Apple's ‘Cloudy’ Scrumpy

Apple has announce that it has sold over 1m units of the iPad in just four weeks since its launch in the US. So Steve Jobs appears to have the Midas touch and now has it most successful launch. It has even had to delay the international roll-out of the iPad as it tries to keep up with demand. Since its launch, users have downloaded more than 12m apps and developers have created some 5,000 unique iPad apps. Apple claim to have sold some 1.5m eBooks, or one and half books per reader.

However with the glory come the inevitable challenges. We have written about the Adobe Flash, CS5 and restricted development tool licensing. Apple has also banned app developments from transmitting analytical data which could prevent ad networks from being able to effectively target ads. This obviously would give Apple's iAd mobile-advertising significant competitive advantage.

There are extensive reports that Apple may be investigated by the US Federal Trade Commission.

Remember only last year Last year, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's board after the Fedral Trade Commission had investigated whether sharing directors with other companies violated antitrust laws.

Last weekend Apple launched the 3G version of the iPad. So far it has got mixed reviews with concerns being raised about video quality and differences in battery life.

With the iPad now comes another jailbreak application. MyWi, which at a of costs $10 turns the iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot that can be used by the iPad to acess the internet. This would enable iPad users with an iPhone use the tablet under the same data contracts. The application however can only be used if the user has jailbroke their iPhone. If applications that enable the iPhone Wi-Fi take off then the network carriers will be the big losers as they expect each device to have its own contract. It begs the question why not design and sell it as way in the first place. It would lock in iPhone and iPad users and you would only be using one at a time.

Finally, Apple is closing the streaming music service Lala, which it only bought last December. Some to question whether they want to move iTunes to be cloud based and onto a music subscription model and that they have closed Lala in order to reposition iTunes. This would certain start to support our belief that we will shift from owning to subscribing to media such as music on demand. This would take Apple into a new model and one it may not have wanted to do under Lala.