The iPad's impact on our media consumption can't yet be truly understood, writes Julian Lee in The Sydney Morning Herald. Only two, US-based, newspaper companies have begun to publicly tout applications for the new Apple device. In Australia, newspaper companies seem unable to comment at all.

But one thing is certain, in my mind: the iPad will herald in a new season of demand for video makers. The image at the top of this post is from a simulation of what iPad magazine covers will look like that was posted on the TUAW weblog.

If this is anything to go by, we will see more and more demand for video production skills, including editing and scripting. This is especially true if the iPad app being sold, is designed to produce sound as well as images. Voice-overs, still shots, video, and text can combine to provide a powerful and rich experience. Those short, newsy videos on newspaper websites will start to look very stale very quickly.

People are going to demand more rich content. And they will pay for it.

Not only will the iPad allow interactivity with HTML5, but the larger screen size will mean a lot more space for complex, detailed content such as text and captions. The magazine's traditional focus on meaningful combinations of text and images will simply be upgraded with the new medium as video enters the mix, too.

So I was disappointed with Lee's story on the grounds that it lacked any foresight, as though the journalist had no idea of what an iPad app might look like. This signals a poor imagination.

The upshot of the story is that nobody in the Australian media is saying anything with the exception of a spokesperson from iPone app developer Mogeneration. And all he says is that large media companies are unlikely to be pioneers in iPad app development.

No surprises there.