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.

That’s the expert opinion (and very sad conclusion) of Steve Jobs on the Amazon Kindle and its chances of success.  You can’t knock Jobs’ ability to have his finger on the pulse of the consumer electronics market quite a lot of the time, but let’s hope he’s wrong about this one.  Or at least wrong about reading being such a dead pastime – that is just very, very sad to think about.  My daughter is not yet 5, but she has always loved books and everything about them – touching them, leafing through pages,  being read to and now reading to herself as she falls asleep – and I SO much hope she always will.

Apple Insider has a good post up with Jobs’ views on this subject, more on the MacBook Air, as well as some fairly choice words (threatening ones even?) with regard to Google’s new Android mobile platform.  Well worth a read – if any of you all still do that sort of thing:

Apple Insider – Steve Jobs Talks … piece