod. My uber-geek fiance had to buy special software and do some voodoo ritual to get it over. Now I buy my music off of Amazon, which lets me do what I want with it. I also have the first-generation Google phone, which I love. The GPS and subway maps are my favorite things in the world, and I will gladly take my fiance's Nexus One when he moves on to the next big thing.
I love my nook and use it to read the Washington Post. I never read newspapers on the train before because flipping and folding pages while standing squeezed into a train full of people is a pain in the ass. I also love having access to older papers while I am reading so I can check on something that has already run.
I am less impressed with the nook and Kindle in terms of their book DRM. If it's my book, I want to be able to lend it and give it away freely. This and its current poor handling of graphics are big negatives, and I don't know how the DRM issue will shake down, but the graphics capabilities will certainly improve over the next decade.
The whole "I love the feel of turning pages" thing is largely generational, I think. I love the tactile feel of pages, too, but I know a few teens who read online and prefer it that way. The advantages of a nook have certainly outweighed the tactile pleasures of turning pages.
And as for paying for content: Readers have never paid for content. They're not going to start now, except for very niche content.
MonicaP at January 26, 2010 10:57 AM
DRM:
That was quite a fiasco when Amazon broke into Kindles in the night and "retrieved" content for which people had already paid, along with content actually generated by the purchasers, in an attempt to cover up the fact that they had been selling something to which they hadn't bothered to get rights in the first place.
Robin at January 26, 2010 11:15 AM
The thing about Kindles is, they condense the entire experience of books into a freaky little appliance. Of course you can still browse and read books all you want, but I just don't see the point of making them into a super-contemporary consumer experience. I've been on maybe five vacations across a lifetime where space and packing would have been made easier by having a Kindle.
I just got a Kindle (one of the first things I did was download everything Wodehouse wrote. For a buck.)
I love it, but mostly because I travel all the time. Never mind saving space and weight, I no longer have to dread running out of things to read.
The one other nice thing about an e-book reader is that it stays open. This is very convenient when eating meals alone.
I am less impressed with the nook and Kindle in terms of their book DRM. If it's my book, I want to be able to lend it and give it away freely.
Exactly.
Hey Skipper at January 26, 2010 11:55 AM
This makes me think that in the future, people who prefer paper books will be like audiophiles today. "It sounds so much better on vinyl." "The premium cables are 'superb at maximizing dynamic contrast and intelligibility.'"
The product reviews on those cables are hilarious.
Me too, though in my case it was my old desktop that I was reviving for a special project. Since it was a clean reinstall I was able to play with some things I haven't tried before like ext4, grub 2 and having an encrypted home directory. I've got Kubuntu on my main machine, even though people say it's the worst KDE distribution, because I like its default settings. I hear that Fedora is good nowadays but I prefer apt+dpkg and the high churn rate of Fedora gives me headaches at work, which leaves me less eager to use it at home.
I don't care about the mainstream; for me, the year of Linux on the desktop was 2004.
Pseudonym at January 26, 2010 12:07 PM
I'm really fencesitting about the Kindle, mainly because no one I know has one and I'd like to play with it before I buy - that is the one drawback to online shopping.
That, and I have one bedroom in my house that is a dedicated library. Yeah, tons of books. There's just something about seeing shelves full of books that I like (right up until I have to move them!)
Ann at January 26, 2010 1:27 PM
I'm really fencesitting about the Kindle, mainly because no one I know has one and I'd like to play with it before I buy - that is the one drawback to online shopping.
With the nook, you can try before you buy at Barnes and Noble. It's very similar to the Kindle, so at least you can see if you'd even like an ereader.
MonicaP at January 26, 2010 1:40 PM
There are so many, many lines like the one Amy quoted ("His chin gave up the struggle about half-way down...") that really deserve to be savored on the page.
Jody, yes! I used to especially love the inventive and subversive Biblical allusions.
kishke at January 26, 2010 1:51 PM
Slightly off topic, but there's an article in the NY Observer claiming that Newsday, after 3 months behind a pay wall, has a total of 35 subscribers!
http://www.observer.com/2010/media/after-three-months-only-35-subscriptions-newsdays-web-site
Robin at January 26, 2010 2:09 PM
>>I used to especially love the inventive and subversive Biblical allusions.
