Apple Turns the iPhone into a Keyboardless NetBook with the iPad

I Just finished watching the Apple announcement online via live.twit.tv (Over 114,000 viewers!). The biggest piece of information is probably the price point. It is much lower at $499 that I thought it would be. Additionally the $14.99 250mb/month and the $29.99 unlimited price points for data plans with AT&T are lower than I expected as well.

I think all of the so called "ebook" readers out there (Kindle etc...) are in serious trouble. The fact that the iBook store exists is huge. I'm not a big fan of Apple's closed attitude towards their hardware and software, but having the iTunes/iPhone/iBook eco system is very user friendly. Its something that perhaps only Google, at this point, could ever compete with. Certainly Microsoft doesn't have anything close to this as far as content and ease of use.

As an Ubuntu user, I enjoy the easy to use repository of free applications that are available to me without any hassle. iPhone and now iPad users enjoy a similar easy of use to get to applications (those poor Apple fans have to actually pay for a ton of their apps though!). What does Microsoft have? Nothing. They have a huge number of apps, but they are horribly smushed across the Internet in an unrelated uncaring mishmosh. With no useful easy to use eco-system. Microsoft just doesn't have a chance.

Amazon's Kindle is $259 and doesn't even touch the functionality of this device. There is virtually no point in buying an eBook reader, when you can spend less than $150 more than a Kindle and get far more content and power. I personally won't purchase one as I already have a Mac Book Pro.

The biggest disappointment about this device is that it just doesn't seem to really be meant as a communication platform. I'm really surprised that there is not at least one camera on the device. That alone would have kept me from purchasing it. It also gives a lot of netbooks a big advantage over the iPad.

So if I had to purchase anything in the "mid-sized" device realm right now, it would still be a $300-$400 netbook with a built in camera running Ubuntu. Apple's amazing hardware and OS just isn't enough to get me over their death grip on content, applications, and user freedom.

That being said, the iPad will be huge. eBook only devices are dead, and netbooks have some serious competition. I think Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) and/or Google would be smart to start putting together a consortium of content for netbooks and mid-range devices. Unfortunately, for most people, freedom is not enough to overcome ease of use and coolness. Ubuntu on netbooks will always have a draw for those that do value freedom on their device, but that is sadly a very small group.

I guess the bottom line is that content is king. Apple gets that. They have the content. Its going to be huge.