iPad Therefore I Am

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?

9 replies
  1. Ryanzo
    Ryanzo says:

    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

    Reply
    • Richard Cleaver
      Richard Cleaver says:

      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.

      Reply
  2. Ryanzo
    Ryanzo says:

    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

    Reply
    • Richard Cleaver
      Richard Cleaver says:

      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.

      Reply
    • Richard Cleaver
      Richard Cleaver says:

      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 🙂

      Reply

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