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.
