As expected, the iPad consumed much of the chatter about Apple this past week, but it didn’t stop there. As most of you know, few tech pundits talked about anything else in the weeks leading up to the introduction of Apple’s latest and greatest.

At the same time, the official Apple responses to various and sundry questions from the media left lots of gaping holes that will only be filled over time. Indeed, in reading the text of an interview between Steve Jobs and the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg, I wondered yet again whether the dean of tech journalists is losing his edge.

Consider a major concern about the iPad. You create a document in iWork, or see some material in a Web site that you want to preserve. So you click the Print button and — wait — there is no Print button! Well, at least no such capability has been confirmed, nor did Mossberg address it in his first impression piece on the iPad.

Now this isn’t to say you can’t print on such devices. There are several print apps for the iPhone and iPod touch that will no doubt run perfectly well on the iPad. All right. you don’t really expect robust printing functions on a smartphone. But when you’re using a gadget that supposedly bridges many of the functions between Apple’s handheld mobile devices and regular Mac note-books, you have to wonder whether someone was asleep at the wheel.

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This article was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 6:00 PM and is filed under News and tagged with: Apple, iPad, Iphone, Ipod, Ipod Touch, Itunes, Iwork, Macintosh, Print, printing, Steve Jobs, The Wall Street Journal, Wall Street, Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg.