We are on the eve of Apple’s “Come See Our Latest Creation” event, and the only thing I am thinking about is whether the fabled New Device will be a significant advancement beyond my Old Device, thus rendering all previous devices completely undesirable and highly repellent. And from what I’ve read by Tim van Damme, John Gruber here and here, Marco Arment, John Siracusa, Aaron Mahnke, Andy Ihnatko, Neven Mrgan, and Jim Darlymple, it will be an amazing Latest New Device. Yet, I’m still unsatisfied because none of them talk about how the Tablet will usher in a new vision of how we will read. The closest is John Siracusa, who observes,
[The Apple Tablet] will provide an easy way for people to find, purchase, and consume all kinds of media and applications right from the device. It’s that simple. … Apple’s doing the hard work to make all of this happen, of course. That means courting a new class of content owners whose wares are a good fit for a tablet-scale device: print publishers. Apple’s got a lot to offer publishers: millions of existing customers who’ve proven their willingness to buy digital media, relationships with other big media companies to show that Apple knows how to get along in this world, even a CEO who is himself the head of a movie studio and the largest single shareholder of a media giant. Add to that the color, video-capable touchscreen, which current electronic publishing suitors lack, and Apple can now appeal to new kinds of publishers: glossy magazines, comic books, and mixed media hybrids (e.g., People magazine with embedded celebrity videos).
{ 1 comment }
