Steve Jobs is a cranky genius.
After this year's Macworld Expo failed to ignite the Apple stock price upward or to recreate the same sort of feverish buzz of last year's Macworld introduction of the iPhone, Jobs decided to strike back against reading to salve his wounds:
Today he [Jobs] had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading.
"It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore," he said. 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."
What does Steve Jobs think people are doing with his iPhone and Mac computers if not reading and creating SMS messages, email, notes and the next great blog entry or book?
People may not read paper books any longer, but they do read eBooks -- the Kindle's runaway success is testimony to that Jobs falsity -- but one must wonder what's really at the heart of Jobs' sniper shot at readers.
Is it because reading creates independent minds and richer thinkers?
Apple is built on product idolatry and a "no questions asked" mantra that means you just must "believe" in order to be a user of Apple products.
Is reading a threat to Jobs' ultimate plan for us?
Jobs loves design and images -- but it appears Steve Jobs prefers an inactive eye that allows itself to be washed over with images and colorful preaching -- while the rest of us, with active imaginations, prefer our eyes for questioning and for thinking and for interpreting words and context on the page and then storing it all in our minds for future export in an attempt at a greater gain than entertaining the lonesome self.
I think that the Gutenberg Nightly Update says otherwise - books put up every single night of all sorts. Take that, Jobs!
That's a great link, Gordon! It proves the word is still alive!