Kindle Update

Thanks to Mary Keough, over at IBM, for reading my post and correcting me on the weight of the Kindle Touch. I was thinking of the new $79 Kindle when I said six ounces. I weighed four devices this morning to make sure I got this right. Here is what I found.

I have to admit that I am vascillating a bit between the Kindle and the Kindel Touch. They are both very light and a pleasure to read on. The touch screen is nice, but the simple buttons on the Kindle create a certainty about your intentions. When I swipe, sometimes I go back a page to make sure I had not swiped two pages. With the Kindle, a click is always “a” click. All the Kindle devices are great, and I suspect the Fire will keep getting better with software updates and follow-on models.

Mary asked about the advertising and quetioned whether it is worth the extra $30 on the Kindle or $40 on the Touch to get the device “without special offers”. My opinion is that it is not worth the extra money. The special offers appear as a screen saver when you stop reading. They are totally unobtrusive. You can easily not even notice them. If you want to look more closely and are interested in something being offered, you can go for it. Speaking of reading, the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson was really great (see Apple at Grand Central Terminal). I am now reading Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett. I have read most of his books, and this one too is really good so far. 

 Other patrickWeb stories related to the Kindle

Tags: amazon, apple, fall of giants, fire, founders hall, ipad, iPhone, isaacson, ken follett, Kindle, kindle fire, kindle touch, steve jobs

Apple at Grand Central Terminal

It was a coincidence that I had a board meeting in New York City yesterday, on the day that Apple was opening it’s fifth retail store there. The store opening was planned for 10 AM with collector teeshirts to be given to the first 4,000 visitors. I arrived at Grand Central Station from Connecticut at 8 AM and there was already a line of 2,500 people. When I returned to the train station at 2PM, the shirts had been gone for two hours. I was one of the many thousands who visited the store, which will have 315 employees. Some day my grandchildren’s grandchilren will tell friends that their Pop Pop was there on opening day.  The Wall Street Journal reported that more people visit an Apple store each quarter than visit Disney’s four biggest theme parks in a year. It was quite a site to be there yesterday. I took some pictures but the one’s in the WSJ are much better. There is a short video done by Engadget that is worth looking at (see  Apple just arrived at Grand Central Terminal, we hop aboard video).

After visiting the new Apple store, I could not help but think about Steve Jobs. He will be revered for many generations as a great innovator and business leader. After you read his biography by Walter Isaacson, you will also respect this great biographer. I met Walter in 1996 just before he became editor of Time Magazine and I was greatly impressed with his embrace of the Internet. He came to IBM with some colleagues and we brainstormed about how the publisher might take advantage of the Web. None of us really knew the right strategy at the time, and unfortunately, the publishing industry still has not figured it out. Industry by industry, it was Steve Jobs who showed the way.

Steve Jobs – by Walter Isaacson is already the biggest selling biography of all times.  Jobs not only authorized the biography but gave Isaacson access to his home, his family, and his innermost thoughts over a two-year period leading up to just before his death. Great biographers write about great people. Isaacson’s books about Benjamin Franklin and Einstein were great but much harder for me to read. The Jobs biography read more smoothly in part because I could identify directly with the technology issues so aptly described in the book. I know or have met many of the characters in the book. Although not a technologist, Isaacson did a gret job in desscribing the technolgy issues in layman terms. He offered an insight that will help many readers better understand the impact and potential of technology.

The basic premise of the Steve Jobs philosophy was to create a simplified and integrated experience for the consumer. Critics say that the integration of iMacs, iPods, iPads, etc. with iTunes and Mac OSX represents a monopolistic strategy. After reading the biography, I suspect most people will be convinced that it was an intense desire to make things easier has been the driver. Jobs would say that products and profits are both important, but elegant and simplified products are most important. It was the intense drive and focus of Steve Jobs that made such products available to the mass market and catapulted Apple to become the most valuable company in the world. 

I continue to believe that the Amazon Kindle is the best platform for reading books, but I read the Steve Jobs biography on the iPad. 

Tags: apple, ipad, isaacon, steve jobs

Steve Jobs

The outpouring of stories about Steve Jobs has been impressive and certainly justified in tribute to an incredible person such as Steve Jobs. I am very saddened by the loss of such a vibrant and creative human being. I don’t think about the price of the Apple shares I own, but I can’t help but think about the human and medical aspects of his passing. I don’t know much about his wife and children, but I feel for them — it must have been painful for many months and perhaps years knowing that their husband and father was likely going to die. Miracles happen every day in healthcare, but in spite of a patient who no doubt knew more about his condition than many doctors might know, no cure was possible. If you have not read The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, I highly recommend it. The novel-like non-fiction book tells the story of cancer from thousands of years ago through the many episodes of research.  In 2010, more than 500,000 Americans died of cancer, more than 1,500 people a day. Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the US, exceeded only by heart disease. In spite of these large numbers,  to die from pancreatic cancer at the age of 56 is rare. And Steve Jobs was rare. Some say there will not be another hero such as him for a very long time, if ever. I never met Steve Jobs, but I did talk with him by telephone back in the early 1990′s. My assistant said that Mr. Jobs was on the phone and wanted to talk to me. He was CEO of NeXT, Inc. at the time. I was vice president of marketing for IBM’s personal software products. Our product was an operating system for PCs called OS/2. NeXT had an operating systems for PCs. It was not well known, but Tim Berners-Lee was using NeXT when he invented the World Wide Web in 1989-1990. Steve wanted to talk about possible collaboration. What amazed me was that the CEO of a company seemed to knew every detail about NeXT, how it worked, how it was built, what it could do. Attention to detail and unmerciful demands for flawless execution seem to be what brought the company from near failure to the most valuable company in the world. I read in one article that Steve had coached his team on how to handle the launch of the iPhone 4S on Wednesday. It would not surprise me if that is what kept him going near the end, and then when the launch was over and successful, he passed away. It would not surprise me to see a philanthropic move emerge that will be as beautiful as his products. I am currently reading the biography of Einstein by Walter Isaacson. In two weeks the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs will offer great insight about the legend.

Tags: apple, einstein, iPhone, isaacson, jobs, steve jobs