Who has the biggest and best platform for the sale, payment and delivery of digital content? Apple does, with their iTunes/App Store ecosystem.

Who has the best tablet? Hint: it's optimized for the sale, payment and delivery of digital content. Answer: Apple, with their iPad.

Who has the world's biggest book store? Amazon. The world's best eReader? Kindle (yes, it's better than iPad, at least as a eReader).

Who has the world's biggest -- and best -- online and mobile shopping platform? Amazon.

Yes, there's an (obvious) point to all this.

Amazon is going to build an iPad killer. And a Roku killer. And a Apple TV and Google TV killer. How do I know this.

Cause it's obvious. As big as Amazon is most of their money still comes from the sale of: books, music, video.

All are rapidly moving into the cloud, liberated from their physical forms. Right now, Apple could sit tight and believe that, as with the Kindle app, they can continue to capture the lion's share of digital (book) content even on non-Amazon devices. But this is awfully risky. Understand, with the iPhone and iPad, Apple is not losing digital media sales to Amazon. Amazon is losing them to Apple. Book by book. Video rental by video rental. They can't sit idly by and let the market become balkanized or worse, owned by Apple.

I expect them to offer a tablet by 2011 at the latest. Designed for books and video to start. Then games. Probably also music. I do not expect this to be an Android tablet. Android OS is not optimized for the consumption or delivery of media. Amazon will want to build a device that plays to its strenghts of scale, the full range -- and largest number -- of content for sale, that uses its cloud, that is designed at least as much for women as for men.

With respect to gaming, from Engadget:

Amazon's gaming related job postings are starting to bear exotic fruit having just nabbed Microsoft's Director of Game Platform Strategy, Andre Vrignaud. Vrignaud started with Microsoft in 2002 as Director of Xbox Live Platform Strategy and more recently helped manage Microsoft's overall gaming platform strategy with a hand in figuring out how to roll out Xbox Live on Windows Phone 7. Obviously, this leads to speculation that Amazon is looking to expand further into digital games as it's already done with music, video, and digital books. And with Amazon working on non-Kindle hardware with ambitions for dual-screen readers, well, we'd say the question isn't what, but when?

Nice, succinct statement from Engadget.

A new iPad competitor. This one from that Korean giant, Samsung.

Say, wasn't the iPad supposed to be a flop?

That's a question for another day, I suppose. This Samsung Android-based tablet (even if Android isn't optimized for tablets) looks nice. Seems to work well. Not sure about the form factor, though. I mean, too big for a smartphone but without the screen of a iPad or 13-inch laptop, say.

And, what exactly is it for?

Consumption of media/content? The iPad with iOS ecosystem has that beat cold.

A communications device? Really? No way they have anyting close to FaceTime. Besides, won't you just use your Android smartphone? Of course.

Who is expected to buy this, then? I sure as hell can't tell. I can't think of anyone clamoring for a tablet that isn't an iPad. We all know it works great, has an amazing UI, is part of the iOS ecosystem, has thousands of apps designed specifically to take advantage of the specs and form factor of the iPad.

So why buy this?

At this point, there's no reason. So I expect it to be a flop. There's just not enough people with enough money and too little smarts to make this work. It's a gimmick. A toy. However, it has potential. Only, it's all directed at the wrong target. Forget the iPad. As a tablet in 2010 with the current infrastructure, technologies and media available, you will not build a superior one. You are years behind Apple in this regard. Stop wasting your money and our time.

However, there are a billion PCs and laptops out there. You have Android, which anyone can license. You have a lower cost than a PC (and a lower cost than most laptops, in fact). There is Google Apps, a slew of free Google services, Flash, a growing ecosystem of accessories. Kill the PC. Kill Microsoft. You will enjoy the mega riches to follow. But this tablet -- and Android -- will not kill Apple.

Google copied from Apple just what it needed -- and what it mistakenly thought was most valuable. It has the App Store equivalent. It has a touch screen. It provides full browser and GPS. But as I've said before, Google drives the price of content to zero. That's how they make their money. In such a world, Samsung and all Android makers, will make little to nothing off the content. They will eke out solid gains from volume. Period. And the more licensees leverage Android, the smaller those gains will become. Apple is like the United States in WW2. No matter its losses, the net losses others suffer will be far worse. Little of Apple, proportionately, will be harmed. In fact, the world that emerges will treat them even better. More users. More premium content. More devices.

Does Samsung really believe they can do the equal -- or better -- of Apple? At Apple's game? Nonsense. This commercial, while good, merely highlights the corporate fail. Your real target is Microsoft. Windows Phone. Windows Tablet. Office. I don't need any Android maker to show me how cool they are. I already know none of them are. But you could make me productive. If you tried. If you focused on how you can free me and a billion others from the clutches of PCs, Microsoft. That would be the bomb.

Below is a comparison of the specs of the two devices, furnished by Redmond Pie. Can't imagine why specs would sway you, but to each his own.

Next Web reviews the slick Market Scan stock analysis app;

The app is clearly aimed at savvy investors and delivers a lot of analysis options as well as a slick interface and fast loading results. On top of that, even though it is a v1.0, the app seemed very stable (which you would hope with its $30 price tag), and the limited feedback on the App Store page so far (the app was just released yesterday) is very positive.

So what exactly does Market Scan do? Well, it allows an investor to combine parameters, including popular indicators and up to the last four trading days (which it claims is unique) and mesh and other criteria together to form thousands of combinations of data from which you can create you own custom “scans” or lists of stocks, which you can then track and share via email whenever you want.

