Updated

You can read opinions of the overall worthiness of Apple’s iPad elsewhere. Here I’m concerned with its credentials as the eBook reader to lead the way from print to a brighter, possibly greener digital future.

On balance it’s a serious contender and likely to displace Amazon’s Kindle from pole position. While the iPad in its current form is still short of ideal, it nudges ebooks nearer the goal.

Of course, this barely matters. Consumers will buy the device regardless of its suitability as an ebook reader. In that respect, the iPad could be the breakthrough ebook device. My comments here relate only to Apple’s iPad as an ebook reader.

How I rate the iPad as an eBook reader:

Its size is about right. The iPad is lightweight, slim and big enough for comfortable reading.

I’ve some doubts over the way Apple will sell ebooks – in my view the company clips the ticket a little too hard. No doubt publishers will feel they have little choice but to conform. It’s an ironic lock-in given Apple’s historic market strategy of being the anti-Big Brother computer maker.

Ten hours battery life is at the low-end of acceptability. It may handle a long-distance flight, but other readers do better.

At 9.7 inches, the display size is right. Colour is good. The screen resolution at 1024-by-768-pixel is less than ideal for long-term text reading - I’ve seen reports of either 100 or 115 dots per inch (dpi). I’m indebted to Bruce Hoult (@brucehoult) who twitters a simple calculation sqrt(1024^2+768^)/9.7 shows it’s 132 DPI.

While this is way better than the 72 dpi on a standard PC display, it’s going to mean tired eyes. Likewise the LED-backlit display is less than ideal.

Apple’s price is respectable for a multi-function device able to handle many applications, but at US$499 plus, it’s a hefty tag for an eBook reader.

My first impression is it needs a lower price, better display and improved battery life if the iPad is to become a serious threat to the printed book – these are all matters Apple may address in coming months.

Scorecard (out of ten):

Finally

These opinions are based on media reports – I haven’t yet touched the device.

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Barnes and Noble’s says internal sales data shows the Nook e-reader is already a hit. The company says the device is now its fastest selling item. Not bad considering the Nook doesn’t officially go on sale until November 30.

While the Nook, like Amazon’s Kindle, pushes e-book technology further into the mainstream, neither is yet the killer product able to do for books what Apple’s iPod did for music. Mind you, Apple has a tablet waiting in the wings which could be the breakthrough reader.

For my money, ebook readers still need to be kinder on the eyes. All the technology is now in place except good, readable, high resolution screens that don’t tire the eyes. Early adoptors won’t care about this, but most book lovers won’t switch to digital until the experience is as good as reading old fashioned ink squirted onto mashed-up trees.

Meanwhile, Creative Technologies has entered the ebook market.

(Acknowledgement to Mark Fletcher at Australian Newsagency Blog who had both stories earlier today).

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Businesses think long and hard before buying computer hardware and software. Some work from finely-tuned technology plans. Others might take a more ad hoc approach, making up the rules as they go. This may sound unwise, but it has the advantage of flexibility.

Some managers consult with their end users and technology specialists before drawing up specification lists. Often business buyers prefer the security of a known brand, some seek comfort in long-standing ‘technology relationships’, and others like the prices or local service offered by smaller outlets.

Whatever the details, business people tend to put a lot of research and effort into their system and software purchases. So should you. But it’s easy to hung up worrying about the wrong things.

While it makes sense to plan software buying in detail, this might not be the case for hardware. After all, modern computer hardware is a commodity. There isn’t much difference between one brand and another. Inside they are pretty much the same. After years of conducting in-depth benchmarks (amongst other jobs I edited the Australian edition of PC Magazine), I can confirm that the difference between the top-performing brands and the average is rarely more than a couple of percent.

Whisper it quietly, but this difference is well under the margin of error. Indeed, often, when classes of computers are compared, the performance spread between the highest and the lowest is often less than the margin of error. And even if it isn’t, I challenge anyone to sit at any two similarly configured PCs and tell me which one is running five percent faster. You won’t notice any difference running Microsoft Word or working online with Firefox or any other browser.

Frankly, for people in business performance is an issue, but the performance that matters is that between different classes of machine rather than different models within a class.

Oh and before we go any further, if raw processing speed really worries you, most of the time you can boost it simply by adding more Ram. Spending a $100 on extra memory chips is the best IT investment you’ll ever make. Not only will this kick-start sluggish systems, but you’ll be able to do more work and work more productively.

Of course, benchmarking does show up poorly performing products. But these are as likely to come from the most prestigious stables as from the cheaper no-brand operators. By all means use benchmarking information to avoid the dogs, but in the long run, average performing machines are as good a purchase as the fastest.

