April 3, 2010 will mark the beginning of the end for Amazon’s great hardware experiment — the Kindle. Faced with inexpensive, multipurpose tablets such as the iPad, which will be able to consume content from multiple sources including Amazon itself, consumer interest in the Kindle will fade into oblivion.

Kindlenomics, the model for cost justification for owning one of these devices just got blown out of the water by the iPad.

The first casualty in the Great e-Reader Purge of 2010 will be Amazon’s 10.4″ (9.7″ viewable) Kindle DX, which at a $489.00 price point is a non-starter when it is only $10 cheaper than the entry-level 16GB iPad that features approximately four  times the storage capacity and a brilliant color 9.7″ IPS (In-Plane Switching LCD using LED backlight) touch screen.

As a content consumption device, the iPad has a display with a much faster refresh rate, a much faster processor  and has access to over 150,000 applications over ubiquitous high-speed Wi-Fi, including the free Kindle for Tablets app that will provide all of the functionality of the inferior, dedicated black & white e-reader, and then some, because it will be able to read Kindle books in color, as shown in a screen shot of the application below.

 Why buy a Kindle DX that is limited to reading and buying books from Amazon, when you can get an iPad for 10 dollars more that reads content for Kindle, Barnes & Noble eBooks, Apple’s own iBooks, Lexcycle Stanza, and brilliant full-color magazines from Zinio? Not to mention read blogs and websites for free that Amazon otherwise charges for to convert to its proprietary format?

In an initial defensive move, Amazon will certainly try to sell off the  the existing inventory by dropping the cost of the DX unit down to $400.00, or possibly even as low as $359.00 but nobody in their right mind will pay $400.00 let alone $359.00 for the large form factor version which is essentially a one-trick pony. The DX is not long for this world, and Amazon knows it.

Better processors, software and screens due on devices that mimic PCs

Smartphones with even more smarts are in the pipeline, aided by improved processing power, screen technology and internal, as well as external, software.

"Smartphones are starting to overtake the PC in terms of the primacy of getting information and entertainment from the Internet," says Mike Woodward, vice president of the mobile phone portfolio for AT&T.

"There’s a whole generation of people, who, if they wanted to go find out something, they went and sat down at the computer and got it. There’s a generation coming up behind that, if they need to grab some quick information, a movie ticket, a dinner reservation — they immediately reach for their smartphone, whether they’re out on the go or not."

App store development

Future phones may or may not look much different than the black-slab models so widely available today, iterations of the iPhone.

Even though "from the user's point of view it's the hardware that drives decision-making, much more of the differentiation and uniqueness in devices is in software," says Charles Golvin, Forrester Research principal analyst.

"Look at the influence of the app (applications) market. People aren’t making their decisions about phones based on what apps to buy. But it is becoming something of a consideration. The fact that there are so few apps for the Palm devices is in small part dampening enthusiasm for them."

Apple's App Store, with more than 150,000 apps, or programs, that can be downloaded directly to the iPhone, leads the way. Palm now has more than 2,000 apps now available for phones using its webOS operating system. Google's Android Market has 30,000 apps, and Research In Motion's BlackBerry App World, 4,700.

Smartphones, which run on specialized operating systems, continue to increase in popularity, particularly in the United States, where 25 percent more smartphones were shipped in the fourth quarter last year than the third, according to ABI Research

By JOELLE TESSLER
AP Technology Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More corners of the country would have high-speed Internet access and existing connections would become much faster under a sweeping proposal to overhaul U.S. broadband policy that is being unveiled today.

The plan from the Federal Communications Commission is meant to guide the government's strategy on broadband for the next decade and beyond. It reflects the Obama administration's concern that the nation that invented the Internet is in danger of falling behind the development of online applications in other countries that have faster broadband speeds at lower prices.

"Broadband is an infrastructure challenge that's very akin to what we've faced in the past with telephones and electricity," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in an interview. Genachowski has made the broadband plan his top priority, and his legacy at the commission will be linked to the plan's success or failure.

The proposal sets a goal of connecting 100 million U.S. households to broadband connections of 100 megabits per second - at least 20 times faster than most home connections now - by 2020. Although existing connections are often fast enough to let people watch TV shows or movies on computers, faster connections would open new kinds of services, such as fast-loading, high-definition videos ideal for viewing on big-screen TVs. The FCC also says faster broadband would enable doctors to monitor patients over the Internet and broaden the opportunities for students to take classes online.

The plan also calls for every American community to have at least one "anchor" institution, such as a school, library or hospital, that has ultra-high-speed Internet access. The FCC defines that as at least a gigabit per second, 10 times faster than the 100 megabits per second envisioned for home connections.

In addition, the plan is designed to encourage more people to subscribe to broadband. The plan recommends that Congress spend up to $16 billion over 10 years to build and operate a nationwide wireless broadband network that would allow police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers to communicate with each other.

Early reactions from the big phone and cable companies that dominate the U.S. broadband market were positive. US Telecom, a trade group that represents phone companies, praised the FCC for recognizing that "it will be through private sector investment and innovation that America's broadband deployment goals will be met."