Million mobiles in North Korea. Now for the DearLeaderPad

Students of North Korea will love Eric Lafforgue’s wonderful pictorial app, Fotopedia North Korea, from the App Store (acknowledgements for this picture). It works on both iPad and iPhone.North Korea rapidly nearing one million cellphone users | The Verge

So there are now a million mobiles in North Korea. Mind you, owning a device comes with responsibility. One of the fortunate few was recently executed for calling a number in South Korea. In the rest of the world we worry about dropped calls while in North Korea it is more a case of dropped heads.

All this makes me wonder what happened to the DearLeaderPad, Korea’s answer to Apple’s iPad. Earlier this year it was rumoured to be a featherweight device, with stupendous performance and a screen to die for, perhaps literally.

The DearLeaderPad is characterised by a total lack of connectivity. No ports, no Bluetooth, no wifi and no 3G. Nada. It is perhaps fortunate given the possibility of stumbling upon a foreign web site, quite apart from the risk of having to load Flash Player.