And he wore his learning so lightly, kishke.
Amazing writer.
Pseudonym:
When I wrote about savoring Wodehouse "on the page" - I simply meant "as written" rather than spoken in tv dialog. I'm not yet ready for e-books, but I hope to be!)
Jody Tresidder at January 26, 2010 2:23 PM
> Apple OS is just a proprietary Linux
> operating system.
I'm like totally OMG: "-Julie" understands perfectly. She's still wrong about all the other stuff we fight about. Still, y'know, props!
And if there are any other geeks out there who are grateful for living on Planet Gates while still seeing all its faults clearly, let me recommend this website. Portable, open-source apps do much to fulfill the promise of the microcomputer revolution. I think the guy who runs that web site is doing the Lord's work.
Crid at January 26, 2010 2:28 PM
Pay news sites might work for a few of the big names but not for most. A number (most?) started out that way. I remember our local paper had a pay site but ultimately gave up and made most of it free. I know it was one of the earliest news papers online and most of the later ones just started as free. I don't see people being willing to pay for the most part.
Part of the problem is the local newspaper has never been great and is getting poorer. The local government column is useful. The rest is things like like local crimes and fires and high school sports. Anything else I can easily get from somewhere else online - perhaps not the exact article, but the news contained with in it.
The Former Banker at January 26, 2010 2:43 PM
Just read a NY Observer article linked at Drudge that says that three months after rollout, the Newsday pay site has 35 subscribers. You read that right: 35.
WSJ online, though, is making money.
kishke at January 26, 2010 3:13 PM
Actually, she's quite wrong. The OSX kernel is derived from the Mach microkernel from NExT, and the operating system is a repackaged BSD. BSD != Linux.
Julie, I've been hacking Linux since the 1.9 kernel. I probably still have some Slackware floppies from that era around here somewhere.
I still have trouble trying to get things to work with modern distros. Ferinstance GIMP: it was easier to reload the machine with a newer Fedora (3 I think) than it was to try to get GIMP to build on that box because none of the libraries were there, and configure uses some wierd way of telling if a library is installed, which of course the make process doesn't actually do when you build it from source.
95% of Windows users would chuck a Linux machine within 15 minutes. If you don't have the skill set, knowledge, time, and patience to build your software from source, you're often times hosed because unless someone has made an "official" binary distro, and there are distros of all the necessary libraries, you get squat.
Windows is easier to develop for, easier to distribute for, and easier to use than any Linux distro there is. Period. One GUI, one API, one Kernel.
There's nothing wrong with the underlying O/S, but X is moribund, KDE and GNOME are fighting it out, and they not completely compatible. And the constant forking of Linux makes the user experience frustrating as hell.
Apple sidesteps all of that by having a single UI, a single (ok, well two) APIs, and no forking.
I run Linux on servers. It's fantastic in that role.
As a workstation? Not so much.
brian at January 26, 2010 3:17 PM
Crid was being sarcastic.
It's no longer necessary to build from source. The centralized software repositories of modern Linux and BSD distributions are a huge leap forward in usability. They're like Steam or the App Store, but zero cost, and with all kinds of programs.
X.org has been revitalizing the X Windows community since 2004, and has now replaced XFree86 almost everywhere.
You say that like it's a bad thing. Their competition has caused both to improve rapidly. They're quite compatible with each other.
That only makes sense if you treat everything that uses a Linux kernel as "Linux". A more realistic approach is to compare distributions and platforms, e.g. Fedora on a PC.
Windows has a similar problem: it's much easier if you specify which major release of Windows you're comparing. It's similarly difficult to write an application that runs on Windows 3.1, Windows XP and Windows 7, much less Windows Mobile.
I think Linux is great for power users, sysadmins and people who have their own sysadmin. When I install Windows on a new machine, I have to go out and download (or worse, manually install from disc) a bunch of programs that come preinstalled in Ubuntu. If Windows didn't dominate gaming I wouldn't need it for anything.
