Daring Fireball’s John Gruber is reporting that the iBooks application will not be included on the iPad by default.
He’s stating this because according to the feature’s page for the iPad it states, “The iBooks app is a great new way to read and buy books. Download the free app from the App Store and buy everything from classics to best sellers from the built-in iBookstore.”.
What does this mean for other e-readers like Amazon’s Stanza, Amazon’s Kindle, and Barnes and Noble’s E-reader applications?It means that they will still be available on the iPad and will not be completely wiped from existence. This also re-affirms Apple’s position of making money off of the hardware instead of the content.
This move will also, as one reader of Daring Fireball has stated , give Apple the ability to frequently update the application. This is much like the remote application for iTunes and the Apple TV. I wish Apple would start doing this with all of their applications so that when there is an issue they can fix it without having to send out an entire firmware update, which can take longer.
The other possibility is that this might work on the iPhone or iPod Touch, or there may be some variation for the iPhone to accomodate the screen resolution. Conversely, it is entirely possible that there will not be a version for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
This is probably being done so Apple does not tempt the anti-trust regulators by disallowing their competitors products on the device.
Source: [Daring fireball].