The Amazon Kindle allows users to browse the internet and download free content, therefore their cost per megabyte pays for much more than just the paid content downloads. They are charging 10 times more per MB because the average user downloads and browses areas without content.
From what I have heard, the Apple tablet "Free 3G" will only be through an application that connects directly to an Apple Store. It will not allow access to the internet in general. If you want to connect to the internet you will need Wifi or tethered 3G. That is why 1 to 2 cents per MB is doable.
Very few people on the planet know exactly what Apple is going to announce. We will have to wait and see. I have just heard through the grapevine that Apple was going to offer free connectivity to some sort of Apple store. This store will provide, Applications, Music, TV, Movies, Ebooks, and some sort of cloud computing option (Mobile Me or iWork online).
Congratulations on your grapevine. I'm quote facts, not "I think" or "I heard". Fact is that Amazon pays 15 cents per MB to enable "free downloads" anywhere Kindle can download. Here's the link that I'm perceiving you did not go read:
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/2...royalty-program-ahead-of-apple-tablet-launch/ It seems reasonable to assume that Amazon would strike as good a deal as they can get for this 3G since they would be paying for it out of each sale, working at least as hard as Apple would work to strike the same kind of deal.
The owners of the 3G "pipes" have NO incentive to give away access to their very lucrative service just to help Apple sell a lot of Tablets. Apple has NO way to force them into giving them 1-2 cents per MB as you have suggested. It's not Apple's 3G bandwidth to price.
Fact is that Kindle media is extraordinarily compact media, median size at about 1/3 of 1Mb. With a Kindle it works to build the price into the media because it is a relatively cheap internally-eaten (by Amazon) cost. With iTunes media, we're talking about a lot of content that is tens and hundreds of times larger than the typical Kindle media. So even if Apple can strike a better deal than Amazon with the owners of the 3G to include "free" Kindle-like 3G for Tablet media, the size of the media other than text-heavy media like you get on the Kindle won't make it work at iTunes (current) media prices.
Just do the math. Let's get crazy and believe that Apple can negotiate a deal substantially better than Kindle's 15 cents per MB. Let's imagine 10 cents per MB. Download a 2GB movie- just one- and how much does Apple make after paying for the 3G. Let the movie cost $14.99. 2000 megabytes times 10 cents a megabyte = $200.
Now that's crazy. Clearly a 3G contract arrangement is going to cost a lot less than $200 to download a single movie. And it does. Why? If you are Verizon or AT&T, you want the 24 month contract, so you make your best deals available for those long subscription contracts. You don't make your best deal on a per MB download on demand. You price that sky high (thus 15 cents per MB for Amazon Kindle) so that it is almost always a much better deal for the consumer to do a direct deal with you- a long-term contractual subscription deal- than any kind of "use it when you need it" at a better price.
I want to believe your view of how this will go. But Apple has little say in what the 3G cost will be. That belongs to the companies that own the 3G networks.
Furthermore, Kindle's internet access is extraordinarily limited, so while some access to things other than buying & downloading a book is possible (and eaten by Amazon pricing that into the cost of the media), it is very much Apples vs. Oranges to try to allude that the expectations of how Safari browsing will be used would even remotely equate to how Kindle's browser is used.
Another way to use the math. Let's say you are right and that Apple eats the 3G cost within the cost of media sold "as is" via iTunes. Now let's let this get us "free" 3G Safari browsing (since Kindle's browser can browse for content other than book media to buy). Let's say the Tablet comes out at $2000 (I've seen NO rumors with the price that high, but let's go there to be as wild as possible). At 10 cents per MB for the included 3G, how many GBs of general Safari browsing via 3G could a Tablet owner do before Apple will have had to reimburse the 3G provider for all $2000 of the revenue collected from the Tablet sale? How about 7.5 cents per MB (a deal struck TWICE as good as Amazon was able to get)? How about 5 cents?
Just do the math. It's easy to see how this particular issue will play out.
That said, I would love to see a magical new solution that would give Tablet buyers free 3G, or even substantially discounted 3G so that this super mobile device could have anytime, anywhere access to anything (media or general Safari, VOIP calls, etc) without a monthly contract obligation. THAT would definitely sell a whole lot of Tablets. But Apple doesn't own the 3G e-pipes. It's not Apple's decision to give us that. If they could, iPhone owners would already have ridiculously low 3G plans, as Apple is in the
hardware selling business, and much more affordable plans would sell much more hardware.
Granted, I think Apple will compete with Kindle on Kindle-like media, meaning Apple eats the 3G cost of mostly plain text media (just like Kindles). But that won't work with richer (bigger file) media at current iTunes media prices. I can't imagine Apple jacking up iTunes media prices to try to give us "free 3G" like Kindle for ALL types of iTunes media. So, if I'm right, you are either finding a free wifi/wimax hotspot to download all the bigger files (music, video, etc) or you are paying for a monthly contract to do that via 3G (anytime, anywhere) data access. If you already have an iPhone plan, there might be some kind of sharing arrangement offered by AT&T (but probably at a higher monthly fee AND/OR a use one (device) or the other, but not both at the same time).
