iPad news, bans, and misinformation

So you've gone by and drooled over the newest Apple product at your local Apple store, wishing the thing didn't cost $500+. Or maybe you've decided it's not worth the money just yet and you can wait for the next generation(s) to be released. Maybe you're totally anti-iPad and have decided it'll never be worth having yet another device to cart around. Either way, there's no escaping the iPad, it's the most talked-about mobile(ish) device on the market right now.

If you've been paying attention to iPad news, you've probably also heard that the product has been banned by Princeton, Cornell, and George Washington University. Even entire countries like Israel were banning the tablet computing device. Why? Well, a number of articles were written claiming the iPad was crashing Wi-Fi networks on campuses and Israel felt the device would interfere with other mobile devices and did not meet European device standards.

Problem is, the iPad, whether you love it or hate it, has been getting slammed by misinformation  -- and part of that can be blamed on poorly-worded rumors being spread by the media. A decent analysis of this rumor-spreading comes to us from former BusinessWeek tech columnist Steve Wildstrom. In this blog post, Wildstrom explores how the supposed campus bans on iPads are in fact nonexistent. Despite some campus network glitches, the devices aren't crashing anything and are even being sold on campuses like Cornell, according to Wildstrom.

Israel, though it did ban the device, rescinded their decision within just two weeks, Reuters reports. The Israel Minister of Communications Moshe Kakhlon said the device held up to the "intensive technical scrutiny" in a statement yesterday, and immediately started allowing the device back into the country. 

The Christian Science Monitor explains where some of the confusion has come into play. In short, they explain that while the device itself has never been banned at Princeton certain iPad units were malfunctioning when trying to access the network and those specific iPad units were banned. The school is working with Apple to create a permanent fix to the problem, read the article.

In other iPad news, what does seem to be true is:

Adobe has quit on trying to build a software tool that would work on the iPad and iPhone devices. 

The iPad app store is live (and a closed environment like the iPhone app store)

The international launch is delayed

And, people will break your fingers for one, so be careful when caving in and spending the dough: