I wonder about the claims about the iPad. It does look very cool and all, but if it runs off of a back lit screen, it’s not going to kill my Kindle, that’s for sure. One of the reasons for the Kindle being so popular is that you read it using reflected ambient light, like a book, so it doesn’t tire your eyes like looking at a computer screen (or a light bulb) does. If the iPad uses a back lit screen, it may be wonderful, but I’ll hold on to my Kindle.
See “Apple iPad Raises the Stakes for E-Readers,” by Priya Ganapati
Re Kindle, you might enjoy this:
http://www.hillsdale-econ.com/content/capitalism-great
(I suspect the title is stolen from one of your posts from some time back.)
I wonder too about the AT&T 3G version – will it require an additional two-year contract with AT&T like the iPhone or is the connectivity bundled into the price like it is with Sprint and the Kindle?
Maybe I’m just extraordinary lucky to be blessed with superhuman eyes, but I don’t get the backlit/eyestrain thing. I read hundreds of pages worth of books each week in the Kindle app for my iPod Touch without any difficulty whatsoever. Which means the iPad looks like an awesome step up from Amazon’s hardware to me.
I read on a comp gaming news site, that many influential Game Industry execs think the iPad will be huge, bridging the gap between handhelds like psp’s and laptops. Im guessing the iPad needs a “killer app” to bowl many of us over.