Quote:
Originally Posted by cmdahler
It's only Amazon vs. Sony today. Tomorrow is another matter. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is simply going to destroy them even though the tablet will be LCD-based. I'm sad about that, because I prefer reading on e-ink vs. LCD by far, as does anyone who frequents this board, but the commercial fact of the matter is that Apple will completely dominate this market within just a couple of years, just like they wiped out all competition on the audio market. It's simply a matter of a short time. E-ink based devices will be super-tiny-niche based products that will appease the small user base that are e-ink fanatics, but Apple will simply wipe out everything else. And why? Paradoxically, precisely because it's LCD-based. Given the choice between a black and white device that requires additional lighting to read and screen response times that are so low as to make anything but simple text unavailable, and a device that is full-color, fast-response movie-capable refresh rate, can do anything under the sun including e-read books, and the vast, vast majority of people will head straight for that device every time. E-ink isn't dead - but Apple's tablet will ensure that it remains a niche product that very few people (relatively speaking) use to read books. It will completely revolutionize e-reading for the masses simply because it will draw in the masses in a way that even Amazon cannot hope to ever accomplish with the Kindle. I do find that disappointing, but unfortunately that is the way of commercialization, and my prediction is that the Apple tablet will effectively end any serious further development into e-ink based tech.
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I find Apple extremely interesting. Steve Jobs certainly is a visionary genius.
But
to me, Apple is not the 800 pound gorilla. It's more of a 50 pound chimp with the roar of an entire jungle.
Their marketing definitely is brillant.
They really understand, to explode minor marketshare to market domination in the customer's perception.
Perfect example: iPhone. As a business phone it's a joke - a very bad one. Even NYT defined it as the worst phone ever. Their market share and profit margins surely are acceptable, but that's pretty much it.
Their sole advantage is iTunes. And that's certainly a cashcow. But still: Their product is mediocre and their market share absolutely tiny. I read on iPhone as well when on the train or waiting inline.
But I could do this on my UMPC in the same quality, if this would be my instrument of daily usage.
Let's just check some details:
Boot time of iPhone is what? 50 seconds or something like that? Lots of members claimed, iRex iLiad wouldn't be acceptable because of lack of standby.
So users wouldn't leave their iSlate (or whatever it may be called) off, but in standby.
Battery duration of iPhone is what? To me, it seams like 3 hours. I can watch my battery getting drained.....
So we'd need 2 battery modes: Multimedia and reading. Doesn't seem to be that easy, else they'd have implemented something like that into iPhone already.
Basically, it comes down to two simple questions:
- multifunctional device (movies, music, surfing, reading) or dedicated eBook reader. Probably this mainly will be about costs. Lots of members state, they have a budget of $ 200 to $ 250 reserved for their reader. If the iSlate is $ 600 or even more, it won't compete to that market, but to the netbooks.
- How much and which content will Apple be able to deliver? Amazon as the main distributer for "almost everything" should have an advantage here. I don't know how licensing for books works. But I guess, Amazon will combine their wholesales (paperbooks + eBooks) and should have a cost advantage over Apple.
To me, the iSlate makes sense to strengthen Apple's plattform to compete with netbooks and convertibles. eBook reading will be a nice add-on. But its main purpose will be multimedia ("bigger iPod touch") and mobile computing.
BTW: I'll most likely end up buying it. But I'll probably take 2 units with me then: One of my readers for ...exactly... for reading. And the iSlate for watching movies, surfing the web, checking my Excel-Sheets, maybe even replacing my UMPC.
But my next purchase still will be Que I guess.