iBooks on Apple iPad, Source: Apple

Since Wednesday walking down the streets of Berlin can be pretty disturbing. Black caps with silver apples on the forehead. On the forehead?! Well, running around like a living ad for the super power Apple has apparently turned into an honour. Hopefully, all these people are working for the company.

On the other hand, after Steve Job’s performance last Wednesday reactions like these may not seem that absurd. Preaching in front of a monumental screen, Apple’s prophet looked like a mixture of an university professor and an IT-geek. Wisdom and technique equals power. Given, it may had something to do with the simple, but slightly elegant black sweater he wore and not obligatory with a conspiracy theory. May I introduce the puppet players of the 21th century? Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook – the list goes on. But is all this enough reason to get that much more media attention than Obama’s speech?

At least, the iPad doesn’t look much like a tampon. It reminds you more of an iPhone swallowed by a giant iPod touch. The iPad has a large, 10-inch touch screen and shall serve as a reader for e-books and newspapers, as a device for e-mail-applications, music, photos, videos and games. There are controversial opinions on how far the iPad could fulfill the huge expectations concerning these features. With a view to reading e-books, Apple created its own platform: iBooks.

Kindle, Source: Amazon

Apple versus Amazon. What about the Kindle’s post-iPad chances of survival? An absolute disadvantage for Amazon is that there already exists an iPhone-app for its content. So a lot of people will still be using Amazon’s offers for the Kindle, but on the iPad. On the other hand, the iPad isn’t really a gadget for extensive reading. It doesn’t have an e-ink-display like the Kindle, which avoids light reflections. Reading on the iPad forces you to “enjoy” the LED-backlit display. Positive about the iPad is that it is compatible with the open ePub format, while the Kindle’s format is proprietary. But maybe some major titles will be missing in Apple’s e-book-store in the future – the biggest book publisher in the world, Random House, refused to sign on to iBooks yet. Until now, iBooks isn’t listed in the German description of the iPad. This means that for now no electronic books will be available for Apple’s tablet PC in Germany. And furthermore, the iPad will be more expensive here, because the price won’t be adjusted to Euros – the “cheapest” version without UMTS and without a mobile contract for 499 Dollars will cost 499 Euros in Germany.

So, let’s spend a fortune on not reading. What is the big deal about the iPad again?