You say iPad is not the problem and I’m with you there. The iPad is just getting started and is growing at a stratospheric rate. This is one of those consumerization things where first you have consumers going gaga and then you have those same consumers putting on work clothes and purchasing iPads for corporations, governments and schools.

You say the iBookstore is the problem. That’s how it looks right now I must admit. You have several books already written and have scraped and scrapped together eBooks by hook or by crook to get them on Kindle. You should be commended! You rock. But chapter 2 is about to begin.

I predict that others like Google (Google Books), Amazon (Kindle Books) and for sure Barnes & Noble with its cool Nook Color and Tablet (ePub Books) will hustle up better creation tools to compete with iBooks Author. That will benefit us all. Once the time for a tool has passed though, I want to move on to the better tool that will take its place. It’s called investing your limited time wisely. It’s avoiding obsolescence. Something I do every day as a software developer and technology advisor.

Along comes iBook 2. Looks beautiful! All kinds of style and embed options. My ebooks can become interactive apps! But these ebooks display only on an iPad, and can be sold only in the iStore. The iStore is the problem, since it’s a tiny poorly-furnished closet compared to the teeming cityscape of Amazon. So for marketing my ebooks, I’ve got to be on Amazon.

So I’ll have to go both ways with my ebooks, the very thing app creators hate.

However, my guru Janet Tokerud says that the world will be moving toward Apple on this issue. e-ink is past its peak. Bright, colorful iPad-type screens are becoming ubiquitous. Gazillions of iPads going into schools and corporations, preloaded with textbooks, manuals, and reports published in iBook2. If there’s a standard, it will be an Apple-friendly standard. If not, or if iStore doesn’t come out of the closet, then the Kindle Kazoom (2014 or so) will be close enough to iBooks that I will be happy publishing there.

I use my iPad for many things besides reading, so for me, comparing iPad and Kindle is like comparing a Swiss army knife with a paring knife. Here’s why I’m sticking with iPad:

– Most of my online reading is not books, but newspapers, magazines, online forums and blogs. Things with color and graphics and interaction and reader comments.

– Reviewing emails and replying. Opening the attachments, which are often pdfs.

– Web surfing, esp. access to Google and Wikipedia, so that I can answer questions in a flash.

– Syncing apps and contents between iPad, iPhone, and Mac, using iTunes and Dropbox and others

– Transferring docs between Mac and iPad, using Pages and Numbers via Dropbox, so that I can do minor editing and composition on the iPad. Especially when I’m traveling. On a recent trip I loaded up a bunch of docs on the iPad that I needed to proof and edit, and got them all done during air travel and airport time. I used the wireless keyboard.

– I often use iPad and Mac Book Pro at the same time: MBP to run a slide show or view a webinar, iPad to do related email or website monitoring.

So as a certified “inknop” I’m sticking with my iPad. There’s nothing additional that Kindle would give me that I care about.

(Also, I’ve just been told that I need the iPad 2 in order to turn my flat screen TV into a large computer screen.)