It will take some magic for Apple to convince book publishers the Newton ][ is a better proposition than Amazon's. Amazon sells the paper versions too.
But I won't risk a prediction here. With OLED, PixelQi and that other Qualcomm color display competing, there is too much noise to predict what will happen to any individual product. The ecosystem will thrive, but who will inhabit is is a mistery to me.
It will take some magic for Apple to convince book publishers the Newton ][ is a better proposition than Amazon's.
No need. Apple could just run the upcoming OS X version of Kindle (perhaps virtualized) on their tablet. Amazon could respond by detecting this and disabling their software, but I doubt they'd do it.
As ianferrel and ableal explained, the day Kindle software becomes the obvious way to read e-books on the Newton ][ (I love that name - too bad it won't be), Amazon wins.
Apple will do whatever it takes to prevent Amazon from controlling the ecosystem.
My point is that Apple doesn't have to "win" in this way.
Why does Apple care if Amazon "controls the ecosystem," when they can still sell high margin hardware? Does Apple have to control the Web because they publish Safari? Safari was a play to assure the continued viability of OS X. Apple doesn't necessarily want to "win". They want to make money. "Winning" isn't necessary in every case for that.
But then Apple would be ceding the future of electronic publishing of text to Amazon, and could never differentiate its hardware over the Kindle's, unless Amazon decided to support richer media in its files than the Kindle will actually display (not likely). That's not a plan that's consistent with Apple's strategy so far.
That (running soft-Kindle on other platforms) is Amazon's play - removes cost of hardware (thin margin) and carrier charges (now borne by host), making the Amazon store more profitable ...
The fact that Amazon has a stranglehold on distribution of dead-tree versions of books is precisely why publishers hate Amazon. As the buzz in the book biz around Apple's "agency" model for ebook distribution is starting to show, publishers would love nothing more than for Apple to scare Amazon. This lame SDK announcement and the recent change in the cut that Amazon will demand shows you just how scared Amazon really is.
But I won't risk a prediction here. With OLED, PixelQi and that other Qualcomm color display competing, there is too much noise to predict what will happen to any individual product. The ecosystem will thrive, but who will inhabit is is a mistery to me.