While the performance spread of similarly specified PCs is minimal, prices tend to have more variation. Both follow the well-known bell curve. But the top and bottom performers in any class might deviate three or four percent from the average, while prices can vary by up to 20 percent; and even more if we include Apple’s expensive hardware in the list.

You might expect that prices vary with performance. They may, but only up to a point. Statisticians and economists call the way two variables interact; ‘correlation’. So, if price and performance ratings match, they would be highly correlated, if cheaper machines performed best, then they would have negative correlation. In reality, there is merely a weak correlation between price and performance.

If you draw a graph and plot performance against price, there would be some kind of pattern, but a number of points on the graph would sit a long way from any trend line or cluster. These are the machines to watch. Those that are nearest to the corner where performance is sluggish and prices are high represent the worst value. Those in the opposite corner represent the best.

It might seem like a lot of work, but this can be a worthwhile process if you need to buy a lot of hardware. However, it is worth remembering that differences in performance rarely matter, dollars in your pocket do.

So, what PC purchasing lessons are there for individuals and small business owners? The key is to get your IT spending into perspective. When shopping for hardware, you should pay more attention to the features included in the package than to any benchmarking details. Remember warranties and reliability are more important than performance. And above all else, remind yourself that a low-price, average performing system plus $100 spent on Ram will almost always give you a better return than a pricey speed demon.

Anyone who has been around the IT business for more than a couple of years can probably name half-a-dozen potentially great products and technologies that didn’t make it in the marketplace. My favourite is the chording keyboard, when I first saw one (in the early 1980s) I was convinced it would make an impact.

On the other hand there are plenty of lacklustre products that have taken off. Some started life as ugly ducklings, but with patience and TLC grew into swans.

In some cases we’ve learnt to love dodgy technologies despite their awfulness: SMS text messaging might be essential but the user interface is a nightmare. Other bits of high tech naffware still haunt us years after they should have been put out of their misery.

Clearly, being able to spot winners and losers early is a useful. However, it isn’t easy or straightforward. In this context better doesn’t necessarily mean more successful.

Some believe technically-poor winners beat technically-better losers simply because of clever marketing. There’s a grain of truth in this, but the reality is more complex.

In the early 1990s, US writer Geoffrey Moore found that all business technology products have an adoption life cycle. At the sharp end of the cycle are the early investors. These are companies that must have the latest technology, either for prestige or perceived competitive advantage. They’ll willingly pay a relatively high price which in some cases will fund further development or marketing.

Next are visionary customers who need a product to gain a real competitive advantage or control costs. Often they are prepared to accept immature support, absorbing technology risk. They’ll pay a premium allowing the maker to develop the marketing channels and support infrastructures required in the next phase.

The third phase is the bulk of the market. Moore calls the people in this group early majority or pragmatic customers. They look for clear pay-offs from a technology investment. This group delivers the profits and locks a technology into the mainstream.

The fourth group are reluctant adopters. If a sensible case can be made, they’ll buy mature, proven technologies incorporated into commodity products. The final group are those who may never adopt a technology, for example companies that still don’t use email, mobile phones or computerised book-keeping.

Moore says that for any technology to succeed it must cross the chasm from the first two phases and enter the third. It’s an Evil Knievel-style leap, many technologies simply can’t make it.

The bridge across the chasm might be technical, it might be channel organisation, support infrastructure, political matters such as establishing a standard or it might just come down to old fashioned marketing.

If you want to improve your winner picking skills, put everything else in the background and simply focus on the product, service or technology’s ability to cross the chasm between visionary and pragmatic customers.

In addition to Moore’s chasm, consider common sense concepts of price and utility. Any product which meets certain key standards can sell; but the number sold depends on price and function. A lower price or more functionality means higher sales. If the first two phases of the adoption life cycle enable a maker to build in enough functionality or make price reductions through economies of scale then it’s going to be easier to bridge the chasm.

Standards are a further good indicator of likely success. However you need to read the signs correctly. A lot of so called standards are anything but open. And widely-accepted standards aren’t always the ones which prevail, especially in the face of market dominating companies like Intel or Microsoft. Sometimes the standards used in a particular product or technology are not fixed. For example, a non-standard communications protocol can often be changed with a software upgrade.

Although Moore’s focus was originally on business technology, the principles also apply to consumer products such as DVD burners or Apple’s iPod. The rules don’t change much between the suits and the open-neck shirts but their interpretation does. Building up a head of steam to cross the chasm can be harder for makers of consumer hardware. Consumers rarely look for a return on their investment in the conventional business sense and they are often less willing to pay top dollar for new products.

Complicating matters further is the way many products now straddle both markets. In some areas the consumer market influences business purchasing strategies. For example, the first customers to adopt the iPhone were consumers. Business users are still behind on the adoption curve.