Apple Partners, Rivals Weigh In On The iPad

the company's unveiling of the iPad

Nevertheless, Apple watchers, competitors and reseller partners did learn some surprising things when the Cupertino, Calif.-based company finally lifted the curtain on one of the most highly anticipated products in its storied history. Apple will begin shipping iPads in 60 days.

For Michael Oh, president of Boston-based Apple reseller Tech Superpowers, the biggest surprise was the iPad's price -- namely, a dollar figure that turned out to be significantly lower than most had anticipated. The entry-level iPad with 16GB of storage will cost $499, putting it in the price range of e-readers and netbooks, two product categories that some see the iPad contending with, though Apple certainly would beg to differ on netbooks.

Even the high-end 64GB iPad with both Wi-Fi and 3G was priced at $829 -- not cheap, but well below the $1,000 many were predicting Apple would be charging for its newest toy.

"The price is incredibly low. Part of the key to that is that Apple has made their own silicon, and not only processor, but probably the other chips as well," Oh said. He added that the iPad's pricing and capabilities "kills the market for the Kindle DX" and will challenge Amazon, maker of that e-reader.

"Amazon is now on the defensive," said Oh, who is also a co-founder of Codex Development, a London-based developer of mobile applications for Apple operating systems.

Unsurprisingly, the maker of displays for the Kindle and other prominent e-readers disagrees. In an interview with Forbes, E-Ink CEO Russ Wilcox called Apple's iPad a "great entertainment device" but "not the world's best reading device.

"E-readers will outsell iPads because of the simple economics of the consumer device market," Wilcox told Forbes. E-Ink makes displays for the Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble's Nook in addition to the Kindle.

A Sony executive seemed more hospitable to the iPad.

"The introduction of another mobile device, which includes digital reading as part of its functionality, is a good thing for the digital book business," said Steve Haber, president of Sony's Digital Reading Division.

In a statement sent to Channelweb.com, Haber said Sony expected digital book sales to "surpass print sales within five years, if not sooner."

And what about the netbook comparisons? With its full-capacitive, multi-touch screen, iPhone-like user interface and, in some models at least, 3G-driven connectivity, the iPad either beats netbooks hands-down in certain areas or else offers users something so different as to render a comparison unhelpful. It's also slimmer at just half an inch and lighter at 1.5 pounds than any comparable netbook.

But netbooks have their own advantages, despite Apple CEO Steve Jobs' contention that, "Netbooks aren't better for anything."

Just picking one at random, consider the Toshiba NB205-N210, a 10.1-inch netbook with a comparable screen size to the iPad's 9.7-inch display. The Toshiba netbook gets up to 9 hours of battery life, less than the iPad's 10 hours, but not by much. Meanwhile, the NB205-N210 has a 160GB hard disk drive -- 10 times the storage on Apple's $499 iPad, but Toshiba's product costs about $150 less.

Apple clearly expects people to use the iPad very differently than they do a traditional notebook, whether full-sized or a netbook, but that's still a pretty big gap in something as fundamental as storage. And one could see where netbook users who "graduate" to an iPad might not appreciate it.

One early complaint about the iPad that's gaining some steam is the device's inability to multi-task. Like the iPhone, this is a one-window-at-a-time device and not one that many businesses will see a use for, according to John Eaton, president of San Francisco-based solution provider Eaton & Associates.

"It looks very nice but having no Flash, camera or multi-tasking, and very limited business apps makes it look more like a companion device so far," Eaton said.

Tech Superpowers' Oh felt differently about business app availability, saying, "Apple has checked off all of them with this device." He also bullishly predicted Apple's carrier arrangements for the iPad would help propel sales of the device much more quickly than many anticipated.

"The unlocked GSM capabilities are huge, both from the standpoint of freedom of carrier and also with international sales not requiring a carrier agreement to take off," he said. "Expect international sales of this device, especially in countries with Apple Stores, to be out the roof, tracking upwards much faster than even the iPhone."