Others, including Mr. Scoble, Mr. Carr, and Mr. Flores also weighed in on the original article. Although I liked this last article the most out of the three, I had two issues with it. 1) The price still has to be low enough. Even adding magazine/newspaper/textbook subscriptions, media center remote control, and more pleasant web surfing doesn’t make me want to splash out more than $400 for such a device. Even that seems high. However, if Mr. Scoble is right, then all I have to do is wait to hit the price point I want. 2) I love the idea of textbooks, but textbook publishers as a group are generally stupid. I don’t think they will be much more enlightened than the RIAA, MPAA, Author’s Guild, or game publishers. They will love the idea of charging the same amount for an electronic textbook that expires after one semester as they do for the physical copy. They will even have all kinds of justifications of how this is better for the consumer and why they still need to charge the same amount. The especially dull in the group will even argue that they should charge more. In the end, they will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a new business model invented by someone else, like iTunes, Netflix, Steam just like the other groups before them. Hopefully, the business cycles have shortened and someone “disrupts” them faster. Although they aren’t perfect, I like the way that Manning Publications Co. has enabled electronic copies. Maybe they would consider branching out into the general textbook publishing world if something like the “iSlab” gave them an opening. I guess one can hope.

Although I don’t have a Kindle reader, I do have the software loaded on my iPhone and PC. I’m not sure I care for the horizontal page flipping as opposed to vertical scrolling, but maybe it will grow on me. The one advantage I see right now to flipping is that it is easier to figure out where you left off after setting the device down. However, the visual bookmarking on the iPhone works well enough for this that I’m not sure flipping is really a benefit over scrolling. Nevertheless, I definitely enjoy reading books on my iPhone and expect to continue to do so. The fact that Amazon sold more digital than physical books this last Christmas makes me think I am in the rapidly approaching majority, at least for serious readers.

What does this have to do with the tablet? I think Gruber is right that Apple may have planned uses for the tablet that we on the outside haven’t fully grasped yet. It won’t just be a bathroom e-reader and browser. Apple will have some other compelling use case, or combination of use cases. However, I cannot imagine that any use case will preclude the tablet’s use as a reader and browser. In addition, you have to think that a 7 to 10 inch screen would in fact be large enough for decent home automation software. I personally would stick to the lower dollar amounts ($300-500) expected of a e-reader or fancy webpad. I think the home control enthusiasts would be getting a steal at the higher end ($800-1000) considering the quality that is likely to go into a gadget released by Apple and the cost of existing products if the tablet could replace them. In the end, I wouldn’t pay more than the low end unless, Gruber is right and the released product has a good chance of replacing my old PowerPC based Macbook (which is still running strong). The truth is, I currently don’t see a tablet as a compelling laptop replacement. However, I wouldn’t put it past Apple to surprise me like that. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

1) Unix is an IDE
2) Python and vim: Make your own IDE
3) VIM as Python IDE