Q: Has your opinion of e-readers changed?
A: I’m sure there will always be dedicated devices, and they may have a few advantages in doing just one thing. But I think the general-purpose devices will win the day because I think people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device. You notice Amazon never says how much they sell; usually if they sell a lot of something, you want to tell everybody.
We don’t see that it’s a really big market at this point. And in the future, the more general-purpose devices will tend to win the day.
I’m not sure that Amazon, as an example, really cares that much about being in the hardware business. If I were Amazon, I’d love selling stuff where I didn’t have to have a warehouse, didn’t need UPS.
Translation: We’re making a tablet, and eBooks will be a part of those.
Jobs isn’t saying Apple isn’t interested in eBooks, he’s saying that Apple isn’t interested in making a stand-alone eBook reader. And they shouldn’t be. While the devices will exist for a while, eventually the thought that this won’t be a functionality wrapped into other devices is silly. Why carry around multiple devices when you can carry around one? That’s kind of Apple’s thing, isn’t it?