Pseudonym at January 26, 2010 5:04 PM
More on Kindle.
I am about to download some Mickey Spillane books (haven't read any yet; I have heard they are good).
Kindle price: $10
Paperback new, $5.37; used $1.13.
I can't loan the Kindle version, or trade it in to a used book store. But I get to pay twice as much, nonetheless.
Hey Skipper at January 26, 2010 5:08 PM
That's new, then. I've settled on Fedora for my desktop Linux needs, it's got the most goodies and it is more on top of things. Although you still need to add at least the Dag repository, and even then you have trouble finding binaries for everything.
I remember when programs written for K wouldn't work on Gnome and vice-versa.
Well Windows Mobile is it's own beast, and every version it seems is mutually incompatible. This is why MS has not dominated the mobile market.
But I have run Windows 3.1 apps on Windows 7. so long as they don't run afoul of certain rules.
But ill-behaved apps have always had problems moving forward. Ask anyone who didn't follow the Toolbox rules when MultiFinder came along.
I agree. Still not something I'd give my dad.
Part of that is because people started suing MS for having too many programs bundled in. If Ubuntu ever gets big, the same crap will happen, and it's to the detriment of consumers.
I solved that problem years ago by going exclusively console for my gaming needs. I got sick of the "your six month old video card sucks" game.
brian at January 26, 2010 5:40 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/01/26/will_steve_jobs.html#comment-1691124">comment from kishkeWSJ online, though, is making money.
Some of it's mine. I subscribe. There's value there, so I pay for it.
Amy Alkon at January 26, 2010 5:54 PM
I have apps for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and Stanza on my Touch. I can get books from any of them in an instant, thousands of them for free. Do the Nook or the Kindle restrict you to buying stuff from them -- i.e., can you use the Kindle to buy from Barnes and Noble? Just curious -- I don't plan to buy the Kindle or the Nook. The Touch does the same thing, it fits in my purse, and it does tons of other things. The only reason I can think of for buying the Kindle or Nook is if you find it too hard to read on the small Touch or IPhone screen (I don't). And you can look before you buy, just as you can with a Nook or Kindle.
Hey Skipper: look a bit more closely at the e-book prices. Thousands of e-books are free, dirt cheap, or cheaper than paperback. If you are paying for any book published before 1920 or so, for example, you could certainly be getting it for free as an e-book. You will die long before you could run out of free books.
Don't get me wrong, I still buy books and still don't feel it's the same experience to read an e-book. But if you are a trip, or stuck on a subway, etc., it's great to have the ebook option. Half my luggage weight used to be books if I went for a two week trip. It's changed my life.
Gail at January 26, 2010 6:14 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/01/26/will_steve_jobs.html#comment-1691127">comment from GailAlso, I believe the first chapter of any Kindle book is free.
Amy Alkon at January 26, 2010 6:53 PM
Gail: right you are.
Hey Skipper at January 26, 2010 8:42 PM
> Actually, she's quite wrong.
Get a haircut, kiss a girl, and do something to make your boss like you for a change!
The point is that Steve Jobs gets credit for a whole bunch of genius for repackaging an existing operating system. It's like he took a bunch of Santa Monica beach winos and gave them all suits and cubicles, and people think he created the Rand Corporation. This is still Bill's planet, if you ask me.
> Crid was being sarcastic.
NEVER..!
> The only reason I can think of for buying
> the Kindle or Nook is if you find it too
> hard to read on the small Touch or IPhone
> screen (I don't).
I didn't need eyeglasses until 5 years ago, and now I carry two pair at all times. They've deeply trimmed my enthusiasm for portables of all kinds. The last good thing the Boomer generation can offer this planet, and it probably won't happen, is to demand that Silicon Valley design for ease of use instead of graphic fashion.... Big as possible button or screen-tap areas; large, read readable fonts; consistent keyboard shortcuts and so forth.
