Developers are already working on ports today. Many apps will be in the submission queue before the iPad hits the stores, many of which will be live on the day it does. I was under the impression that the app totals were under 26k. I'll revise my estimate to a few months then, thanks for the specific number. There are some apps that aren't suited to the iPad, but a large number of existing apps will make very interesting ports once re-imagined for the larger screen and additional input methods.



They restructured their payments prior to Apple's announcement. That was huge, because Amazon was previously raping the publishers and authors, keeping 65% of the sale price for themselves. Based on publisher pressure due to Apple's impending announcement they basically reversed the shares, taking only 30% with the remaining 70 going to the publisher. I think without anything else, "upset" is already an understatement for this change.

Next we have Amazon pull MacMillan from their store because they wanted to discuss different book pricing arrangements. MacMillan didn't pull the books, Amazon did. 1/6 of all titles vanished from Amazon's site - that's not an upset? Yesterday NewsCorp announced that they don't like Amazon's model. They own HarperCollins, another of the big book publishers. Amazon's entire pricing scheme looks like it's about to fall apart.

You're reading far too much into the NYT re-published story. They could have framed it completely differently if it was about corporate culture. My point and argument on this subject has not changed one bit. I have always maintained that it was an irresponsible non-story for the NYT to run. The NYT angle was the primary reason for having even linked it and for my initial comment on it "NYT says..."



You are absolutely right in this regard. And I see custom applications coming in here to fill the web-enabled DRM void, outside the browser. Hulu's own Hulu Desktop for instance. It's probably still running Flash right now, but it doesn't necessarily need to. The majority of Flash content exists today for non-DRM video and advertisements - some with animation and some without it. Much of this can be replaced with straight streaming (maybe with some nice javascript controls) and CSS. The biggest hurdle in my opinion right now isn't DRM, but rather the pathetic state of licensing the best codec out there, H.264.

Of course, the DRM issue is rather moot for a large percentage of the population that would consider saving the streaming files. It doesn't take but a second or two to locate a torrent or the content for download elsewhere, usually on the same night it airs on TV. I don't think browser-based streaming is viable for high quality content anyway. The experience can simply be better architected within a custom application, leaving lower quality streams and previews for the web.