Here’s my question: How much of that business is Apple going to hand over to Google without a fight? Google is pouring its proceeds into building inroads into Apple territory with good success.

What percentage of the app business in 2013 will be Apple’s? Google’s? others?

And if it isn’t subsidized pricing, as suggested above, how will Apple meet the Google challenge?

The problem ebook publishing faces is that purchases are tied to one device. Yet print publishing will follow audio and video publishing, moving onto these devices, partly for reasons of DRM. (Hate DRM we will but accept it we must. How else can content creators get paid?)

So five years from now, most of our reading needs will be met with ebook devices. We will have 3-4 devices around the house and 1 to lend to a friend. For this to happen, the devices must be priced at $50-$250, depending on size, let’s say small for books, big for newspapers.

The winner in this scenario can be Apple because it can produce the best-of-breed devices at prices no one else can meet. Why? Because Apple can subsidize these devices’ prices given their potential as purchasing monsters. In fact, they already are. Think music, movies, apps. But that’s just the beginning. Think print, tickets, lattes, limos.

Amazon has understood this and offered its best shot, in the Kindle, at an affordable device built for shopping as well as reading. But it’s Amazon’s job to sell atoms, not electrons. In a couple years we will see that Amazon’s Kindle was merely a rough concept for Apple’s Tablet and Touches. Amazon will sell us all the solid objects we buy but digital products and services will be Apple’s territory. (All looked over by our advertising overlord Google.)

I think now’s the time: if Apple produced Tablets for $250 and Touches for $50, it would rule these sectors. None of the ebook readers announced this week could survive at these pricing levels. Nor can they sell all the products and services that Apple’s devices can.

*iSlate may be called something else.

I’m imagining something closer to just the display-housing of a MacBook Air, except maybe a little bit thicker.

Here’s hoping it’s brushed aluminum or some other less scratch prone material, though preferably not polycarbonate plastic.

Apple’s conventional notebooks are now significantly more expensive than bargain-bin PC laptops.

Actually they are less expensive, if you match features and capabilities.

As if this matters. The iPhone would not have sold if everyone initially looked only at the iPhone price versus getting a phone “for free”. This old PC vs Mac rubric implies that any users TIME HAS NO VALUE.

The end consumer knows the value of time saved, service, services, build quality, & ease-of-use even though he may not verbalize it as such.

Apple’s laptops & iPhone have been gaining steam like a runaway locomotive…can’t stop em.

Once a uniquely great product hits the market, a purchase decision is no longer about price when we are talking 25%-50% higher price for the products that are simply better on all angles.

Consumers buy what gives them the most overall satisfaction.

Hopefully Dan’s got some posts coming about CES especially the Palm announcements. That development road map looks pretty crazy.