Jim Lynch over at Extremetech has an interesting article where he discusses the idea that Apple is going to do some kind of eText reader. This idea is dear to my heart and I must admit that I was crestfallen when Mr. Jobs stated at MacWorld, "No one reads anymore." But as Mr. Lynch points out, His Steveness has often downplayed things that are in the works. Most notably the iPhone. So I continue to hope. I still feel that if one company can pull of a really good eText reader device it would be Apple. The thing that has built the iPod is the software, hardware and interface all work so well and the reading device that will make people put down books will need this same magic. The other leg up that Cupertino has is the entrée they have in the educational marketplace.

I say this because I believe that any successful eText reader will have to make itself in the college classroom. First, who buys hundreds of dollars of books twice a year? College students. Who has to carry 20-30 lbs of books around all day from class to class? Right. Who would pay to have one small device that could hold all that and weigh in at 3-4 lbs? You guessed it. The problem in the past with Rocket and Sony was they were black and white so they could not portray pictures, graphs and charts in color that most books use today. Also, screen size was fine if compared to pulp novels but insufficient for textbooks. All this is changing now. Apple has the hardware in the iPod Touch and there are new bigger touch screens coming out; flash memory costs a fraction of what it did even 2 years ago; the iTunes store can easily accomodate book files.

So, while I don't think we will see an iBook this year, we could see one next year coming out in time for the 2009-10 school year. Having made that prediction, if anyone else wants to tackle the market they need to come to an agreement with Amazon and Google who control an awful lot digital content and distribution; they need a color screen with at least 8 x 5 inch dimensions; a touch interface and a price of $350-$400. Let's see what happens.