No one has used the "Kindle" word here. Amazon is quickly cornering the eBook market. They are the iTunes of eBooks. What they have, that Apple or any other competition does not, is 230,000 books (at the time of this writing) in Kindle format. And that number grows every day. With its super clear electronic ink screen, it is superior to color for reading black and white print, which covers 99.9% of all novels and literature.

But not magazines. Magazines are in color.

What if Amazon did a deal with Apple, allowing the more expensive multipurpose Apple tablet to purchase and read eBooks in Kindle format via Amazon?

Amazon would sell more books (which is where the money is) and grow a user base, cinching book format war in their favor. Apple would get the market for people who wanted more than a book reader. A higher market strata where Amazon doesn't have experience. They'd get a piece of the pie.

Pilot has lost to smart phones. Smart phones are today's PDA's. This tablet can't go head on with a PDA. It would have to do well what the iPhone can't. It could be used to download and read books, and employ handwriting recognition (Newton was great at this) to write. To fully write, not henpeck short texts. And of course, it would have WiFi widgets.

Yes, this tablet would have to have a pen.

I don't think it will be a game pad, because bubble gum chewing gamers want something easy to carry that they can put in their pocket and listen to iTunes with. iPod Touch already does that.

While Kindle sales are promising, and any reasonable person has to believe ultimately a book reader like Kindle is the way we will carry and read most of our books, it doesn't have nearly the appeal of an iPod.

The iPod game crowd, the young techno geeks, don't read a lot of books.

Music was a low hanging fruit.

This is going to be a different user base. A more conservative and slower moving user base, with different wants and needs.

So our market expectations have to be realistic. eBook readers have been around for a decade. This is a surprisingly slow growing market. Surprising, because eBooks are inevitable.

This a strategic move in a war the general public does not yet know about. Its about cornering future formats and O/S for tablets. Amazon has already won the war on book format. Apple missed that, and they know it.

The time for Apple to move back to a tablet has probably come. It will be more expensive than a Kindle, and will compete for a different market strata. The two technologies will complement each other.

This time Apple will not put all their eggs in one basket. They've learned a painful lesson from the Newton. But because of the Newton, they will hit the ground miles ahead of anyone else.

However, I am a regular user of a Windows Tablet PC at work, and it is an innovative and exceptional form factor for a Windows PC! There is, at present, no Apple substitute.

With a Tablet PC, I can walk into a meeting, take notes unobtrusively that are instantly searchable, and have a full XP laptop at my command without "raising the shields" by opening a laptop and putting a barrier between me and everyone else at the meeting. I cannot understand why Microsoft has not exploited this asset.

When I need to revert to paper (and my *fountain pen*), I do use a 9 x 5 paper tablet. If, instead, I had an iPod or Mac of similar size that took stylus handwriting input, I'd use a Mac at my desk and carry the bigger iPod. Here's hoping for a tablet Mac, or a stylus-supporting larger iPod…

Needs all iPhone technology + Airbook FLASH & formfactor (minus keepboard) + OLED display + Windows Tablet PC inputs (drawing, writing, handwriting OCR)

Then came real small devices – personal data assistants (pda's) and cell phones where features such as texting, email, mobile web browsing, and now even regular web browsing (iPhone & iTouch) have been added and accepted by consumers as desirable – despite the small screen size. I think the convenience of accessing these services on a device that can be carried on-the-go in your pocket has outweighed the inconvenience of the small screen and user input. And the newer devices are maximizing the screen size by using either touch screens or pull-out keyboards. Granted you still would want a laptop for applications needing more screen real estate and lots of user input.

Case-in-point, my wife desired a laptop and I ended up getting her an iTouch for xmas — and now she says she doesn't need a laptop as the iTouch does most of the things she desired in the laptop (checking email, weather, and such anywhere in the house or on the go) without the less convenient, bigger laptop.

So the question now has changed to, is the tablet too big? Well, I certainly know people who carry around their laptop at home from room to room (for just low user-input web-based tasks) and there certainly has been lots of talk of netbooks selling well, so maybe the time for the tablet is here – consumers now see the usefulness of this sized & ability of device – more real estate than a pocket sized device, less powerful than a laptop, but still does the most desirable tasks, can't quite fit in your pocket, but still easier than carrying around than a laptop.

My only question is the application of the touchscreen for user input on a larger screen — henpecking would still be required on a larger keyboard since you can't rest your fingers on the virtual keyboard (screen). Though, henpecking on the touch keyboard on the iTouch I found was quite easy & fast to use in the 3 minutes I was able to pry it away from my wife!

http://tinycomb.com/2008/12/29/iphone-pro-photos/

But PLEASE give us a real OSX and not the lame iPhone OS.

Also give us PEN INPUT and a BLUETOOTH KEYBOARD.

Do that and I will buy a couple of them!!