Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age

Last week on Wowio’s blog The Reader, there was a post entitled “iPhone Reader: The Long Sessions.” The post had some great photos from their recent efforts to test-drive reading on Apple’s iPhone (which is not easy since the iPhone is pretty much a closed device when it comes to third-party applications).

Wowio itself is a company that offers free downloads of PDF eBooks from its website. They feel that “by making ebooks available for free — including copyrighted works from major publishers — we ultimately hope to make sure that every person who wants to read a book will be able to get it.” Wowio’s business model is based on the assumption that print is not dead, and that the reading of free electronic books can and does lead to the sale of printed books.

The company has only been in existence since 2006, so it’s a little early to tell if any of this is working, but they’re certainly a passionate voice in the “future of the book” debate, and they’re doing an awful lot to meet the demands of an “attention economy” society where people want to interact with content wherever and however they want. However, the selection of material on their site, at this point, is not eclectic or widespread enough to attract more than a specialized interest.

However, the Wowio blog consistently writes intelligently about eBooks and related issues, not to mention that reading on the iPhone is a bit of an obsession; they also recently wrote up a post about supposedly an even newer iPod model named the iSlate, and what that could mean to reading. There’s also a great video of the experience of reading on an iPhone. This is obviously the blog to subscribe to if this is an interest of yours.

In terms of the experience itself, a Wowio staffer pretty much gushes about the experience of reading on an iPhone:

I’ve now had several multi-hour reading sessions on the iPhone, and I’m finding that it affirms my earlier impressions that its display and touch interface are quite well suited to the purpose of reading long, text-oriented PDFs. The ultra-sharp screen and flexible zooming — combined with easy rotation to landscape orientation — allow fixed-page (non-reflowable) PDFs to display at a comfortable reading size. While I’ve generally hated reading on small devices like PDAs in the past, the iPhone’s excellent display makes it not just viable but actually quite enjoyable. I read in a variety of lighting conditions, including bright outdoor sunlight, artificial light and total darkness, and in all cases, the display performed brilliantly.

Not only that, but the new, more interactive and intuitive touch-screen surface actually delivers some of the physical feeling that is missing in most eBook experiences when “turning a page” really means pressing a tiny button the size of a Tic Tac:

Touching the slippery-smooth glass to scroll through the book made the experience pleasantly tactile, somehow better echoing the positive visceral experience of turning pages of a paper book than the mechanical, button-pushing motion used on most other reading devices. Since the touch interface permits for simultaneous scrolling in both horizontal and vertical directions, I expected to have some trouble with unintentionally moving diagonally instead of straight down, but the system seems to have built-in smarts to ignore such spurious motion off the main axis of movement.

So while Steve Jobs and Apple are just getting started, it seems, with the new touch-surface interface for Apple products (I’m loving my new iTouch, but wish it had more memory), then it would seem that Wowio’s dreams on reading on an iPhone or some next-generation iPhone-like device will some day be a reality. Whether or not that means a text-based iTunes bookstore interface remains to be seen, but technology this good will have to be harnessed for reading at some point.

From the video blog I Hate Young People, I found the above clip that consists of people talking about cell phones and their hatred/fear of technology (epitomized by the woman who says “Just because it’s new doesn’t make it better”). While being pretty funny, I also think it goes to show just how wary people are of new things and change in general, and I bet that — a hundred years ago — you would have received the same reactions in terms of people talking about horseless carriages and the telephone. And, of course, you hear people talk like this in the “future of the book” debate, decrying things like electronic reading devices or portable gadgets, saying no one will want to “curl up” with computers. The subtext in both discussions is a general fear of the new, and a desire to always have things remain the same. However, as we all know, the only thing that remains the same is the fact that things will indeed always change. So, like it or not, technology is here to stay.

