Although my new day job meant I couldn’t stay up late to watch Jeff Bezos’s guest appearance on Charlie Rose last night, MediaBistro’s EBookNewser has the liveblogged scoop.
Some interesting pithy comments from Bezos—he says the number one thing people are doing on the iPad right now is playing video games, while the number one thing people are doing on the Kindle is reading books. And he favorably compares the price of the Wi-Fi Kindle with what some people spend on sunglasses.
And Bezos also explains why he doesn’t reveal sales figures:
We are secretive about the [Kindle sales] numbers because we think it is competitively useful. Other people are planning it’s a helpful data point for them. We say millions, it’s not helpful to them.
Bezos apparently didn’t have anything to say about the Amazon/Wylie deal—not too surprising, really. It’s not a hornet’s nest he wants or needs to poke with a stick; there’s quite enough buzz around it already.
Sooner or later the video of the segment will be up at the first link above, but as of this writing it isn’t yet.
“while the number one thing people are doing on the Kindle is reading books.”
Probably because that is the only function it really has.
I wonder what his definition of “game” is.
The iPad, at its minimum price ( $499/USD) is a bit pricey just to play games on. An considering how many iPads have sold so far…
Out of the $100+ I’ve spent on iPad specific apps (so far), NONE of it went for games. I only have 1 game even on my wishlist (Myst, if it ever grows up into an iPad version).
Of course, like Alton Brown, I prefer multi-taskers (a device with multiple uses, not in the OS multitasking sense) when spending my hard earned cash. So, as tempting as the Kindle 3 is, I can’t see getting it for myself.
Bezos has always been very clear that Kindles are for one thing only, immersive text reading. He wants it to be the dominant device for that. He’ll gladly sell you a a wide variety of devices for other purposes. (That’s what Amazon does.) Some of those devices will even display Kindle ebooks. Just not as well (in his opinion) as a Kindle. He may be wrong, but he’s wicked consistent.
I’m actually tempted by a Kindle 3. It’s getting close to right.
Regards,
Jack Tingle
I spent more than that on sunglasses! Damn prescription…