In an amusing (or troubling) turn of events, Israeli customs officials have begun seizing iPads from travelers entering the country and instructing them to ship the tablet out of the country.
This new policy comes on the heels of a Communications Ministry report, which stated that the iPad’s wireless hardware has not been shipped or tested internationally, so it cannot yet be determined if it complies with the European standards for wireless devices.
The iPad’s wireless radio broadcasts at levels that correspond to American standards, of course; European standards use lower-power broadcasts, and the ministry has not settled on a manner of testing the device yet.
It’s interesting that Israel has taken this step, as no other European nation has mentioned anything about policing the traffic of iPads coming through their borders.
The new policy, however, also follows recent news that the iPad’s web traffic is startlingly high for such a recent launch; Apple’s shiny new tablet had 0.04% of all web traffic last weekend, equal to BlackBerry devices, while Windows Mobile and Android devices had about 0.07%. Maybe Israel caught wind of that?
Articles RSS