iPad…not allowed in Korea

On the 26th April, the Culture and Tourism Minister of Korea made headlines by giving a briefing at a press conference with an iPad on the glass podium, when previously the government had announced individual purchase of iPads from overseas illegal, excluding industrial experimental use. Since then one iPad per person was legalized and this event was counted as a mild demonstrational use.
Likewise, the release of iPad has been sending waves around the world. In wide scope, iPad is particularly influencing the future of Apple, Old media industries, and consumer patterns.

With the distinguished UX that iPad provides, Steve Jobs has furthered Apple N screen strategic foothold which covers all of Apple’s product lines. This will serve as platform to further the Apple legacy in areas such as SNS, games, finance, and education.

For old media industries in newspapers, magazines, and books, the iPad brings attractive new market possibilities. Through App distribution, old media have found a new window of revenue. With iPad selling 6% more paid Apps than iPhone, and the convenience of direct connection through a touch of an App icon for consumers, old media can gain leverage against free web portal access.

Customers interest in MID(Mobile Internet Device) can also be expected to rise with the level of “Apple awareness”. Apple’s iPod, which had initially been a very niche product, has now become almost the norm. With the media buzz, iconic designs, and commercialized high end technology, Apple fish massive interests that even those non tech-savy mass would take more than a second look at the iPad.

KOREA no iPad?
However, there has been no news of iPad’s launch in Korea, a leading global test-bed for IT. Due to perhaps tight inventory and the fact that Korea is not an English-speaking country, Apple has not considered Korea an urgent target market.

Furthermore like the iPhone, there are usage barriers of iPad even if it enters Korea. Korea lacks much in Apps and content, Korean ebook market scale is less than 100,000 books. There are also matters of privacy policies, and the fact that iPad does not support Flash or Active-X which applies to a major portion of websites in Korea.

Nevertheless, there have been already numerous early adopters who have personally purchased the iPad overseas, but are not be able to have full utilization of its applications in Korea. One of our staff at work had actually brought an iPad he had purchased through a friend in the US, and half of the morning was spent gawking over its features, and its slim and light design. I guess the rest of us will just have to wait in agony.