The big news this weekend, of course, was the release of Apple’s new iPad tablet, now officially in stores. Thousands of 
units were shipped, purchased, and distributed as hype-junkies got their fix on the latest and lamegreatest of gadgets. The glorified iPhones proved themselves to be, surprisingly, exactly that.
In less than a day, someone hacked the iPad using an iPhone 3.1.3 weakness, showing that the “new” 3.2 firmware in the iPad is not all that much of an improvement. The jailbreak allows the user to gain easy root access to the iPad’s core to run unsigned apps and other goodies (or not-so-goodies). The jailbreak was done by MuscleNerd and revealed on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Apple’s iTunes App Store has been going nuts as new iPad owners flocked to populate their new devices with apps. The top download was a Facebook app that, it turns out, wasn’t from Facebook at all. The impostor application sells for $2.99 and allows the user to access Facebook through their iPad. Despite the fact that the tablet has a perfectly good browser and large screen to access Facebook.com without a hitch. Except for that pesky “no Flash” problem, which this fakebook app doesn’t get around either.
Speaking of iPad apps, the trend analysis shows that big media companies and groups, who earlier seemed to think that the iPad would be their savior as they implemented their new paid strategy to rebuild their bottom line, weren’t doing so hot. Their free apps (what are available, anyway, most weren’t ready at launch) were being downloaded brisquely, but the paid apps many of them hoped to field were, well, flops.
Overall, the new iPhone (er..Pad) is selling like most Apple gadgets do: like hotcakes. For now. I’m sure that over the next few weeks, laments about how it isn’t all that will start to surface. It’s inevitable.
