So now that we have the "iPad", here's where I think it's going:
The iPad will be a Kindle killer. Not a PC killer, not a smartphone killer — it'll be to the digital reading market what the iPod was to music.
Here's why they can pull it off. See, Apple doesn't sell "lifestyle electronics". What they sell, better than almost anyone else, is walled gardens. Ecosystems. The Mac, the iPod, the iPhone — they're self-contained environments, and that's precisely the appeal. They're the digital versions of the VIP lounges that frequent fliers get at airports with their platinum pass.
You could argue all day whether or not in the abstract it's worth paying all that money for such things. Out of the abstract, though, people are paying all that money for those things; Apple didn't post kickin' profits last year by jiggering their stocks.
I'm betting before the month is out (hell, possibly even by the time I post this) we'll start hearing about a new wing being added to the iTunes store, one for digital reading material. It'll be what the Kindle offers, with the advantage of being material that can be moved through the Apple ecosystem — iPad to iPhone to Mac and back again.
And yeah, it'll have DRM that will most likely be broken before the year is out, but I don't see Steve Jobs sweating over that. There are far more people fighting tooth and nail to get into Apple's arcology than there are people who want to break out of it.
ADDENDUM: A dissenting opinion. Some points here are quite valid; the main thing I wonder about is whether or not reading is going to be folded into "casual surfing". (Probably not yet.) But I can think of plenty of people who'd sooner buy one of these than pick up a Kindle simply because it provides them access to a different set of content.
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Hm - I'm not quite sure. Part of why I love my Kindle is the e-ink; as flashy and fancy as the iPad is, I'm not sure if the LCD/LED (I've heard both, not sure which is right) will be nearly as easy to read. I hate reading long things on my computer, and it's not because of being tied to it -- the monitor's better, I find, for reading shorter things and breaking stuff up.
That said -- while I don't exactly have 500 bucks burning a hole in my pocket, come March or April, I'll probably wander down to the Apple Store to take a look at it. I am curious.
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Most of why I thought it might spell trouble for the Kindle is because there are a lot more Apple fans than there are Amazon fans, and they have that much more money for something like this. What I'm actually curious about is how many people with no particular platform loyalty decide this is a worthwhile thing -- who already have a PC, for instance, but like this as an adjunct.
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I can see that -- and the iPad does look cool. (It's also, IIRC, bigger than the normal Kindle, maybe not the DX.) I think the guy in the "addendum" link has a good point, though, about them being different devices -- hardcore reader types are going to go with Kindle and the other e-ink devices, while I see the iPad going a little bit more as a more-flexible netbook that you can also read books on. Like, I think the book thing is more an App than a Reason To Get One. If that makes sense.
Of course, I could change my tune completely when I actually get to see one and touch one and hold it and call it George.
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