…and it ain’t a reason mentioned by SJ or anyone else in the keynote.

The reason is: pricepoint. The App Store suffered a major “race to the bottom” for pricepoint. SO many (excellent) apps are free or cost $.99 that to price something higher it had to have an existing name brand – say a game from EA – or some other compelling feature – say access to walled-off content like the MLB app has. And even then we’re talking only $5 – 10 for these ‘premium’ apps. It quickly became impossible for devs to justify – or sell – price points above a few bucks for 99.99% of all apps.

With the iPad, I predict the exact opposite will happen for a meaningful subset of apps. Specifically, I mean those apps which, because of the increased screen real estate on the iPad, *can offer meaningful computing functionality which is otherwise impossible or impractical on an iPhone*. Think “apps which will allow you to use an iPad as your primary/sole computer.” Which for the record is my intent from Day 1.

I wouldn’t pay BOO for a screenwriting app for the iPhone. I’d never use it. But for the iPad? Hey when FinalDraft is released as an iPad app for say $29 or $39 or $49 you can bet your buppies that it’ll sell. Why? Because it’ll be useful, compatible with tens of thousands of existing installations, and offer functionality on par with that of a laptop (assuming Apple allows for a reasonable file storage structure which I strongly believe they will).

Photoshop (Elements)? Same. (Basic consumer) video editing software? Same.

Think about all the computer apps you use which have no practical equivalent on the iPhone and ask yourself: can you imagine an iPad app which offers 80%+ of the functionality of the PC/Mac version?

FinalCutPro and the like I’ll grant you – we will not see these types of processor hyper-intensive apps on the iPad any time in the near of medium term future. But just about *everything* else? Of course we will. And at prices that will make devs – and Apple! – quite happy.