But then Apple would be ceding the future of electronic publishing of text to Amazon, and could never differentiate its hardware over the Kindle's, unless Amazo

But then Apple would be ceding the future of electronic publishing of text to Amazon, and could never differentiate its hardware over the Kindle's, unless Amazon decided to support richer media in its files than the Kindle will actually display (not likely). That's not a plan that's consistent with Apple's strategy so far.