That said, I expect to see a wide variety of readers available for books purchased from different places in different file formats.

I appreciate your comments. There is a large market of readers like you. On the other end of the spectrum there is also a market for readers like myself. I have been reading eBooks for years. Like you, my concern is not price. My frustration is about being able to get the book I want to read in eBook format.

Now is certainly the time for publishers to establish flexibility in pricing. This will give people like yourself a fair price compared to print and will hopefully allow publishers to create eBooks profitably so that I can get the books I want to read.

David

Your comment though, made me think of the Nintendo Wii, which is an apt comparison for the iPad. It’s a less technical version of an already existing product that seems to have pulled in a much wider audience.

It struck me while reading this post that there is a whole other market of readers no one is talking about – ME! Someone that isn’t a Kindle/SONY/Nook etc purchaser and never will be because I don’t read eBooks (although I read everything but books on line and on my iPhone).

My point – the iPad will get me started on eBooks and I won’t be used to paying 9.99 I’ll be used to paying for a physical book. I won’t care in many cases if my ebook is $14.99. I’ll just care that I got it for the best price I could.

All of us that won’t buy a single purpose device and, perhaps as a result, haven’t really gotten into ebooks may well give them a try on the iPad.

Ann

I agree that the free “ebook reader app” – with actual ebooks purchased elsewhere – is likely to be a common strategy so as to avoid the 30% Apple commission.

It will indeed be interesting to see how Apple approaches the textbook market. As you point out, they clearly understand the education market better than other device makers. With their color images, quizzes, worksheets, and references, textbooks really need a multi-function tablet such as the iPad. The Kindle just does not do them justice.

That being said, I don’t think that the iPad will be able to replace the laptop in the backpacks of students. While it may be a great device for reading, videos, and Web browsing, I don’t see it being so popular for writing term papers. Will students be willing to pay for a secondary device such as the iPad? Alternately, might there be another business model whereby tablets are bundled with textbook purchases and appear to be free to the student?

First, it is possible to use an iPod without using iTunes. Details here, here, here, and here. Though given this recent example, it’s unlikely that any of these are feasible options for most computer users, so in essence, your point is accurate, using an iPod means using iTunes.

It’s interesting to note that the iPad won’t come with the iBooks app, it must be separately downloaded.

Using options 2 and 3 (build your own or use someone else’s app and then sell content through that)–you will get around Apple’s price restrictions, but you are still beholden to Apple’s rules and to giving them the same 30% cut of revenue.

I’m willing to bet that we’re going to see an additional model, one that combines several of the ones you mentioned. Build your own free app for reading the books, but only sell the actual books through your own website. This is how Amazon’s Kindle app currently works. You have to go to the Amazon website through a web browser to buy a book, you can’t buy anything through the Kindle app. But once bought, you can access your purchases through the specialized app. This adds a clunky step into the process, but lets resellers avoid giving Apple any share of revenue from book sales.

I’m also convinced that we’ll see a separate set of terms coming from Apple regarding the textbook market. Apple seems very keen to use the iPad as an entry to this market, and to push it more into the electronic realm. Apple has always had a strong presence in education. Given that the textbook market has a different pricing structure than the popular books market, I think Apple will have a different, more flexible set of terms for this valuable market. Wooing the textbook publishers is important if Apple wants to put an iPad in every student’s backpack.