Kevin Meyers // Boston-based consultant. I recently obtained an MBA, and like to think about business, tech, sports, politics, media, the arts, my family, and all kinds of other interesting stuff.
I love the Colts. I love The Who. I became an atheist after last night. Thanks for listening.
--Dominic Eiser, Wichita, Kan.
Apple wants the iPad to be the best device for a few key use cases. For instance, the company believes it could eventually be seen as superior to both handheld and notebook devices for browsing the Internet, using the App Store, and consuming mobile media (video, photos, and e-books). Nevertheless, in other areas, notebooks, the iPhone, or an iPod may be more appropriate. This clear segmentation of capabilities suggests that cannibalization may be less of a concern than most currently believe.
Even if it isn't, it's pretty cute.
Verizon wireless card worth every penny (which, for me, is zero). Who needs an iPad?
So where does this lead e-books? As I said, they should definitely be cheaper than regular books. After all, their production cost is lower, since you don't need to produce a physical book. But that price difference should just consist of however much it costs to print, bind and ship the book. As I said, that's probably only a dollar or two per copy. The rest of the price, most of which likely accounts for the high up-front cost and investment required to find books that turn out to be big sellers, should remain intact.
While I would love for the price of my Kindle books to approach zero, I know that will never be the case. Still, there's a compelling argument here for them to be much cheaper than $14.99, which is where Apple wants to set it.
Reading Seth Godin's new book Linchpin on my Kindle, and I turned the page to find this little graph. Crystallizes what we're all shooting for, and what's important - insight, not grunt work. Have to keep pressing myself to move as far down this curve as possible. Linchpin is a terrific book, by the way. Highly recommended.
AT&T has stumbled into a quagmire. When it secured exclusive rights to support Apple's iPhone on its wireless network in June 2007, investors hailed the deal as a masterstroke. Here was stodgy, safe AT&T positioning itself to gulp profits from a cutting-edge technology. But AT&T and Apple vastly underestimated the iPhone's appeal. At launch, Real Steve Jobs said he'd be happy if the device could grab 1% of the global cell-phone market, or about 10 million units for 2008. Instead, Apple has sold at least 42.4 million—25.1 million in 2009 alone, 14% of the global smartphone market. AT&T, which markets the iPhone in the U.S., simply can't handle the traffic.
If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.
