Apple, Do You Have a Bigger Fan than the Russian President and will iPad be a New Labrador Retriever?

Today Russian news agencies are all reporting on a very curious event – president Medvedev admitting that he has been using Apple iPad for a while now and enjoying it immensely. His primary use of the gadget happens to be reading – the president has downloaded some books (not mentioned, unfortunately) to his iPad and he now admits enjoying the process of reading ebooks even though he used to think that this could only be an ugly experience compared to actual feeling a book in one’s hands.

During his visit to the Ukraine Medvedev visited the Kiev University where he had a discussion with students – and talked about some of the latest technologies with them. In fact, this seems to be quite a dubious move because bluntly advertising a product (especially of a foreign manufacturer) looks strange for a head of a country but Dmitry Medvedev has a special reputation of the chief Russian geek so this will certainly be overlooked anyway.

The irony here is that iPad is not officially available in Russia yet and Russia is not even on the list of the 9 countries to officially have access to the gadget in the end of May after the first fans in the US. This means that the iPad used by the president is definitely brought illegally from the US – we have already seen plenty of cases where iPads were attempted to be smuggled to Russia and many of such attempts succeeded with people bringing full suitcases of iPads on the flights from the US. Now it is no wonder that some geeks have already started discussions of how jealous they are that their president already has the gadget everyone is supposed to be craving for without hopes of it just coming through the door in the hands of an assistant as it happened to Medvedev.

In fact, the Russian president has a peculiar loyalty towards Apple: he is known to have been working on a Macbook for years (including on his video blog) and he has been seen with an iPhone frequently (also way before it was officially available in Russia). During his latest visit to the US Medvedev has even suggested to Barack Obama that they should have a couple of dedicated iPhones for the two of them to exchange text messages directly without protocol and various boring issues that normally surround communications between them. So the fact is here: Medvedev has not been shy about demonstrating how big a fan he is for Apple – definitely not something demonstrated by Obama who is the head of the home country for Apple.

At that I have high enough opinion of our authorities and their well-being not to even consider an opportunity of a clever product placement actually initiated by Apple – instead I definitely think Medvedev is clearly and genuinely charmed by beauty and functionality of Apple products like many people around the world are with the only difference being that he happens to be the head of a multi-million country.

And such an attention to a company’s products from a head of the country probably deserves some more loyalty towards the country in question by the manufacturer of the products – at least a little more than what Russia generally gets, i.e. receiving Apple products after a huge delay (like, iPhone 3GS only arrived here officially 9 months after people in the US could get one) and at a price that virtually prevents the majority of the population (even those middle-class people who usually buy them in the US) from enjoying the gadgets from the Cupertino company.

The thing people in Apple hardly realize is the abundance of opportunities they are now missing in Russia where the vast majority of the population would have been happy to become a little closer to the head of the country by copying their habits and lifestyle. You know, when the first president Yeltsin played tennis, it quickly turned into a popular national sport here. When people got to know that Putin had a Labrador retriever (not a popular dog breed in the country at the time), the number of the puppies skyrocketed and as a dog owner I can definitely confirm it’s hugely popular here now as I know at least 5 such retrievers in my neighborhood which is more than any other breed.

Now that president Medvedev demonstrates his affection toward Apple gadgets, Apple definitely faces an opportunity of a Labrador retriever that they should try not to miss – like further delay the official sales here and selling it at a price that is twice as high as it is in the US (the usual thing for Apple but probably not a good one?). Why not make Russia a happy country of Apple fans headed by the highest ranked Apple fan in the world?

Via (in Russian)