Steve Jobs denied he’d do a video iPod. Any more to be said? If he says he’ll avoid e-books, I’ll trust him about as much as I would Scott McLellan. Corporate Disinformation is no small priority at Apple.
Very much related to e-books, of course, are tablets. The rumors keep popping up again and again. Now, if Apple shoots them down, I’ll still be in the dark. Who can say–when Jobs lies so well? Hey, no shocker. The real surprise is that the press so often takes him at face value.
After the Intel transition announcement (which I called completely wrong) I’ve learned not to try too hard to figure out which way Apple’s wind is blowing.
That said, adding video to the iPod was an evolutionary move. Most people probably won’t use it, but it is there if they want it. You will notice they aren’t sold as “Video iPods”, but simply as another feature on top of the existing iPod.
I dont’ see Apple doing the same thing with books, at least in the short term. The portable music market already existed. eBooks would be an interesting next step, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
Ditto on the Mac tablet. I’d be first in line with my piggy bank if they announced one, but I’m not holding my breath on that one either.
If anyone could be the one to bring e-books, e-magazines, and e-newspapers to the mass market with a suitable device like a tablet, I’d put my money on Apple. Lest we not forget, they filed a patent on a tablet like device earlier this year.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2005/5/11/274
On a related note, there’s a lot of speculation surrounding Apple’s digital content plans and services due the the recent revelation of Apple filing a trademark for “Vingle”.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/15/AR2005101500175.html
Such a tablet device and “Vingle” services would be ideally suited to stream content (news, subscriptions, audio, video, etc) to a device utilizing RSS feeds and ubiquitous wide area networks (Wi-Fi, WI-MAX). Add integrated iSight (like the new iMac) and iChat AV, then you have VOIP and videoconferencing capabilities anywhere in a handheld device.
I’d also note that iTunes had video support for Quicktime and MPEG4 videos long before the iPod with video, music videos, and TV shows were available at the iTMS. If you do a search in iTunes (version 5 or later), a category labeled “Booklets” in addition to Music, Videos, Audiobooks, and Podcasts comes up in the results. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Thanks, Richard and Brian, for your intriguing posts. I believe that Apple will do e-books. It’s just a matter of time, and my hunch is”sooner” rather than later. – David
move along folks, nothing to see here…
yeah, apple will do a tablet eventually.
it’s the natural evolution of the laptop;
might even be sooner rather than later.
but you ain’t gonna like the price much.
as long as apple is pulling 600 bucks
for a 5-pound mini — with no screen —
what do you think they will charge for
a 2-pound wireless machine that has a
touchscreen substituting for a keyboard?
and those tablets will sell like hotcakes,
at whatever price steve wants to charge,
because people want a mobile computer,
which means the price won’t come down
at _any_ time we’d call “the near future”…
so i hope you’re not hodling your breath…
now, are we ever gonna stop hyping vapor?
-bowerbird, a longtime mac enthusiast…
The ‘booklets’ feature in iTunes refers to pdf documents that replicate the inserts you get in CDs. Not a lot of albums come with them, but I got one with the purchase of U2’s current release.