Random Musings and Nicknacks

So it happened as expected today, and Apple made a huge announcement. They have opened the iBook store.

Now I know what you’re thinking – that wasn’t the announcement, the announcement was a tablet computer called the “iPad”. I respectfully submit that you are wrong.

Apple has long passed the point where they are a technology company; they are a media company. For several years now their new product announcements have followed a very predictable pattern:

1. They created a music store, with a brand new way to experience music, and provided a device (the iPod) to listen with it
2. They created a movie and tv store, with a brand new distribution model for video, and provided a device (the iPod Video and Apple TV) to use to watch them
3. They created a software application store, with a complete rethink of the concept of an applications and provided a device (the iPhone) to run them

Now they are planning to do the same thing with printed media – change the way people buy and consume printed media, and to do that they need a device for people to consume it on.

Still uncertain whether the focus is the device or the content? Take a step back and think about the advertising: have you ever seen a commercial showing you what an iPod can do? I bet not – but you’ve seen lots of Apple commercials playing music you can buy in the iTunes store. Likewise, have you ever seen a commercial telling you what features are in an iPhone? But I’ll bet that by now every person reading this knows the phrase “there’s an app for that”.

The iPad is necessary to allow people to read the books Apple wants to sell them – that’s it’s purpose, and that’s why it wasn’t revolutionary. Revolutionary would have got in the way of the experience of buying and reading a book.

Now, by book I don’t mean _The Odyssey_ – that’s not the target. In fact I think the term Book is only really used because it is familiar. What we are talking about is selling media of which a significant portion is text, in addition to any other media that is available.

Where exactly this goes I can’t say, but I can see some bits of it -

I can imagine buying an iBook on bicycle repair, and tapping the diagram on the page which will turn into a video demonstrating the technique (a friend described it as “like the books in _Harry Potter_, an apt description).

I am certain most of the books will be priced in the impulse range – definitely under $10 for most of them.

I am certain that you will be able to share the books with your family – a big thing that has been missing from all the other eBook attempts (there’s no formal announcement, but you can share music, videos, and apps with your family, so books will almost certainly be the same).

I heard an opinion last week that holds even more true today: what Apple brings to the table that nobody else does is the ability to convince media companies to provide content to be sold.

Today you will hear people saying “meh, its just a big iPhone”. In a year you will be sitting on a bus, amazed at how many people around you are consuming their media on an iPad.

Not because the iPad itself is special, but because the iPad is the easiest way to consume the media that is being sold through the iTunes and iBook stores.

Lest you think the lukewarm reaction to the iPad is a sign that Apple made a misstep, remember how they they reacted to the iPod:

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame

– Rob Malda, of Slashdot on the iPod

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.