When the Apple iPhone turned 10 years old this summer, a wave of favourable retrospectives hailed its enormous impact on mobile communications. Back in 2007, when Apple unveiled its first iPhone, BlackBerry and Nokia products were our handsets of choice and few of us had any idea that our phone could be smart or that we would by now rarely use our handsets to place a call and have a chat.
Later this month, the Kindle E-reader celebrates its own 10-year anniversary. One suspects November 19 wont be marked with quite so much fanfare as the iPhones June birthday, although the Amazon device was the subject of an appreciative column by Peter Nowak in our business pages earlier this week. In particular, Nowak praised the Kindle for its affordability.
Perhaps the Kindles greatest achievement was to bring the biggest bookshop in the world to the fingertips of its millions of users. Before its widespread uptake, one might have to wait weeks for a new hardback to be delivered to our homes and markets. The Kindle reduced that wait to seconds, even if Amazon has, in the process, radically remodelled the book-selling world and not always for the better. As Nowak mentioned in his column, the Kindle also inspired a generation of self-publishing authors, most notably E L James.
This power to break down the traditionally closed doors of the book publishing world has been matched by the Kindles ability to protect the copyright of the author or content creator. While the newspaper industry, record companies, filmmakers and TV producers have watched the digital revolution chip away at their revenue streams and forced them all into a protracted period of reinvention, the book business has sailed through the age of piracy with comparative ease. The Kindle established, fairly quickly, that customers were willing to pay to legally enjoy a new work of fiction or biography. Although the Kindle sparked a quieter revolution than the iPhone, arguably it has been just as significant in its impact.
Follow this link to join our WhatsApp group: Join Now
Be Part of Quality Journalism |
Quality journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce and despite all the hardships we still do it. Our reporters and editors are working overtime in Kashmir and beyond to cover what you care about, break big stories, and expose injustices that can change lives. Today more people are reading Kashmir Observer than ever, but only a handful are paying while advertising revenues are falling fast. |
| ACT NOW |
| MONTHLY | Rs 100 |  |
| YEARLY | Rs 1000 | |
| LIFETIME | Rs 10000 | |
