“After you’ve read your twelfth ebook, you don’t need the candy anymore. Ideally, the candy isn’t so distracting that you hate it, and what was once cute (swiping to flip the page!) turns into sheer utility (tapping to turn the page, which I have to believe will also be possible in iBooks.)
But that flip matters because it gets you going. And it gets going everyone who sees you reading your twelfth book in iBooks. How will you demo it to them? Will you tap or will you slowly turn the page? If your booklist was also available as a boring (and useful) black-and-white table, would that be the screen you’d show your friends?”
No, definitely. And just as they did with the iPhone, they need to push the simplicity effect, make it clear that there’s one and only one way to browse and view books - and that way is beautiful. They could have used awkward thumbnails for Contacts.app on the iPhone, but they didn’t. And like it or not, consistency and simplicity are what made the iPhone stand out.