The iPad, whatever one may think of it based on the short presentation offered by Steve Jobs last week is destined to be a game-changer. Personally, I wasn’t so wowed by it – it seems a bit too wide, and it looks like it would be too easy to scratch – but Apple hasn’t come out with a dog for years (the last one was the Newton, depending on whom you ask), so you can be sure that if they’ve decided to release this now, it’s going to sell like hotcakes. It will be available in the U.S. in a matter of weeks, and, said Jobs, and available internationally by May or June.

The iPad’s charm is that it will combine all personal entertainment into one, easy to use device; instead of various iPods for music and video use, and a Kindle for book-reading, and a laptop or iPhone for surfing the web or playing with apps, you get it all in one super iPad package (I suspect that future editions will sport a cellphone as well, after Apple “milks” whatever it can out of the iPhone). Users of the iPad will have access to movies, books, TV shows, music, and any other downloadable content you can imagine, courtesy of Apple, and whatever deals they work out with the content suppliers.

But once again, Israel will be left behind. Months (years) later, absolutely no progress has been made on working out content deals with the people who hold the music and movie rights in this country; the “sole importers” are clearly holding out for a bigger cut, and are holding their contracts over the heads of the foreign content providers, threatening to sue, sue, and sue some more, if they dare to try and do a digital runaround with books, music, or video. It reminds me of the situation here years ago, when an “upstart” book chain started importing English books from wholesalers in the U.S., selling them at far lower costs than the official importer was selling them for. Some interested party put a stop to that quite quickly, I assure you.

Israel isn’t the only country left out of the i-party; China doesn’t have a true iTunes store, and Amazon isn’t shipping Kindles there. The reason, it appears, is the (quite justified) fear that whatever is sent over to China will be knocked off within minutes, thus destroying any opportunity the companies hope to have to sell legal content there (and you know they are just salivating at the thought of a billion Chinese buying books from the Apple Bookstore). But Israelis, who are not known for knocking things off and are more than happy to pay double for the same stuff others get at regular prices, won’t be able to access any of the i-content any time soon.

Of course, all this can be solved if you are the possessor of a U.S.-issued credit card, with a billing address in the United States. Then, Apple and Amazon trust you with their digital content. Actually, I’m being unfair to Amazon, which will gladly accept your Israeli credit card which allows international use (the various gold or business credit cards) for almost anything they sell, including physical music discs and books. But not for the digital stuff.

And we haven’t even mentioned the issue of the iPad’s 3G connection, which will also not be solved overnight, if the iPhone saga offers any solution – it took quite awhile for Israel’s Apple rep, iDigital, to work out a deal with the Israeli cellphone companies. The company doesn’t expect to get the iPad anytime soon, either – in an email iDigital sent out in the midst of the hoopla of the product announcement, the company said that “Regarding [the iPad's] reaching Israel, it is still too early to determine [when, how and if that will happen]. We are acting in accordance with Apple policy, but we are working with the world [Apple] organization in regards to localization.” As if localization were the only problem!

I know many of the people reading this in Israel do have access to an American credit card, as do the people who live in the U.S. who are reading this online, so it may not seem like such a big deal. But it is – not because of the content itself, which is available at a thousand and one torrent download sites, but because this is a clear example of how legal obfuscation by “old tech” companies is preventing progress of “new tech.” I know that sounds ironic coming from someone who writes for a newspaper – what with the internet cutting into newspaper profits and all – but as we have seen over and over in the past few decades, artificially damming up the flow of progress only makes things worse for the defenders of old technology – and the businesses that think quickly and adjust to the situation are the ones that survive, and thrive (talk radio, which is bigger than rock n’ roll ever was on AM, is a good example).

Now that there’s competition to the Kindle, the Amazon people may be looking to expand their base; the iPad promises to be a formidable foe. Perhaps that will be an incentive for Amazon to lean a little harder on the content suppliers to work out a deal with the local importers. I know Israel is a small market (but there have got to be more English readers in Israel than in Mongolia, where you can buy Amazon books!), but during times of trying competition, companies need all the business they can get – and Israel is a content consumer ripe for the plucking.

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What if you don’t want to spend all that airfare just for a shopping experience? Well, pretty soon you won’t have to: Israel is set to get its own Apple Store around the beginning of September, according to an Apple rep I spoke to this week. But like so many things here, the local version is just different enough from the “real thing” to be – well, different.

According to Michal, who represented iDigital, Apple’s local licensee in Israel, in our conversation, the Apple Store Israel “will give customers the full Apple Store experience,” although the store will not be operated by Apple, as Apple Stores elsewhere are. The store will feature a genius bar – where you can pick the brains of an expert on Apple products or software. The store, to be located at the Ramat Aviv Mall, will have a layout and product display similar to Apple Stores around the world. But the Apple Store Israel is a project of iDigital.

Not that that’s a bad thing; iDigital has been getting a lot of good buzz in the local Mac community for its standards of service and its willingness to serve the customer (unlike those “other guys” who used to run the local Apple shop). And, according to Michal, many of the services to be offered by Apple Store Israel – such as training, product demonstrations, etc., will be directed and authorized by Apple. By the way: If you’re a “MacHead” or i-gadget whiz, the Apple Store Israel wants you! iDigital is on a hiring campaign, looking for the right people to work its Genius Bar and other customer interfaces. If you’re up to the challenge, just surf to iDigital’s site and drop them a line.

Note that Israel is actually going to be ahead of the Apple Store game than most of Europe is, come September. True, our Apple Store won’t be one of those bona-fide Apple Stores, but other than the the UK, there currently aren’t too many of those Apple Stores outside the U.S. and the UK, although a number are opening later this year, in Switzerland, Germany, and other locations.

One thing they won’t have at the new Apple Store Israel is an iPhone waiting line – because iPhones still won’t be available. According to Michal, iDigital is doing everything in its power to persuade Apple to work out a deal with a local cell phone service provider. For various technical reasons, such an arrangement has not been made yet, but she’s “hopeful.”

One Apple retail feature that is available right now is the iTunes store – except you can’t download any tunes from it! Here we come to the thorny problem of how to manage the digital rights of copyrighted works in international settings, a problem the most brilliant legal minds on the planet have been working tirelessly to come up with a solution for. But to no avail yet. So what can you do at the iTunes Store Israel? You can buy and download applications for your iPod Touch; technically, you can do so for your pirated “old school” iPhone, but you run the risk of having your device disabled by an iPhone software update (there are contradicting rumors on whether or not this is true; erring on the side of caution is probably wise). Note that here, too, Israel is not being singled out; Apple last month opened iTunes stores in over forty countries, most of which are selling apps and not music.

Which brings us back to the iPod Touch, the current top of the line advanced Apple handheld device we can get our hands on and actually use, at least currently. As it’s name implies, it’s got a touch screen, Wifi, a video player, and access to the the iPhone App Store, with dozens of free and cheap productivity programs, games, entertainment, etc. It’s got the Accelerometer, which keeps the picture on the screen “straight” no matter which way you turn the device. And it’s also got the ambient light sensor, which automatically adjusts screen brightness, depending on the light where you are. Many of the applications give the Touch a PDA-like usefulness, so if you’re looking for a replacement for your old Palm Pilot, the Touch is a great choice. Snap review from my teenage kids: It’s the coolest device they have ever seen. But it’s not an iPhone – which means that it can’t be your single, all around communication device, since you’ll have to shlep around a cellphone for conversations and messaging. So it’s a partial solution – sort of like the new local iTunes store, and apparently, the upcoming local Apple Store.