One of the early slides from Jobs’ keynote today:
I am sure that there are many companies that would love the kind of publicity that surrounded the product launch of the iPad. I won’t summarize the many pundits who predicted the attributes of the new tablet, or what they will now say is good or bad about the product.
But it does show a company at the top of its game. Still able to innovate. Still able to garner unprecedented excitement.
A few things surprised me about today’s announcement. The name. It is a bit lame. The price. It is lower than I would have expected. And the Apple iBooks application and iBookstore will support the ePub format.
Will people line up for this product? Will it be a Kindle killer? Will I buy one?
do you know how much the books are going sell for on ibook store? and is the ibook selection going as large as the one for the kindle? thanks
The Wall Street Journal reported that ebooks, or ibooks, will range somewhere between 12 and 15 dollars. Once the iBookstore is up and running, we’ll find out for sure.
Publishers want to sell product and it looks like Apple will be a strong pipeline for ebooks so I would expect a good selection over time. And, because the iPad supports ePub, you will be able to use ebooks from other sources as well.
Thanks
another question though. Im sort of confused on the release date in Canada and do you know anything on when the 3g will be supported in Canada? Thanks again
The Canadian Apple site has the iPad page up now which you can find here.
You can join the “Notify Me” email list from that page. Shipping date is March for the Wi-Fi models in both Canada and the United States. I have not heard a firm ship for 3G models in Canada although the website implies that it will go out in April. We’ll see.
For a DRM-free experience MSI is launching one based on Android
http://www.itworld.com/personal-tech/94697/msi-ready-launch-ipad-alternative
Still 6-8 months from launch.
Hmmm. MSI is a motherboard company with zero consumer awareness from a brand perspective so good luck to them on an ipad alternative.
In terms of a DRM-free experience, you can easily run any of the major open formats on the iPad including mp3, ePub, etc and you can source content from other sources.
I am looking forward to giving an iPad a spin. It looks like a really cool device
Colbert wondered last night if the “tamPod” name was already taken! The media awareness is definately there for iPad.
All joking aside I agree it does look very cool. The IBM Touchpads from a few years ago didn’t exactly set the IT world on fire – so I am curious if there is a market for tablets. The form-factor / size is a concern – what protects the screen? How portable are they? We will see.
Microsoft’s Tech Republic’s predicable response
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=1324&tag=nl.e101
But these are the same reasons I am not sure it will gain wide spread acceptance.
Yup. For a bit of a reality check you might want to check on the comments issued by the Borg when the iPhone was first announced.
That was also a device that no one would buy