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While most people are curious about and looking forward to seeing Apple’s iPad launch in March, we bet some people are not as excited.

That would be publishers.

Presently, when readers subscribe to a digital version of their favorite newspaper, it is the newspaper publisher that gets the revenue while their cost of distribution is virtually zero.

With the iPad, it is more complicated. By reading periodicals on the device, not only are users going to give money to the newspapers, but also to Apple. It appears that thirty percent of the revenue would be go to Apple, with what is left going to the publisher. It makes sense for book publishing, but for a newspaper, whose subscriptions must be renewed every year, it is a bitter pill to swallow.

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Disappointment and a little elation are proliferating after the release of Apple’s iPad. Hype and conjecture were clouds of flocculence preceding the release date, only to congeal into a giant iPhone. Looking forward to the coming reception by regular consumers, who will be the ones who will actually define this new device as a success or failure, begs the question: What do consumers really want from their technology?

The Philips Center for Health and Well-being released a study this month which asked US men and women what activities are made better by technology, as well as what features are of importance in the same.

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So it’s official. The Apple tablet rumors have ended.

At this morning’s Apple event in San Francisco, Steve Jobs unveiled what Silicon Valley has been whispering about for years. Dubbed the ‘iPad,’ Apple’s tablet could be just the thing to launch smartphone-notebook hybrids into the mainstream.

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and revolutionary new product,” Jobs said at the event.

The iPad is fundamentally a netbook-sized iPhone. Outside of the design, the most impressive thing about the iPad is its 10-hour battery life, which is pretty representative of what we should expect from the category. Also impressive is the weight – 1.5 pounds.

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Apple released new software today for its Internet television viewing device, Apple TV, and an update to iTunes, its ubiquitous music and media application. The Cupertino-based company announced that it added support to Apple TV version 3.0 for iTunes’ newer features - iTunes Extras, iTunes LP and Genuis Mixes can all now be played on a television or home theater system, as well as Internet radio.

Designed to encourage full album sales, LP includes liner notes and artwork like once prized album covers and booklets, as well as newer possibilities such as music videos and artist interviews. Similarly, Extras brings movie viewers bonus material that is similar to what accompanies DVD purchases. The Extras and LP features on iTunes have been out since September.

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It seemed to be a good week to be a gamer. This week Nintendo announced its first US price cut for the Wii, readying them for Holiday Season competition. The other black belt game consoles, Sony’s Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Elite recently dropped a bill off their price tag as well. In the distant future of Spring 2010 , a WiiMote-reminiscent motion controller will be available for the PS3. Back to the present, the Tokyo Game Show this week in Japan showcases the latest and the greatest for these platforms and the burgeoning market for cell phone games.

This last example documents the profound shift in the gaming industry, formerly populated with expensive bleeding-edge technology and hardcore gamers. But what started with the Wii and games like Guitar Hero and their friendliness toward casual gamers is picking up momentum, and some say its because of Apple.

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Google and Apple are having trouble keeping their Google Voice story straight. Because of the contradiction, the Federal Communications Commission sent letters to both companies as well as AT&T, the iPhone’s exclusive carrier, requesting explanations.

Google Voice assigns a new phone number to a user, who can then connect home, mobile and work numbers to the free service. Google Voice gives a united voice mail, SMS interface where contacts call the GV number to access all of the user’s phone lines, at the user’s discretion. For more details, visit the Google Voice information page .

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Today at WWDC in San Francisco, Apple announced the release of the newest iPhone iteration, the 3G S.

“iPhone 3G S is the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet and we think people will love the incredible new features including autofocus camera, video recording and the freedom of voice control,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of WorldWide Product Marketing.

The phone also has a longer battery life than its predecessors, as well as over 100 new features including Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS, Spotlight Search, tethering and landscape keyboard. It will be much better for video than the 3G.

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Mobile sales dropped in Q1 2009, but smartphone sales surged, according to research firm Gartner.

Global mobile sales dropped 14.5 percent to 269 million units between 2008’s fourth quarter and the first of 2009. Year-over-year sales were down 8.6 percent.

“There were some signs of a recovery in markets such as North America and China, but overall sales in the first quarter of 2009 registered the biggest quarter-on-quarter contraction since Gartner began monitoring the market on a quarterly basis in 2001,” said Carolina Milanesi, research director for mobile devices at Gartner.

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Analysts say that the Dow is mimicking the way it acted during the Great Depression. The good news? It will have to act this way another sixteen months to reach the true dustbowls-and-Oakies nadir.

More good news? For Apple, at least, whose sales have yet to be hurt, despite an industry-wide collapse in PC revenue.

TBR analyst Ezra Gottheil says that Apple’s PC unit sales were up 9 percent in December. This while PC revenue overall dropped 18 percent in Q4 2008.

The overall revenue loss was not due to a significant decline in unit sales but to a drop in what people spent, as the average selling price (ASP) of PCs fell 13 percent.

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At Macworld Tuesday, Apple announced that it will be upgrading its iTunes store music catalog to be available without the digital rights management that currently comes with all standard iTunes purchases. Since the iTunes store launched six years ago, the DRM-files restricted customers to playing their purchased music on a limited number of personal computers and Apple personal music-playing devices.

Label support will broaden from EMI and some smaller independent labels to Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal, upgrading eight of the ten million tracks currently available. The iTunes store will offer tiered-pricing, with charges at 69 cents (the majority of material), 99 cents and $1.29 (newer material), according to Macworld . Upgrading an iTunes library to the new format will cost thirty cents per song, thirty percent of album cost or sixty cents for a music video. In addition, to upgrade at all means to upgrade all. In other words, customers cannot choose to only upgrade some songs, but have to do so all at once. The new files will be DRM-free, as well as twice the bit rate of the previous versions at 256-kbps.

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