Since then, the device has proceeded to redefine what we thought of as a tablet—certainly there had been tablets before, but none of them exactly set the world on fire. The iPad, on the other hand, did set the world on fire, opening up new possibilities for reading not only e-books, but also e-papers and e-magazines. A year later, other tablet makers are only just starting to catch up.

On Gadgetell, JG Mason suggests that the major reason for this might have been the apps. There’s a reason that “there’s an app for that” has become such a hackneyed phrase that Apple trademarked it. Because odds are, there is an app for that. (Unless, of course, “that” is something adult-oriented.)

Sure the hardware is great and is married to good software; but its the apps that make the product shine.  As an iOS user, I have no issue dropping less than $2 a few times a week.  My experience with Android and her apps twist my need to control the device, alter settings and my app use reflects that – and I hate paying for software customization apps.  Weird right?

For e-reading, the iPad offers all the versatility of the iPhone plus a larger screen size, so people willing to put up with reading from LCD find they have plenty of choices in how to do it: iBooks, Amazon, eReader, Nook, Kobo…the possibilities go on and on. And there are ways to read magazines, RSS feeds, social network feeds, and other methods of Internet reading that have never been seen before.

I’ll admit that I can sometimes wax overenthusiastic about the iPad and Apple gizmos in general. But they’re just so darned easy to use, and offer a great user interface, I think I have good reason to be. Anyway, let someone else come out with something anywhere near as revolutionary as the iPad, and I’ll enthuse all over that, too.

But enthusiastic or not, I honestly think the iPad has done a lot for the e-book industry over the last few months. Perhaps as much as the Kindle in some ways. If people were going to buy a single-use device for reading e-books, yes, the Kindle was what they’d choose. But the Kindle can’t do much other than read e-books. The iPad, on the other hand, has a whole raft of non-e-book-related uses, and if someone who buys one for those other uses and tries an e-book finds himself hooked, well, that’s one more customer for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or whoever.

(Just as was the case with the iPhone, and for that matter the original Palm Pilot PDA. Though neither of those accomplished anything on quite the iPad’s scale)

Ingram is impressed with the device so far, even if its control scheme seems a little awkward. The awkwardness could be, at least in part, a function of the way the device was locked down on its stand, however. The seven-inch size makes it harder to spot individual pixels, and may be more convenient than the iPad while still providing ample screen real-estate for applications.

Of course, it remains to be seen how well the tablet will do in the rapidly-crowding marketplace.

And speaking of dual-screened devices, our sister blog Gadgetell reported on a laptop design with dual touch-screens—though unlike netbook-sized dual-screen devices of rumor, this one sports a pair of full-fledged 15” displays. That’s a bit hefty for book-like on-lap reading. It is rumored for a late 2011 release, though it is apparently “still slow and buggy” at this point. The original source for the story, Tech Review Source, removed its post at Acer’s request, so the Gadgetell blurb is all that’s left.

Mason thinks that over time, the iPad (and presumably tablets in general) will develop out of its more limited present capabilities to become a larger, faster, and more capable computer in its own right, which will be useful for both consuming media in tablet form and doing actual work when docked to a keyboard and other peripherals.

Unless the industry decides to lead and not follow, laptops will likely become things of the past.  Apple is betting the industry will follow the money, as it usually does.  This will keep Apple’s premium position in the market and keep investors happy for some time to come.

What Mason entirely fails to explain is why this is necessarily a bad thing. Now granted, if it were just the iPad taking over that ecological niche, I could see some protests against Apple’s “walled garden” development model driving out everything else (how ironic given how often similar complaints have been made about Microsoft’s desktop dominance compared to Apple’s tiny market share!).

But it is highly likely that other manufacturers will have their own just-as-good tablets running more traditional OSes once they get some momentum built up. If someone wants a tablet that can do it all and be fully compatible with the programs he’s been using so far on his desktop or laptop, why wouldn’t he get a Windows 7 tablet rather than an iPad?

If a tablet can do everything a laptop could well enough that we don’t need laptops anymore, then the tablet will be “the new laptop” and the companies that make laptops now will shift over to making tablets. What’s so bad about that, as long as it gets the job done?

Related: Netbooks: Passé or just settling down?

There is no information on price (though Sony famously said it was going to compete on quality instead of trying to match the roller-coaster drops in other readers’ prices), or on the rumored addition of 3G to Sony Reader models.

Are these new readers going to be enough to bring Sony back into the game? They’ve largely dropped off the radar in the current flurry of bookstore e-book reader launches. Without a big-name bookstore partnership of its own, Sony is at a serious marketing disadvantage.

CNet ties together some other reports, including a post from Bloomberg in which anonymous sources claim the device is going to be Blackberry’s crack at killing the iPad, having similar specs and pricing to the wifi-only version, and will launch by November.

The tablet will be called the Blackpad, according to Bloomberg. Its touch screen will measure 9.7 inches, similar to the iPad, and the price will be "in line" with Apple’s tablet, the cheapest model starting at $499.

It will rely on wi-fi and Bluetooth to connect to the Internet, rather than 3G, and might well be meant more as a companion device to the Blackberry for people who already own one than as a true standalone.

Either way, Gadgetell notes that RIM and AT&T are planning some kind of special event in New York on Tuesday, August 3rd, and it might well be a natural place and time for such a tablet to be announced.

The Blackberry has had a number of e-book reading apps, including the Mobipocket reader that the iPhone ecosystem still lacks, but has not generally had the multimedia-friendly reputation of the iPhone. Can it turn this around with a Blackberry tablet? Will the tablet, unlike the iPad, run Flash?

Perhaps we’ll get some of the answers on Tuesday.

That leads me to wonder, what good are falling e-reader prices when the publishers are determined to jack up the price of ebooks? I will never understand why they hate ebooks so much. Everyone I know who has an e-reader says they actually read MORE books since getting it. Sales of Kindle books outdid sales of hardcovers on Amazon. Overall sales of ebooks have skyrocketed while sales of traditional books have shown much less growth. Yet publishers are still doing everything they can to crush e-books.

But on the bright side, Walsh notes, this is also leading to opportunities for independent and self-publishing authors, as they are able to draw attention by pricing their own e-books considerably below the $12.99 level. Their books gain exposure from listings on Amazon that they could never have hoped for alone.

The publishing industry is going through considerable change and turbulence, what with the pricing hassles on one side, and agents deciding to publish e-book backlists directly through Amazon on another. Things look pretty rough right now. Hopefully, over time, the market will settle down, publishers will find an equilibrium price point for their books that pleases themselves and consumers alike. We’ll just have to wait and see.

TechCrunch

Meanwhile, our sister site Gadgetell reports that Sprint has come up with a clever way to make a “4G iPad”—an iPad case with a built-in pocket for Sprint’s “Overdrive” mobile wifi access point. Like the MiFi I’ve discussed as a way to “retrofit 3G” to wifi-only e-book devices, the Overdrive can supply 3G/4G wireless Internet access to up to 5 devices at a time.

And finally, I’ve held off on bringing this story up until it was clearer that the device in question was genuine, but all indications are now that it is. Gizmodo got ahold of a 4G iPhone prototype that someone apparently “lost” in a bar in Redwood City, California, and disassembled it to take pictures.

Totally stealing Steve Jobs’s thunder, they report that the next generation of iPhone is set to roll with a larger battery, higher-resolution screen, improved rear camera plus new front-facing video camera, iPad-style micro-SIM, and other improvements. The device ran OS 4.0, but was remotely disabled shortly after Gizmodo’s sources “found” it.

Business Insider notes that there can’t be all that many people who would have been in a position to have an iPhone 4G prototype outside of Apple’s own hallowed halls, and wonders which Apple or AT&T exec is going to get fired for “losing” it.

According to John Gruber, Apple considers the unit “stolen”, not “lost”. I wonder what repercussions Gizmodo and its employees are going to face? They could, after all, be charged with receiving stolen property—not to mention totally blacklisted from every Apple event from now on. I hope their great scoop was worth it.

A few days ago, BoingBoing noticed

Since I don’t have access to iBooks yet, I can’t look it up for myself and see if that bowdlerization is still intact. But regardless of whether it is or not…why on earth would they censor “sperm,” which is not commonly regarded as a dirty word, but not “dick,” that often is? (And one of the BoingBoing commenters noted that another uncensored word in the description, “rooted,” is a dirty word in Australia.)

TechCrunch posted a couple of articles over the last month detailing possible alternatives to the iPad. Back in March they listed seven, then a few days ago they listed seven more. This is an interesting, comprehensive look at other tablets and e-book readers currently or soon to be available. Some pretty neat gadgets in there. The convertible Viliv S10 Blade and the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 look particularly intriguing.

Our fellow NAPCO-owned blog GadgeTell has noticed Amazon is using a new Kindle advertising technique. “Easy to read even in bright sunlight,” their ad says. Gee, I wonder what brought that on?

The Financial Times has apparently struck a deal with check-in app FourSquare to let FourSquare users “unlock” the Financial Times’s paywall, mocoNews.net reports. Apparently they are going after younger readers who are most resistant to paywalls:

The FT has chosen a number of cafes and businesses situated within business districts and schools such as Columbia, Harvard and the London School of Economic, among others. When Foursquare users check in at a designated spot, they can earn points that will ultimately unlock the FT.com’s online subscriptions, which can run from $183.04 for 52 weeks (or $3.59 per week) for unlimited access to $299 ($5.75 per week) for mobile access included as part of a premium sub.

And another paywall experiment bites the dust, PaidContent.org reports. Harlingen, Texas paper The Valley Morning Star, circulation 23,000, implemented a paywall in mid-2009 as a testbed for its owner, Freedom Communications. It has now “proudly” returned to free status.

[Freedom Interactive president Doug Bennett] says that while some readers were wiling to pay, the test validated the company’s existing ad-supported model. “We want to grow a larger share of audience by making locally-focused information more accessible across multiple platforms, and in turn help our advertisers deliver relevant messages around our content to niche or mass audiences.”

Here’s a 30-second ad for Hewlett Packard’s upcoming Slate device. I find it interesting just how many “things the iPad doesn’t have” they manage to pack into that timeframe: camera, SD card reader, videoconferencing…