Steve Jobs of Apple, launching his skinny laptop this week, took a swipe at developments being made by other companies, including Amazon’s electronic reading device, the Kindle.
  “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is. The fact is that people don’t read any more,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “Forty per cent of the people in the US read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read any more.” Maybe not in the US, but they still do in Spain, where, on El País’s website, an illustration of the Kindle is the most looked-at item in the graphics section after a map showing where the lottery prizes have been won. The text says that it is far easier to read a Kindle screen than it is to read a computer screen – and the computer chosen for illustration looks remarkably like an earlier-generation Mac desktop.
Although I’m a big fan of Apple’s hardware and software, I’m astounded at how easy a ride Jobs is given by journalists. The New York Times quotes him as saying of his new laptop: “I’m going to be the first one in line to buy one of these.” Buy? As in “acquire by paying or promising to pay a sum of money”? Come on!