"When we were in the U.S., it was one of several tools that he used to keep in touch with the office back in Norway, to do his work," Trude Maaseide, a spokesperson for the prime minister, told the AP. Stoltenberg was in town for President Barack Obama's nuclear summit.

Running the iGovernment

Photos of Stoltenberg reading content on his iPad at Kennedy Airport during the delay are circulating the Internet. Many are discussing the prime minister's move away from a laptop , netbook or even a smartphone to keep up with e-mail and other tasks while stranded. But some analysts are saying what appears to be a profitable publicity win for Apple could backfire on the iPad maker.

Although it's not clear what types of tasks Stoltenberg was conducting on the iPad, it's likely that he was sending e-mails to his staff back in Norway. The iPad would also allow him to watch television shows and movies, listen to music, or just pass the time while waiting for the next flight home.

"It's interesting. Here you have a brand-new technology and a head of state actually using the technology to manage the country," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. "It either says an awful lot about the device or an awful lot about what he needs to do to manage the country."

A Risky Move

What does a government official's use of the iPad say about the security aspects of the device? As Enderle sees it, one of two things: It either gives a nod to the security of the iPad and the network or makes a fairly severe comment, which he thinks is more likely, about the official's knowledge of the device and the network. Since the iPad is a consumer device, he noted, it doesn't offer anywhere near the heavy encryption that a government device does.

"Remember, even a Research In Motion BlackBerry, which is relatively secure in the smartphone space, wasn't enough for Barack Obama. Stoltenberg had to get a specialized phone for government work, a very expensive hardened phone," Enderle said. "So this may have more to do with the lack of knowledge of the risk that individual is taking than it does with the security of the device."

Finally, there's the question of more free publicity for the iPad. But analysts aren't so sure Apple is doing cartwheels over this story because it carries a significant downside for the brand if anything goes wrong.

"If you are Apple, you don't want people doing this because it's so risky. If there is a known breach, it will do far more damage to Apple than this particular stunt will do good. This is one of those things I am not sure Apple is all that happy with," Enderle said. "Stoltenberg is doing something that is incredibly risky. Like anything else, if it backfires on him it's going to reflect poorly on Apple. All Apple can say is that they designed the device to do these things, but it's not going to help Apple much."
 

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