Apple's Jobs rips Kindle, again

Steve Jobs has never been shy about dissing the Kindle, famously remarking last year that Amazon's electronic reader would fail because "people don't read anymore." Now the Apple CEO is at it again, questioning whether people will pay for a "dedicated device" like an electronic reader and suggesting that Amazon is hiding Kindle sales figures for a reason.

New York Times' technology columnist David Pogue interviewed Jobs at Apple's big music-themed event today. He asked Jobs if his opinion on e-readers had changed. Jobs responded:

I’m sure there will always be dedicated devices, and they may have a few advantages in doing just one thing. But I think the general-purpose devices will win the day because I think people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device. You notice Amazon never says how much they sell; usually if they sell a lot of something, you want to tell everybody.

We don’t see that it’s a really big market at this point.

Apple, of course, is rumored to be developing a tablet-like device with e-reader capability, though presumably it will have other uses as well.

Care to respond, Jeff Bezos?

Follow my updates on Twitter.

About Eric Engleman

ERIC ENGLEMAN is senior technology staff writer for TechFlash and the Puget Sound Business Journal, covering online retail giant Amazon.com. Engleman tracks Amazon's increasingly complex business, spanning ecommerce, Kindle, cloud computing, and more. He's been covering technology and other industries for the Business Journal since 2003.

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