Steve has publicly dissed the Kindle for being a dedicated reader, a sort of 1-Trick Pony… I came up with a tag line that I wish we’d see… “The Apple Table. The 100,000-Trick Pony.”

I think Apple will certainly play up the video playback which they’ll make sure looks stunning. But in the end of the day, they’ll question anyone weighing the option of something else by Amazon or Sony or Fusion Garage with “Why buy that when you can get ours? It does EVERYTHING.”

As far as publishing, I think there’s a humongous market there. Content is everything. People actually like buying premium, but they want to make damn sure they’re getting more for their money. Blu-ray for instance. I used to balk on Blu-ray. Took expensive and I couldn’t rip (Hand Brake) a movie for my digital players. Nowadays, the trend is to (A) drop the price a bit and (B) Off the Blu-ray movie disc; the Blu-ray supplemental disc; a regular DVD movie disc and a disc with a digital copy for iPods, etc. Wow! 4 discs — so much more freedom. Play the hi-rez version on the Home system… take the DVD version in the car player for trips and copy the digital copy to your favorite portable device. Truly a WIN-WIN.

This is what the publishing companies must understand. Their digital versions much include special content and the ability to access other data as well that’s linked to the web. Why is wikipedia so poplular? Because everything is connected. The magazines could do this too. And should. Pinch and zoom photos. Lots more photos than the magazine on the rack. Swimsuit issues that come to life. Newspapers will also gain so much from this with people getting subscriptions to cities that normally couldn’t be delivered so far. Perhaps someone has moved from a city that they loved and want to feel connected by getting the paper even though they had to move far away. People will do this type of stuff and the money will add up fast.

Lastly, this is a must for publishing because I’m sick of throwing away great magazines that I really didn’t read all the way simply because the next issue comes in. Weekly magazines — I have two — and there’s lots of stuff to read and finally when the stack near the commode is about a foot tall, you have to throw stuff out! Hate it. A reader solves this. Back up all your issues and throw nothing away. The ability to do a search and have the reader bring back all the relevant stories and even the option of buying a back issue if you needed to — brings old content back to life. Many publications (perhaps Playboy and the lack) will have NO TROUBLE in having an audience that would want every back issue ever. Billions will be made over the years in people buying what was once thought of as long and gone. Think of how TV shows now can be bought — every single episode in a nice box. Seinfeld was on for 9 or 10 years and I own every episode … the same can be for any magazine that has the content that holds up. EW-type stuff, I don’t think will have that type of staying power, but a cult-type magazine will MAD most certainly will.

Can’t wait!

http://gawker.com/5389636/bill-keller-apple-tablet-impending

Here’s the iPad’s OR ….

It is said there’s a void between laptops & iPods.
That is false.
There are netbooks.

Look around you.
How many Kindle 2s do you see?
OK — now how many iPods do you see?
No one will carry around a tablet-size device, no matter *how* cool it is.

An Apple $3/400 9/10-inch laptop.
Now *that’d* rock!
And the statement: “Apple can’t make good sub-$500 computers.”, on it’s face, makes zero sense.

“Media Lounging”, if you will, is done with the iTouch.
There will be no iPad.

“My First Mac”, anyone?

I also agree that everyone below a certain age doesn’t care about looking at a backlit LCD all day.