Take a look at your Mac, with those tiny (teentsie!) little colored circles at the corners of the windows. Steve Jobs –who NEVER ACTUALLY USES COMPUTERS DAY-IN AND DAY-OUT AS IF HIS PRODUCTIVITY AND HIS CAREER DEPEND ON THEM– believes that every computer user in the world wants to go through the neurosurgically challenging effort of finding those seven-pixel buttons each time a window needs to be closed. As follows:
1. Interrupt workflow.
2. Look for mouse on desk, grasp mouse.
3. Drag mouse to that tiny little lamp.
4. Fuss at PRECISELY putting cursor atop lamp.
5. STOP all mouse motion.
(Apple doesn't do fly-bys, whereas Microsoft is patient with them; for this alone and for much, much more, MS is a far friendlier interface)
6. Click the teentsy lamp.
7. Await result.
8. Try to remember the fuck what you're sitting at a desk for anyway.
9. Forgive the kids at Cupertino for being such smug, arrogant pricks.
No one can dispute that Jobs has done much to enrich a lot of people. But when he's gone from this pivotal American industry, that will be OK with me, too.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at January 26, 2010 11:16 PM
The ting with e-readers is they are expensive - not too expensive, but enough to keep it from being an impulse purchase.
My problem is the books.
Lets use Tery Brooks as an example. His Landover series has 6 books, and his Word&Void/Shannara series has 30 something.
Kinda tired at the momoent so excuse me If I got the counts wrong.
Now between those 36 books, I purchased some new and some used if they were in exceptionally good condition. Between $8 and $4 dollars each. More than $150 for those alone and I have more than 500 books lining my shelves.
When I checked out Amazons kindle versions of the books I noticed on average they were going for $6.
$6*36= $216 Why would I pay either MORE or a similar price for the e-version of the books if I already have a copy?
I got alot of my books on sale. ANd it wll cost me far more to get an e-version than ot cost me to get the print version.
Until publishers start selling e-books far, far cheaper then a dollar off the list price of a physical book, or in the alternitve 'buy back' the physical copies it just isnt worth getting an e-reader
lujlp at January 27, 2010 3:48 AM
Newspapers might have been saved by e-reader technology IF they had taken the Internet threat/opportunity seriously starting about 15 years ago, IF they had done a competent job in strategy and execution related thereto, and IF they had focused more on product quality and less on the transmission of political agenda.
Now it's too late. People who have reached the ago of, say, 30 without developing the habit of reading their local newspapers aren't going to suddently start doing so--and paying for the privilege--just because it's on a screen.
david foster at January 27, 2010 6:06 AM
Until publishers start selling e-books far, far cheaper then a dollar off the list price of a physical book, or in the alternitve 'buy back' the physical copies it just isnt worth getting an e-reader
The savings come into play more if you buy a lot of hardcover books, but for me, the price of books has evened out. I pay a little less for some, a little more for others, and some were free. My nook won't really replace books for me until I can get any book I want on it, though. And I won't buy books I already have. Also, I want the ability to sell my book when I'm done with them. DRM makes me a crankypants.
MonicaP at January 27, 2010 6:53 AM
"can you run 32 bit binaries on 64 bit OSX? You can't on Linux, I know that much. But you can on Windows 7."
Only to a degree. There are a lot of program for which there are separate 32 and 64-bit versions, mostly high-end stuff like Autocad. For those, you can't run the 32-bit version.
"I am less impressed with the nook and Kindle in terms of their book DRM. If it's my book, I want to be able to lend it and give it away freely."
The problem is, with a book, there's one book, and when you lend it to a friend, then you don't have it anymore, until they give it back, or until you realize they never will and go buy another. With a Kindle file or an MP3 or what have you, perishingly few people are MOVING the file from their computer to their friend's, they're COPYING the file, making two books/songs/etc. That's what they don't want to happen. Alas, the only reasonable way to keep that from happening is to keep the user from either copying or moving the file to another machine. It goes too far, but there's no fairly-priced technology that I know of to allow the reasonable middle of the road.
