The iPad Gold Rush

To make the initial list for the April 3 launch, iPad apps have to be submitted and approved by March 27. Getting onto the launch list is sure to generate a decent number of app sales; making an Editors’ Picks or Top Downloads list can launch you into The Bigs: Whether it’s sales or just installs and marketshare developers are chasing, the final leg of the race is now.

The Kindle app on the iPhone is slick and handy. It’s TBD whether this app makes it through Apple’s screening process for iPad: Amazon competes directly with Apple’s bookstore and cuts them out of the loop completely when you buy books through the Kindle app. Amazon’s hedging its bets noting Kindle runs on other “tablet computers” they’re expecting to hit the market post-iPad.

Apple’s expanding its bookstore; Amazon’s got a big head start – if the Kindle and Nook apps are accepted, their combined titles will all be available, too. Tens of thousands of Project Guttenberg titles will also be freely available. Padders will have access to the whole shebang.

Choose from the photos Vogue selects or upload your own

Click the "crosshairs" to find the nearest retailers carrying the look you like

On the iPhone’s screen, Vogue’s shopping app is pretty and cool; with more available space on a tablet, it has a better chance to be useful with added depth and detail to the fashions promoted. There will be more opportunities to reference more – and more-immersive – editorial and advertising from the magazine, too.

The current app store gold rush – a $500 million per year business in the US – hasn’t nearly peaked. The iPad’s bigger screen and all-around beefier specs (faster processor, more storage and expansion capabilities) bring more possibilities to more developers – and consumers, players, interactors. And that’s just Apple - Google ’s Android Market is coming on strong, and Android OS is designed to run on phones, netbooks, and set-top boxes.

The whole “lean-in” vs. “lean-back” experience is yet to be tested on a mass scale: will users interact with these devices more like they do with a laptop, or will they find themselves consuming more passively? Where and what people do with these next-gen tablet computers is difficult to envision completely today because we’re not already immersed in it. The way we engage with our news and entertainment will change and be changed by the halo of products and habits developed around them.

Update 1:  Sony’s dropping the price of their e-reader just in time for iPad’s launch. Price wars are good for you.

Update 2: Here’s a look at some of the initial “magazines” to be offered on the iPad. It includes a tool from Zinio that lets publishers of all sizes – bloggers, even – format for and take functional advantage of the new tablet computer.