“Lovers of print are simply confusing the plate for the food.”
― Douglas Adams
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Device makers are simply confusing the plate for the food.
Come Halloween, you lose the option to download the necessary app or buy additional comics from SONY’s digital comics store. The PSP was an early adopter of digital comics and the Playstation portal a network of consumers that held a lot of potential but like it’s own ebook reader SONY has squandered its pioneering foothold into digital content failing to create an environment capable of competing with a basic app like Comixology or a an ecommerce store like Amazon or Barnes & Noble (let alone Kobo). Apple, another device maker, has had similar problems with it’s iBookstore.
Why? To paraphrase the Douglas Adams quote in the upper left of this page - Device makers are simply confusing the plate for the food. One need only look to Apples Map program they foolishly thought would satisfy the millions of us who quietly use Google Maps everyday. We do so not because it is flashy or cutting edge or trendy or fashionable but because it works, it’s easy, it’s fast and it is right. Apple and SONY have failed because they have committed the sin of hubris assuming that they themselves are what we want. They were just the tools we chose to access what we want. SONY never devoted the resources to develop the non game related portal content or spend the money to compete as an ebook store. Apple has repeatedly chosen to put barriers between the user and the content they want - the web - by forbidding in app purchases creating unneeded hurdles to the content sources we want.
Apple and SONY are like Ford and GM. I drive a Ford, I like the style and performance but I really just want an attractive and comfortable way to get from point A to point B. Force me to buy only Ford branded gas and give me less stations and less mileage per gallon and I will buy another car.
