Several years ago, employees showed Steve Jobs a multi-touch tablet running a modified version of OS X. According to the story, he asked "What would people do with this?" When the question couldn't be answered, they put it in the backburner.
The success of both the iPhone and the iPod Touch as software ecosystems, however, showed the market's interest in a closed device with extensive developer support. Given the buzz for anything Apple-related and the App Store surpassing expectations, it's not too far-fetched to imagine the iPad, Apple's upcoming closed-system tablet, receiving the same level of extensibility through third-party efforts.
One of the areas the company specifically targeted are eBooks, working closely with major book and magazine publishers to deliver content on the platform. Surprisingly, they're expecting users to read their books on a multi-touch, led-backlit display, instead of the E-ink platform that other ebook readers have embraced before it. Even more surprisingly, people seem to be amenable to the idea, given the mostly positive response during the reading app's demo.
In the current landscape, dipping your toes in ebooks means going up against Amazon's Kindle, widely believed to own between 80 and 90 percent of the existing market. Funny enough, just the sheer announcement of the iPad is already affecting them adversely, with publishers using it to pressure Amazon into giving in to their pricing demands.
To go along with the tablet, Apple announced an iTunes-like service for selling ebooks called iBooks. They will be selling them in the popular ePub format, although it isn't likely to be the variety that can work on other devices like the Sony Reader and Nook, since the company is expected to lace it with their own copy-protection scheme.
As of now, the jury is still out on whether the iPad can really become a capable ebook reader. One thing's for sure, though - everyone's taking it as a serious threat.
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