You might have noticed that one major publisher is missing from the list of iPad adopters: Random House. You might think it’s because it doesn’t believe in the platform, or it has some dispute with Apple. None of the above. As the Financial Times has it, it’s because Random House doesn’t want to get into an ebook price war.

So let’s get this straight. To avoid a price war, the publisher is willing to stay with a company who requires a fixed price of $9.99? A company all the other publishers are glad to get away from? A company that is so desperate to keep publishers that it threatens to remove their goods from its store if those publishers don’t comply?

Yes. Apparently that. Granted, Apple’s model could potentially mean less profit per book for publishers because of the 30 percent cut it takes. It will make up for that, potentially, by giving publishers a little more control over their pricing and theoretically increasing the reach of ebooks. For the full story, head over to the Financial Times.

I almost laughed out loud when I saw the diminutive text that accompanied Amazon’s new Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers. It reads “Including the iPad,” in a tiny, scrunched up font. Funny content wars aside, the new app looks pretty great, and it gives us a look at the full color future of digital books from Amazon.

The new app include fancy features like page turn animations and adjustable backgrounds while holding onto the Amazon Whispersync technology to keep your reading experience up to date across multiple devices. While this may be the future of reading with Amazon, it makes me wonder where the future of the company’s hardware lies. I still can’t imagine a world in which Amazon wanted to get into the hardware business for just a couple years, but maybe it did. It’s still the largest online retailer, and content distribution is really a nice business. Just ask Apple.

If the future of the Kindle brand lies in apps across all platforms, though, Amazon would do well not to piss off so many publishers. All the work Amazon has done to this point will be null if readers can’t get the books they want in the Kindle store.

Amazon is starting to look desperate in the war for content control against Apple. The online retailer has now reportedly threatened to pull content from two more publishers (the first was Macmillan) if they don’t agree to three year pricing contracts for ebooks. The contracts are designed to guarantee that consumers will get the lowest possible price on ereader content in Amazon’s Kindle store. It’s not anything new. In fact, Apple is trying to lock up the same deal.

The deal is undeniably bad for publishers, though. It gives them no flexibility for change as the market matures, which it certainly will over the next three years. The New York Times article didn’t say which two publishers were being threatened, but you can bet no one wants these kinds of contracts. The fact that Amazon is actually going forward with such aggressive measures says only one thing: this is the last resort. If there were other, more suitable alternatives for both parties you can bet Amazon would have explored them. It would garner a lot less press attention and make the company seem far less money hungry and desperate in the eyes of the consumer.

Source: New York Times

Yesterday’s early estimates suggested the iPad had moved 50,000 units in the first two hours of pre-sale. Now CNN is claiming Apple sold 120,000 units on the first day of release. Those numbers are certainly impressive, especially since no one can really say what the iPad does.

The real thing people are spending money on with the iPad is a concept. Apple did a great job of pitching the iPad as a reading device, your living room browsing experience at an extremely affordable price. It sounds great, but I have yet to see an application that makes me really burn for the device. Will iBooks be cool? Probably, but I still hate ebooks for a lot of reasons, none of which seem to be addressed by the iPad. They can be, but they certainly aren’t yet.

Lastly, you can’t ignore Apple’s hardware test period. Remember the first iPod Touch? Probably not – not many people bought one. There were serious hardware problems, though. Quiet alert sounds, no hardware volume control, and on and on. Granted, software updates fixed those problems as much as they could, but these are still pretty big issues for anyone owning the first generation of the device. The iPad won’t be as good as it was pitched to be on the first go round. If we’re lucky, it’ll be 90% of the way there by 2.0, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The Apple Store went down this morning for the iPad pre-order update. It’s back up, giving the world access to the highest profile tablet we’ve yet seen. Apple has imposed a pre-order limit of two per customer, which has me wondering whether the company expects the kind of quantity problems that lead to mad eBay selloffs.

The store update also revealed pricing on iPad accessories. That nifty little keyboard dock will run $69 while a regular dock is just $29. You can also get the official iPad case for $39. The update also revealed a nice new feature on the iPad – screen orientation lock. It’s a great idea for anyone hoping to use the iPad as an ereader. It allows you to hold the device in any position and maintain the screen. The auto-flip has frustrated me on the iPhone on occasion so its nice to see the problem addressed for a device designed for reading.

Prices start at $499.00. Will you be getting one?

Source: Apple Store