The iPad has been a huge hit with consumers: Only a couple of months after the launch, Forrester’s Technographics data shows that 1.3%, or 2.5 million, US online consumers report that they already own an Apple iPad, and an additional 3.8% (7.4 million) say they intend to buy one. The success of the Apple iPad has created a halo around tablets in general: About 14%, or 27 million, US online consumers say they intend to buy some kind of tablet in the next 12 months — more than any other type of device we’ve asked about.

A recent Forrester report “US Tablet Buyers Are Multi-PC Consumers” shows that it’s not all good news for PC manufacturers. Because, although consumers are getting excited about tablets in general, they're confused about what they actually are. This confusion probably means that not everybody that shows an interest will actually buy a tablet, but we do think it shows that there's interest in the category that goes beyond the iPad. PC manufacturers like Dell, HP, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba need to offer consumers a bit of guidance on what a tablet is, what it can do, and how it complements the extensive range of devices they already own.

This is a phenomenal week to be covering the publishing industry. Tuesday, Apple released its quarterly earnings. Big surprise, another record-breaking quarter for the folks in Cupertino. A few billion here, a few billion there, blah, blah. How amazing is it that we're not really surprised by such overperformance in an otherwise still-troubling economic environment? Of great interest to me, the eReader guy, was the final iPad tally for the quarter ending June 26th: 3.27 million units worldwide. Still no good guidance on what the US split is, but no matter how you slice it, iPads are hot. (And, no, I still have not bought one, still holding out for iPad 2.0).

And if you follow the implications of that success, as many in the media have, Amazon should just concede the eReader business, pack up its cream-colored Kindle and go home, right? 

Wrong. And to prove it, Amazon made a point of announcing some news of its own, the day before Apple's results were public. Amazon flaunted its own success in selling both Kindle devices and eBooks. That's right, despite that iPad upstart, the Kindle is still flying off the shelves, selling more units each month than the month before it all through Q2, when the iPad challenger was supposedly pummeling it. And it's dominating the eBook business as well, selling as much as eight in ten of the eBooks of major bestsellers, seeing its eBook sales rate triple over last year. Oh, and Amazon indicated it sells 1.8 eBooks for every hardback book it sells. That's right, even though it discounts hardbacks to paperback prices for many bestsellers.

I spoke last week at The Big Money’s Untethered 2010 conference in NYC. I couldn’t stay for the whole event, but I really enjoyed seeing Phil McKinney, CTO of the Personal Systems Group at HP, interviewed by James Ledbetter. He wowed the audience with a little show-and-tell: a flexible screen display printed on a mylar scroll that’s bi-stable (meaning that, like an E Ink screen, it can use very little power to display text) but can also display video at 60 hertz.

[Photo courtesy of ZDNet UK (not from Untethered, but it’s the same demo)]

According to McKinney, we’re about 24 to 36 months away from seeing this display make it into products on the market. Imagine walls papered with the stuff, furniture covered with it. Your “device” would be your portable connectivity, which would trigger your data to appear on one of these screens in your home, office, or public space as you approach. I’m envisioning something that looks like the world in “Splinter Cell,” which my gamer husband has been playing on our Xbox 360:

Most of the news this morning at WWDC was around iPhone 4 and iOS 4. Will leave the new device and platform play to my colleague Charles Golvin. I can't wait to get one of the new phones . . . very slick as it looks like a mini iPad in a modified format.

iAd . . . $60M committed for the second half of 2010. Initial advertisers include: AT&T, Best Buy, Campbell Soup Company, Chanel, Citi, DirecTV, GEICO, GE, JCPenney, Liberty Mutual Group, Nissan, Sears, State Farm, Target, Turner Broadcasting System, Unilever, and The Walt Disney Studios.

Pretty impressive. How do they get to $60M? Rumor is that the minimum buy-in is $1M, but it goes up from there. They claim to have 50% of mobile ad market share according to a J.P. Morgan study. I think it is a bold claim unless this is purely the media spend and doesn't include creative. Our number is comparable -- but without creative. Advertisers can count on the buzz surrounding iAd's launch on July 1. That alone may justify the initial buy. These initial advertisers are a smart bunch. A few million dollars isn't much to any one of them, but these are sizeable buys for mobile.

I think there are a lot of interesting questions to be answered. Many will be "wait and see," but here's my wishlist:

- What do I get for $1M+ in mobile advertising? Am I buying creative, development, ads, and analytics?

- How much targeting do I get?

- Is it performance-based? Or CPMs?

- What will work well on the i OS4 devices? Branding? Or, will the ads leverage context -- the context of how, where, and when I use these devices? Will the ads drive me to online purchases or into a nearby store to make a purchase?

- How much control do I get over where my ads are placed?