Fate of the e-Reader
When one of my friends bought the Kindle, I was very impressed with the screen without a backlight and also by the much vaunted E Ink technology. The Kindle felt just like a book, you know, without any of the brightness (or irritation) associated with a PC/laptop screen. In fact, Amazon made it a point to highlight the device’s “paper-like” screen. And Amazon boss, Jeff Bezos wasn’t exaggerating when he declared, “Amazon Kindle is for reading”. So why didn’t the e-reader sweep the reading world off its feet? Why didn’t people switch from the world of atoms (books) to the world of bits (e-books)? Because of Steve Jobs. When he announced the iPad, people had to make a choice: did they want a single purpose device or a multi-purpose device? Something specialized for one use or something generalized for most things? Did they want to go back to uni-tasking or continue with multitasking? The world voted overwhelming for the tablet. But here’s an unintended consequence ...