Today, I couldn’t help but notice the foretelling convergence of two big events: Apple announced and showed off the iPad, and the dust was still settling and talk in the Print world was still buzzing from the acquisition of World Color by Quad Graphics. As one industry shrinks, another is poised to explode.

First, here’s, the lowdown on the iPad courtesy of Boing Boing:

• • It’s a buck short of $500 for the cheapest model. Wifi only: 16GB=$499. 32GB=$599. 64GB=$699. Wifi and 3G: 16GB=$629. 32GB=$729. 64GB=$829.
• • The battery is good for 10 hours on a charge, Apple claims, with a month of ‘standby.’
• • It’s half an inch thin, weighs 1.5 pounds, and has a custom-cut operating system that will have its own applications.
• • It has a 9.7″ high-res display, but the display is fullscreen: 1024×768.
• • Books, newspapers and mags, including the NYT, will be available.
• • iPad 3G models are unlocked, there’s no contract, and you pay $30 a month for unlimited data. Don’t fall for the $15 250MB deal: if you’re interested in this gadget, you’ll use more. AT&T users get free use at their hotspots.
• • It has a 1GHz “Apple A4″ chip and flash storage.
• • It has Wifi-N, Bluetooth, speaker, mic, iPod connector, an accelerometer and compass. No camera.
• • There’s a keyboard dock, turning it into a desktop computer. Expect third party ones that turn it into a netbook, too: making this a category killer app given the cheap, contract-free 3G.

My take on this? Simple, I did the Mom test.

I have been talking all month long to my 75 year old mother, who reads 2 books a week and countless magazines; the woman who has never run a computer, never sent an email, never even sent a text and is still struggling with pulling the plug on her land-line phone, about how the web works, what blogs are, what content is, what a search engine does and what a Google Adword is and how people these days make money using the internet. Obviously it is a lot to swallow, but she is doing a great job of putting it all together. In these conversations, we have also talked about the world of Print, since she was the matriarch of a family-owned printing business for over 50 years, and how that Print world could be effected by Apples then upcoming announcement of the iPad.

Today, we both watched the Apple iPad promo video together and the verdict? Mom wants one.

She thinks the price is about right (still a little high for her, but in the ballpark), she thinks it looks very easy to use, and she thinks it has all the things she would need and is interested in giving a try: Books and magazines, pictures of the grandkids, email, and Facebook. Oh and maybe a movie, although she still balks at the $3.99 price.

So back to the Quad Graphics deal. According to the WSJ, Quad spent 1.3 to 1.4 BILLION dollars on a magazine printer. According to Forbes, that’s about the same as, or more than Apple spends on R&D (Also see Apple Investor Relations). With that kind of money, should they have invested in a printing company, in old technology? Or are they just restocking their client list?

Most of the talk on the street hasn’t been too warm to the Quad deal, with advice coming from outsiders for employees to sell their stock as soon as possible. With the history of the deal being that RR Donnelley bid 1.5 billion for World Color about a year ago,(RUETERS) and with so many niche magazines folding, who can blame them?  And while that might be a knee-jerk reaction in the short term, it’s probably good advice because as we’ve shown on this blog previously, the very same big name magazines that World Color produced are the same ones that are extremely excited about the iPad platform. Here’s one of World Color’s flagship clients, Sports Illustrated showing off how it wants to embrace the iPad:

I guess maybe the ultimate question is: Will the Quad/World Color deal be able to pay for itself  and make some kind of a profit before the iPad and it’s kin become ubiquitous , if not the de facto standard, and then, maybe, the only inevitable choice? Mom will know.