Apple trumpets iPad, iBookstore achievements
updated 04:15 pm EDT, Mon June 7, 2010
Establishes iPad as threat to Kindle?
Titles sold through the iBookstore now account for about 22 percent of US e-book sales, according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The claim was made during today's WWDC keynote, which ultimately announced the iPhone 4, but began with a segment on the iPad. Even though the iBookstore has only officially been active since April 3rd, over 5 million titles have been downloaded worldwide, Jobs comments.
The figures -- said to come from publishers -- solidify the iPad as a serious threat to Amazon and the Kindle, as well as smaller e-reader makers including Kobo. In recent history, Amazon has held as much as 90 percent of the US e-book market. The company may find solace however in its Kindle iPhone app, which scales for the iPad and supports Kindle-formatted books. Amazon's dedicated hardware is also better specialized for reading in many cases, being lighter than the iPad, and easier on the eyes because of e-ink.
Jobs simultaneously used the segment to mention that there are now over 8,500 iPad-native apps on the App Store. These have been downloaded some 35 million times, amounting to about 17 titles for each of the 2 million-plus iPads that have been shipped globally.
iBooks is set to be updated later this month with notes, bookmarks and PDF support. A version for iPhones and iPod touches will become available around the same time.
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Joined: Dec 2009
But... Nobody reads anymore!!!
From Above: "Titles sold through the iBookstore now account for about 22 percent of US e-book sales, according to Apple CEO Steve Jobs."
Now, a direct quote from Steve jobs in the NYT a few months ago concerning e-readers:
It doesn't matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don't read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.
- Steve Jobs
I guess nobody is reading all these books downloaded from the iBookstore?