Apple iPad will not available in market up till late in March 2010 but it’s already affecting the e-book reader market. It’s strange in a sense that Apple iPad hasn’t, nor is likely, to affect the Netbook market. Apple iPad was launched as competitor to Netbooks with “Slow and Low Quality Displays”. However it’s amazing that since its introduction, hardly anyone has compared iPad to Netbooks or Notebooks. On contrary, almost everyone is comparing Apple iPad to Amazon Kindle for pretty obvious reasons.

E-Book Readers War is on

E-Book readers war was ignited the moment Apple announced its “competitor to Netbook” with support for iWork and iBooks – the new app that enables you to purchase, manage and read books on your Apple iPad. Amazon Kindle has been around for quite a while now with features specifically suited for digital book readers; however Apple iPad offers plenty of extra features that could force users to switch away from Kindle. So, iPad has posed much greater threat to Amazon Kindle than to the Netbooks.

Publishers Get the Freedom

As till now, Amazon has been the lone player in E-Book readers market. Now when publishers have got alternative, and presumably the better one in Apple iPad, they are free to set the pricing. But this freedom has also caused great confusion among publishers as we can already see. Books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishers in the US, have disappeared from Amazon’s website as well as from Kindle following a rift between both over price set for books. Earlier we saw McGraw Hill missing from Apple’s product launch presentation. So publishers are clearly getting divided however leaving the Amazon wouldn’t be as easy as it sounds. Here are advantages of staying with either of E-Book reader manufacturers:

Amazon’s Advantage

Amazon has the power of being largest retailer over the internet. It’s first and obvious choice for booklovers to shop for their favorite books online and that’s their biggest advantage. Amazon App Store is also in the pipeline, although it may still be no comparison to Apple App Store, it could boast Amazon’s advantage to some extent.

Apple’s Advantage

Apple iPad is multipurpose device that offers much more than just a digital book reader. Built for premier browsing experience, Apple iPad has support for iPhone apps and will also be getting its dedicated app store that could host range of applications. In a nutshell, Apple iPad promises better E-book reading, browsing, gaming environment with support for iWork allowing users to prepare, manage and present slideshows.