For the life of me, I can't figure out who would benefit, and how, by having a touch-based iMac. As an iPad user myself, there are definitely times when I want a traditional keypad, traditional mouse input, Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint. Similarly, I don't see robust applications from Adobe or even Apple's FinalCut being superior within a touch environment; at least, not for a few more years.

Plus, when I look at these pictures, like the one below, from Patently Apple, not a one appears to enhance the user experience.

Given that the value of Apple is now much more tied to iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod, iTunes..), could a iMac Touch (or MacBook Touch) be a deliberate hybrid, designed to transition the (few) loyal Mac users over to the iOS ecosystem?

Absolutely. Only, I don't believe this is the only reason, nor the primary one. In fact, I believe the notion of a 'iMac Touch' is a bit of a dodge. Instead, think iPad that can fully and instantly support true multitasking, keyboard and mouse input, Microsoft applications, enterprise-level security requirements, corporate email. An iPad that offers both iOS and Mac OS, that fully supports touch-based interface and iOS apps while supporting the (Intel-based, corporate-friendly) Mac offers many opportunities -- and one grand slam:

Apple as the *standard* computing device in the corporate enterprise.

Consider how many vertical markets, how many individuals would not simply love to have an iPad, but would be freed, liberated, by having a tablet they could walk around with and user their hands to interact with? Doctors and nurses. Teachers. Lawyers. Corporate training. Mechanics. Logistics. CEOs and show-offs. Is anyone surprised that Blackberry and Android and Avaya and even Microsoft (still) are announcing plans for their own tablet computers? With the possible exception of Android versions, these are not iPad competitors, per se, but rather, tablets for use in corporate vertical industries.

But they have a critical failing that an iPad - iMac Touch could overcome. It's hard to believe any competing tablet will have as great a user interface (and iOS ecosystem of apps) that the iPad delivers. Which may not even be the biggest hurdle. The fact is, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of workers would love to have a tablet for numerous tasks, functions, meetings, training. Problem is, they then need a more traditional PC or laptop. Not being flush with cash to lavish their employees, companies make a choice. Tablet is nice, but desktop/laptop is a necessity. Thus, they choose the traditional computing mode. Only, what if they could have both? In one device? That actually worked great -- in both modes? An iMac Touch has this potential. And based on the patents Apple has filed, the device would intuitively know when you were using it as a tablet, when as a 'desktop' and when in transition.

Is Apple getting ready to take the tablet wars to the corporate office? Fact is, Apple has long focused on the consumer market. However, this has not been intentional. If you could imagine a quadrant with MARGIN on the Y-axis, and USER EXPERIENCE on the X-asis, Apple aims for that upper right hand quadrant, not surprisingly. And they hit their target more often than just about anyone else. This has always meant great profit margins, highly usable devices, but fewer customers. I cannot see Apple abandoning this strategy; it's in their DNA. However, while still operating within this strategy, they can combine the best of iPad and the best of Mac and sell millions more devices into industry verticles that they would have otherwise never sold.

This is the home run strategy for a iMac Touch.

One of the core requirements for writers for Business Insider, the main one near as I can tell, is to craft a headline that will garner maximum page views. For now, this often means deliberately bad-mouthing Apple or bad-mouthing anyone who might bad-mouth Apple.

Today's version:

Don't Mean To Be Rude, But How In The World Is LG Going To Make A Better iPad Than Apple?

Oy vay. Of course, I read the article, though less for the 'content' and more for the comments. And no one seemed to pick up on the larger point: the death of the PC.

What we know to date is: iPhone sales have been off the chart and yet Android smartphones will soon pass the iPhone in total sales. We know that iPad has sold millions, even without MS Office, and that other tough competitors are developing their tablets (Blackberry; Android makers).

And, yet, the article focuses on comments LG's marketing head made about their upcoming tablet being better than iPad. Maybe it will be. Maybe you don't want to launch a product without talking it up in the media so, you know, people will actually know about it and maybe want to buy it. Maybe it's bad form to suggest your product won't be as good, or even better. Marketing = propoganda, after all.

But there is nothing in the post about how, in the span of about 12 months, tablets did not exist; not really. Now, Apple has a popular tablet -- that does not run on Windows. Blackberry is developing a tablet that does not run on Windows. Android makers are developing tablets that will not run on Windows. Electronics companies are developing tablets that *might* run on Windows as a secondary consideration because they are looking to create tablets for specific industries (e.g. healthcare, education).

The smartphone (and the tablet) are quickly replacing the PC. iPhone's IOS and the Android OS will, in a few short years, have the installed base of Windows. That's a big deal. Did you ever even believe that would be possible? Thirteen months ago how long did you think the PC would survive? Ten years? Twenty? Six months ago didn't you think that Microsoft could develop a new OS, say in 2014, let's call it Buena Vista, that would sell in the hundreds of millions. It's nearly impossible to believe they could achieve anywhere near that level of success now, not with what we know will be viable competition.

Yet the 'experts' at Business Insider are placing their focus on minor propoganda statementsspoken by LG's marketing guy? Talk about missing the big picture.

God help them but RIM continues to insist that their upcoming tablet computer will be dubbed Blackpad. Readers have already expressed their, uh, concern for such a name:

http://brianshall.com/content/poll-when-you-hear-term-blackpad-do-you-think

What you may not know are the names that Blackberry rejected! And with that, our top 10 rejected names for the Blackberry Blackpad:

1. iBlack
2. MaxiPad
3. BlackTouch
4. BlackHead
5. RIMShot
6. The Dirty Sanchez
7. BlackJobs
8. Research in Stasis
9. BlackBoard
10. CockPit

Have you heard of any others?