The new Apple iPad has certainly got people attention - whether it will be a success or not is still to be seen. Unfortunately what is undeniable is Apple are not going to let 3rd parties deliver quality content onto it - further locking users into iTunes.
The iTunes story is one where Apple managed to wrest music from the pirates and turn it into a legitimate revenue stream for the music companies. They have managed to make legal downloads easier than piracy and for this they deserve a lot of credit. Their brave move to remove DRM have allowed users to once again 'own' their music - though I doubt they would have done it if other MP3 stores hadn't opened!
With video content however the story is very different. In video the content owners are still (rightly or otherwise) wedded to DRM to protect their content and this current boils down to 3 systems - Microsoft's Playready, Adobe's Flash RTMPE and Apple's Fairplay. There are some smaller players (and subtleties over versions) but these are the ones that are widely accepted by content owners. As it stands on PC and Mac all 3 work on all 3 platforms. However on devices the story is very different. The iPhone and iPad will only support Apple's Fairplay. Other devices will vary but often support limited versions of Microsoft's and Adobe's DRM.
This matters a lot as a consumer as it makes it very hard for me to get (legally) content on to a device. It matters even more as someone who works in the business of delivering VOD solutions. It is right now not possible for us to deliver content to iPod or iPhone and protect it with DRM. It can be argued that we should do it without DRM (like music) but that isn't going to happen quickly (if at all) so for now to get good content we need DRM.
Apple's position as a major video store and controlling the iPod device gives them immense power. They will not license fairplay to anyone else so nobody can deliver DRM content to devices that make a huge proportion of the market.
The iPad makes this position even worse - up til now we have at least had the option of Flash or Playready (via Silverlight) to deliver to every 'PC' type device. Now we have a 'big screen' device no-one but Apple can operate a quality content video store for. This isn't going to be good for the market. It may even be an abuse of a monopoly - they are abusing their strong position in the music and portable device market to lock others out of the video market.
What I actually think will happen is (over time) apple will actually struggle to keep up with the rest of the industry. There are plenty of more open devices (e.g Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile and many more) in the pipeline that will be cheaper than Apple's offerings and begin to get better (and cheaper) content. In the long run the video market will be driven by content, onto cheap commodity technology, but in the short run Apple will make it hard for the rest of us to compete!
As an aside I often hear - but iPlayer does it. They do deliver to PS3, Wii, iPhone and dozens of other devices. The way they do this is by cheating and not using DRM. Due to 'the unique way it is funded' the BBC can force rights holders to release content without requiring DRM. This means there are tonnes (just google it) of methods of downloading iPlayer content without DRM. This is good for the consumer in the short run - but it is bad in the long run as it is a huge disincentive for anyone to invest money to compete with this stream of free, DRM free content!
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