The Apple iPad has burst through the cloud of rumour and speculation. A crepuscular ray in the shape of a giant iPhone with a 9.7″ IPS screen, custom 1GHz Apple A4 processor, 16-64GB of memory, 3G and WiFi, and 10 hours of battery life. And there, bathing in the pools of light are the old-media stalwarts: NYT, Penguin, and others; ready to illuminate their texts. Steve Jobs is their modern-day Gutenberg, iTunes his press, and the iBooks application his moveable type: together distributing printed works cheaper and faster than any paper press could ever do.

As with the iPod, this means neither the demise of old distribution, nor the rise of new. It does, however, provide another compelling platform for consumers to spend freely on more content. Like the App Store before it, Apple’s new distribution platform creates a near-frictionless method to part consumers with their money in return for content. Over the past couple of years, I’ve spent more on music and applications using my iPhone than any physical products. Similarly, I can see myself buying more subscriptions, applications, and premium content than ever before.

But wait, there’s more (and more of the same)

Apple knows when it is on to a good thing. The iPad enlarges the familiar iPhone interface, and also builds on their massively successful iTunes music and application stores. You can use all the same applications, music, and podcasts that have been available for the iPod and iPhone. But of course the increased size and resolution of the iPad will lend itself to larger-format applications – some of which Apple demonstrated during their announcement.

Apple has also finally leveraged their purchase of PA Semi, producing the “A4″ chip: a custom 1GHz processor with combined graphics processing. We can assume from this that the iPad will have 3D gaming graphics far in excess of the iPhone and iPod. Electronic Arts leveraged this, and demonstrated some rather stunning 3D games.

Then there’s iWork. Apple’s existing suite of Office applications have been tweaked to run on the iPad. Apple has deeply integrated multi-touch, creating an almost Minority Report interface for the various applications. iWork on iPad is not an addendum to your desktop or notebook PC – each US$9.99 application is a complete standalone product. If you’re a hard-core road warrior, you might want to grab the matching keyboard dock.

Shine a light on us

And what of New Zealand? Are we left out in the Kindle-like cold? Not entirely. The iPad is available to buy worldwide in 60 days time (3G models will follow 30 days after that). However, the pre-pay data plans (US$14.99 for 250MB and US$29.99 for unlimited) are only available in the USA. But there should be nothing stopping you putting a Vodafone or XT sim card in the iPad, because they are carrier unlocked by default. Word of warning: like the iPhone, the iPad’s 3G will work ok on Vodafone in cities, and great on XT everywhere (when XT isn’t offline of course).

Here’s how much you’re going to pay for an iPad in US$:

And you know you’re going to. Like many Apple products, the features matter less than the fashion. When you see these devices in cafes and buses, you’ll want one. What are you waiting for? You don’t want to be left alone in the dark now do you?

[Image credits: GDGT]

Popularity: 86% [?]

I spend a lot of my time shielding non-technical people from the frankly mundane and indecipherable bowels of information technology. But some things that are so important that you need to stop, dear reader, and take the time to understand. Internet neutrality is one of these things.

At the moment, most of the internet protocol (IP) traffic heading to and from your computer makes its way, unimpeded, to and from its intended destination. There is however an undercurrent of discontent coming from a bunch of companies that operate the systems (the “backbone”) that carry IP traffic between you and your favourite websites.

Strangely, these companies are already being paid by all parties. Your ISP pays for the right to send your data to and from their systems – this is a significant part of your monthly bill. At the other end, a company like Google or Flickr pays one of these “backbone” companies to provide a large stream of data made up of thousands of data streams like yours. Even a small-fry like me pays my web hosting company to carry data to and from my server.

Yet apparently, these backbone service providers feel hard done by. Sometimes, due to the vagaries of IP routing, traffic from my PC to a destination website might travel over a third party’s network. These parties feel that if a company like Google is not paying them directly for carrying data to and from your PC, that they should alter the level of service. The little picture I have linked to gives you an idea of a world without IP traffic neutrality. Think Sky TV, but the “channels” are actually your favourite websites – who are already paying for the privilege of being connected to the internet.

It sounds far fetched, but right now companies are lobbying various governments for the right to impose different levels of service on different types of traffic, or different destination websites. Mundane yes; but definitely important. I hope that when the time comes to oppose such measures, you can do so with some understanding based on this blog post.

[via CrunchGear]

Popularity: 15% [?]

If I’ve learnt one thing today it is this: PR is a quirky business.

Today, for reasons yet unknown, Vodafone NZ has completely removed the HTC Magic from sale in New Zealand. They’ve removed all mention of it from their website, and removed existing stock from store shelves.

Perhaps this is related: yesterday I took a few images down from this blog at the request of Vodafone PR. This image was one of them:

Let me be clear: I have absolutely no idea if the request to remove images of the HTC Magic launch party, and the removal of the HTC Magic from sale are related. You can make your own conclusions about that.

Why did I take them down? Here’s where I put my balls on the line and apologise to my readers. I took them down because Vodafone PR offered a quid-pro-quo, that I quite incorrectly accepted. I apologise wholeheartedly to my readers. It’s not good enough. It won’t happen again. If there is a next time, I will thoroughly question PR motives before complying.

There was no restriction on photography at the event. I wasn’t the only one taking photos. So to the best of my knowledge I have every right to publish the photos.

Added: At the time and soon after the party, a couple of people commented on the usage of Google trademark and that it seemed a bit dodgey.

Couple more images after the jump:

Read more…

Popularity: 72% [?]