Making a single copy for one friend is not going to break the bank, any more than making one tape for a friend did back in the day. But as has already been said, it's the ability to post the file for potentially millions of people to get that is REALLY what they want to stop.
People don't grasp that a computer file has value; certainly not the same value as a physical object. A CD can cost between ten and twenty dollars, but an MP3 copy doesn't feel like the same thing. You can't touch it, you can't put it on a shelf, it doesn't seem "real". But put a very small price on it (say, 99 cents a song) and people don't grouse.
What's the cost of physically printing a book? If it's, say, 25% of the cost of any said book, then logically the cost of producing an e-book should be 25% less than a physical one. But that doesn't "feel" like enough for the average person. People want to pay next to nothing, if anything at all, for something they download, simply because it doesn't have the same physical and mental weight of that 5-pound book.
What if there was a Kindle Library? A netflix for books? For x-amount a month, you can download as many books as you like, read them, and send them back. i.e. have them erased from your device. I think people would go for that, and if you could lock the file so people couldn't (easily, nothing's impossible) keep a copy after the fct the publishers might go for it as well.
These are all questions that have been addressed by the comics industry for a couple years now. People are all but demanding digital comics from DC and Marvel, and so far only Marvel has come up with a semblance of a solution, a web-based library similar to my suggestion above. It hasn't been that well received because their setup is iffy, but it's a start.
Vinnie Bartilucci at January 27, 2010 7:58 AM
"The savings come into play more if you buy a lot of hardcover books . . . "
Or if you want to read great classic literature. All of Dickens, Hardy, Shakespeare, the Brontes, Trollope, Austen, Balzac, Twain -- FREE. There are a lot of other free books, too, and a bunch in the under $5 range. We're talking thousands and thousands of them. And the money I save on those books, I can use to buy books from up-and-coming authors. How can you beat that?
Crid -- I sympathize on the eye thing. After spending a year or so in denial, I finally sucked it up and got multifocals. They rock -- I can see like I did when I was twelve. They're expensive (far more expensive than plain glasses or even bi-focals), but worth it. I can see close up, I can see my computer screen at mid-distance, I can see someone across the room, and all without switching glasses. Anyway, without the multifocals, I would probably find the Touch screen annoying, but with them, it's no problem. I can see all the teeny little do-hickeys on my computer. I can thread a needle again. And I can read a damn wine list in a dim restaurant. (Why is the print on wine lists always so tiny? And why do the restaurants have to be so dark? Don't people want to see their food and companions?)
Gail at January 27, 2010 8:22 AM
*****Part of the problem is the local newspaper has never been great and is getting poorer. The local government column is useful. The rest is things like like local crimes and fires and high school sports. Anything else I can easily get from somewhere else online - perhaps not the exact article, but the news contained with in it.*****
This, exactly. My local rag has always been crap - you have to go to the Denver paper to find out what happened in Ft. Collins. Stupid. Couple that with the 50 bazillion spelling/grammar/factual errors and I'd laugh in their faces if they asked me to pay for the privilege.
Ann at January 27, 2010 8:39 AM
It depends, actually. On some distributions you can, but on mine you don't need to, because everything's precompiled.
Solaris x86 is also very good at mixing 32 bit and 64 bit binaries; in fact so much so that they only bother compiling programs in 64 bit mode if it it helps that particular tool. Simple userland tools like "ls" don't need to be 64 bits.
My local library will lend ebooks in mobipocket format. I don't know what the terms are, if they auto-delete, or whatever.
Pseudonym at January 27, 2010 10:33 AM
**********What if there was a Kindle Library? A netflix for books? For x-amount a month, you can download as many books as you like, read them, and send them back.**********
This. This is brilliant.
Ann at January 27, 2010 11:19 AM
Months worth of ereading with only hours of juice. A paper book can take any marathon reading session with ease, without a recharge or being tethered to a wall-socket.
Newspapers online do not a page-break need, but have more page-breaks than spelling/grammar errors just to generate page hits. The online newspaper reading experience is why I would never pay a penny to any of 'em.
Jay J. Hector at January 28, 2010 12:31 PM
Leave a comment