Sunday 27 January 2008

Arrogance

In an interesting article in today's New York Times about whether the Amazon Kindle is likely or not to be a success (he thinks it is), Randall Stross says:

Stephen P. Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, has nothing to fear from the Kindle. No one would regard it as competition for the iPod. It displays text in four exciting shades of gray, and does that one thing very well. It can do a few other things: for instance, it has a headphone jack and can play MP3 files, but it is not well suited for navigating a large collection of music tracks.

Yet, when Mr. Jobs was asked two weeks ago at the Macworld Expo what he thought of the Kindle, he heaped scorn on the book industry. “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is; the fact is that people don’t read any more,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.”

I've often wondered if the air of superiority that characterises most Mac users is purely coincidental - the way some evolutionary traits just happen to appear side-by-side - or whether, like all the bits needed to expand Apple computers, it's product-specific, up its own arse and basically anti-literate.

It looks like the latter.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Off subject, really, but this site needs to be translated into italian. Hint, hint.
XO
Tyla
http://globalvoicesonline.org/about/

Anonymous said...

Oops...here is the actual link. Sorry!
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/lingua/

Ms Baroque said...

Well, I use a Mac, but I'm mostly pro-literate, you know. I think all the big fat supremos at these places are the same, pretty much. What would be to choose between him, Gates and Branson? NONE of them want you READING. There's NO money in it - what, a book for less than a tenner, and maybe even second-hand! And then it keeps you out of the shops for, like, DAYS!

Charles Lambert said...

The last thing I would do, Ms Baroque, is accuse you of anti-literacy! I'm sure you have an entirely healthy attitude to your computer. It's the tendency of many Mac users to regard their skinny white laptops, or whatever, as household gods rather than goods that gets my goat.

Branson! Can Branson even read?

David Isaak said...

Ms. Baroque makes an excellent point. Steve Jobs is the southbound end of a northbound horse. So is Bill Gates. Neither of them is terribly smart, but if you make a lot of money in America, people immediately apply the labels "genius" and "visionary."

Mr Branson at least produces wine. Marginal wine, and overpriced, and not quite as good as the house plonk in any random cafe in Rome, but recognizably wine. And I'm in favor of wine.

Anonymous said...

Sorry but just by reading the comment written by ms baroque above, under the title 'Arrogance' seems not only ironic but ideal.

Charlotte Lord-Sallenave said...

Sorry but just by reading the comment written by Ms Baroque in an attempt to highlight her inexistant excellence, under the title 'Arrogance' seems not only ironic but ideal.

Charles Lambert said...

Charlotte, you don't know Ms Baroque. Anyone who defends reading rather than shopping is OK with me...

But it's nice to see you here!