Last week Apple introduced three new iPod models, including a redesign of their ultra-successful Nano model, along with a Classic version and the new iPod Touch (which is basically the iPhone minus the phone and the AT&T contract; I instantly pre-ordered one). What I think is remarkable about this is whenever Apple introduces new products, it instantly phases out its old ones. For example, it’s now impossible to buy any of the former Nano models (you know, the ones that were cutting-edge up until last Wednesday). The same way that the Nano itself replaced the mega-popular iPod Mini just a few years ago, the Nano itself has now been replaced with an even newer model. While some view this with cynicism, as if Steve Jobs is out to wring every nickel he can from enthusiasts/obsessives who’ll purchase anything with the Apple logo on it, I instead look at this with awe and admiration, the sign of a man and a company who demand nothing but the very best.

After all, neither Apple or Jobs are cluttering the marketplace; at any one time, there are only three to five iPod models to choose from. So instead of the Mini standing next to both versions of the Nano (not to mention the Shuffle, which itself has gone through a few transformations), the older models disappear — a la Logan’s Run — and make way for the new ones. But instead of this being about Jobs and money, this is about Apple and its addiction to change, along with its relentless quest to always have on hand the best possible product.

In thinking about this in terms of the publishing industry, I thought it would make an interesting comparison (mainly because, while Apple changes all the time, publishing tries to change as little as possible). True, Apple is a technology company whose bread and butter is innovation, while publishing is supplying a good rather than an experience (after all, no one expects much innovation to come from such basic products as, well, bread and butter). And yet, in the “print is dead” debate, the fact that books are indeed a technology is brought up all the time. Indeed, many pro-book pundits feel that printed books are the “perfect” technology, and that computers — no matter how advanced — can never best a book when it comes to delivering a satisfying reading experience. So I think that the comparison between Apple and publishing is somewhat apt (or rather, not as outlandish as it sounds).

So then what I find so shocking is that no one in publishing is really trying to push the boundaries the way Apple always is. In fact, it’s almost the reverse; instead of charging ever forward, publishing seems content to always look back. At this point, we’ve gone from viewing Gutenberg as the man who printed bibles to looking at him like a biblical figure himself: a saint not to argued with, the inventor of a religion instead of a technology. So instead of, in the past 500 years, pushing for the evolution of books, we have instead grown warm with the idea that they won’t evolve at all. Not only that, but we reject as a heretic anyone who suggests that books, “the perfect invention,” have any need for improvement. If Steve Jobs felt this way, Apple computers would still be made out of blocks of wood and the world wouldn’t have any iPods to be updated in the first place.

There are now only two days until the debut of Apple’s much-anticipated iPhone. Writing in an article entitled “Hollywood Seeks Ways to Fit Its Content Into the Realm of the iPhone,” that appeared on Monday in The New York Times, Laura Holson describes how “Many in Hollywood and Silicon Valley hope the iPhone’s multimedia features will make it easier for any mobile-crazed consumer to do the same things they do on the Web: watch their favorite television shows, download maps, send e-mail messages to friends and swap videos.” This is all taking place due to the fact that modern day “consumers demand more and better access to media and care less about how they get it.”

Viewed in this context, the triumph of the iPhone will be a triumph not only for Apple, but will ultimately be a triumph for content itself. Because the iPhone is obviously more than just a phone. In fact, if it succeeds the way that’s being predicted, the “phone” part of the equation will be the least interesting part (since most people already have a cell phone; that’s not why they’re buying an iPhone). Instead, why people are lusting after the iPhone (apart from the usual Apple scruffs who have to own everything Jobsian) is because they’re dying for a gadget that will do multiple things. Yes, they want a cell phone and iPod combo, but they also want something that can send and receive e-mail, watch videos, surf the Web, etc. They want all of these things in one device, and the iPhone will soon arrive to make this a reality.

This has ramifications for the book industry for two reasons: 1. It shows that consumers prefer integrated devices that can perform multiple functions, rather than separate devices that only do one thing; which helps explain why dedicated eBook devices — that only read books — have not yet taken off. 2. It shows that, after changing the face of music, Steve Jobs is now poised to change the world of cell phones. As The Times states, “This will not be Mr. Jobs’s first experience in redefining an industry.” Of course, whether or not Apple plans on taking on the world of books any time soon is anyone’s guess, but the recent activity, and new thinking, surrounding the iPhone shows that even the most entrenched business models have the capacity for change (which means that even publishing could one day similarly change).