Apple is busy touting the iPad as an avant-garde device, the first of its kind. But it is clearly something that even the most impassioned Apple devotee will have difficulty digesting. It may not be revolutionary, but there is little gainsaying the fact that it will soon be spearheading a procession of tablets. Should the iPad be a resounding success, the procession then will be made up of potential iPad-killers.

One of the potential participants has already announced their interest. Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's CFO, is “confident we have the skills to create a product” to match or outstrip the iPad. "Time-wise we are a little behind the iPad but it's a space we would like to be an active player in,” Oneda said at a Tokyo news conference. The iPad is also being considered a potent threat to the e-book reader market, where Sony is present with its own offerings. But Oneda dismissed the existence of any such threat. He did not say whether such a tablet is already in the works or not.

With no end in sight for Apple's ridiculously long review of the Google Voice app for the iPhone, the search engine heavyweight decided to single-handedly break the deadlock. A web-based Google Voice app for the iPhone and Palm's Web OS platform is Google's repartee to Apple's delaying tactics. The HTML 5 app can be accessed from the phone's browser. This being an HTML 5 app, it is more advanced than the existing browser-based version for mobile phones.

The two companies have been on the warpath ever since last July, when Google claimed that Apple had refused to admit its Google Voice app to the App Store. Although Apple had categorically denied rejecting the app back then, Google Voice is yet to earn its approval.

“You can make calls from your phone that show your Google Voice number as the caller ID. You can also listen to voicemail and read voicemail transcripts, send and receive text messages for free, and take advantage of the low international call rates offered by Google Voice,” Google announced on the official Google Mobile blog.

Pre and the webOS have brought about Palm's revival. Now that it is back in the hunt, it can comfortably concentrate on growth. It now features nearly 950 titles and is expected to cross the 1,000 app mark after Palm's CES keynote. The pace at which apps are being added to the App Catalog is a trickle compared to the App Store, which hit the 10,000 apps mark in just six months (almost the time Palm's mobile app store has been around). The Palm App Catalog is just not in the App Store league and might never leap so high, but it is important for Palm to keep moving in the right direction.