The first thing I thought when I saw this screenshot of the iBooks application for the iPad is “ah, so this is the Kindle for people who don’t actually like to read.” It’s not a bad business move considering that demographic is like 90% of the population, but come on! Look at those cheesy book pages! Look at them! I would not even be surprised if there were page turning animations. People knock the Kindle for its lack of color screen or backlight or support for video, but it’s a shockingly good device for reading books. This just looks like a good device for looking at book covers on a bookshelf.
Also here’s a bad sign for Apple: I’ve managed to just about completely talk myself out of getting one of these within twelve hours of the keynote. That never happens. I just can’t figure out what this lets me do that my iPhone doesn’t.
