Apple iPad has Amazon and Barnes & Noble at its mercy

Apple, as a world class brand, offers unmatched intrigue when releasing new, innovative designs and technology like the iPad. So much so that the biggest and most rivaled competitors have to bow down to the Apple platforms and develop supporting products, which is exactly what Amazon and Barnes & Noble are doing with their e-bookstores.

Despite Amazon having the Kindle and Barnes & Noble having the Nook, both understand it's about grabbing up the book market, even if it means sacrificing the e-reader device market a bit. At about $10 a pop, Amazon and Barnes & Noble make strong profits off books that no longer have the excess paper or transportation costs. Amazon alone has more than 410,000 books on the Kindle store, creating endless material for people that already have devices and giving repeat customers opportunities to come back again and again.

Paralleling how Microsoft and Sony keep customers coming back for the video games once they have the Xbox 360 and Playstation3, Amazon and Barnes & Noble hope to keep customers coming back for their books, even if it is not on their devices.

Apple too understands the importance of providing content and apps that make the iPad continually adaptable and expandable, especially at the initial release of the product. Now, less than a week before the iPad's release, Apple is doing everything it can to pull together content to make sure it not only sells the iPad, but the apps and content on the iPad.

First, it has announced it will offer a library of more than 30,000 free books through its e-bookstore known as iBooks. This is something Amazon has already done with the Kindle, but it has not been all that well publicized or used due to the roundabout path one must follow to actually download the free book.

Next, Apple is pushing to offer competitive book pricing. Kindle offers its bestsellers and most popular books at $9.99. Steve Jobs has made it abundantly clear that he would like to match that price, or even go a step further by beating that price when the iPad is launched. A tall task considering how difficult it has been for Amazon to keep that price point.

According to CNN, Apple has already agreed to contracts with 5 of the 6 biggest publishers. The contract will allow publishers to set the price of the book, but Apple will receive 30% of each sale. This could give publishers even more say in the pricing battle and could add to the pricing struggle Amazon is currently facing.

Finally, by developing an open app platform, Apple is allowing Amazon and Barnes & Noble to get their libraries posted on the iPad meaning that it will not have just one library, but at least three of the largest e-bookstores on the market.

The final move is by far the riskiest, but as Apple has learned over the years, brand loyalty is key to keeping customers using their products, even when competitive products exist. Customers continue to conform to Apple's standards and Apple's products. Even if the library for the Amazon or Barnes & Noble app is larger, customers will want to use the iBook app for its interface and Apple logo.

For Apple, getting customers to use their apps is the easy part. The challenge, which really wont be that hard for Apple, will be getting customers to spread the word of how great the iPad is.