Quote:
Originally Posted by taosaur
It doesn't have to be a dedicated ereader to fill that niche for casual readers and blow open the ebook market; more than half of people reading ebooks now are doing so on LCDs (PCs, laptops and phones), and with a little focus on improving that experience, the comfort gap with eInk can be closed considerably with existing technology. My matte LCD with convenient brightness controls is pretty comfortable as is.
The odds of a physical keyboard are slim to none--that's a peripheral, unnecessary for the majority of mobile tasks, particularly with good handwriting recognition.
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The point is, Apple are very unlikely to produce a premium, $700+ product and then promote it as an ebook. That would make it look very expensive, even for an Apple. They'd be much more likely to sell is as a media tablet, and focus on an iTunes-like store where you can buy films, tv and music. No one else does that yet, and it sounds impressive.
The people who might blow the market wide open in the way you're talking about would be Amazon. They could sell Kindle software for your laptop, or tablet PC - and it would benefit from the attention the Kindle has received. It's easy to imagine them doing that. Why would Apple want to be in a position where Amazon could 'undercut' them by just releasing some software? In fact, Amazon are already capturing that corner of the market by putting Kindle on the iPhone.
It still remains likely that Apple aren't about to release a cheap and very portable ebook device with extended battery life. That would expand the market. Putting ebook software on an expensive device will not change things that much - because, if you want it you can already get good reader software for free for your laptop, netbook and PC. It's already here and there just isn't that much interest because it's an expensive (for the hardware) and inconvenient way to read a book.