Steve Jobs Makes Cover of Economist (With Jesus Tablet and Halo)

The formidable Economist magazine has blessed Steve Jobs with a rare cover story examining the potential impact of the Jesus tablet.

Even rarer, the iPad story is mostly positive, even if the religious imagery is over the top.

The Economist fancies Jobs’ chances of shaking up not just one industry, but three — especially media:

Jobs’s record suggests that when he blesses a market, it takes off. And tablet computing promises to transform not just one industry, but three—computing, telecoms and media.

Companies in the first two businesses view the iPad’s arrival with trepidation, for Apple’s history makes it a fearsome competitor. The media industry, by contrast, welcomes it wholeheartedly. Piracy, free content and the dispersal of advertising around the web have made the internet a difficult environment for media companies. They are not much keener on the Kindle, an e-reader made by Amazon, which has driven down book prices and cannot carry advertising. They hope this new device will give them a new lease of life, by encouraging people to read digital versions of books, newspapers and magazines while on the move. True, there are worries that Apple could end up wielding a lot of power in these new markets, as it already does in digital music. But a new market opened up and dominated by Apple is better than a shrinking market, or no market at all.

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Read more: Tablet computing — The book of Jobs.

Via 9to5Mac. Thanks Seth.

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