Apple sells 3 million iPads in 80 days

http://ipadwatcher.com/2010/06/22/apple-sells-3-million-ipads-in-80-days/

by mlongo • 16 years ago

48 60 16 years ago

singer2• 16 years ago

Has anyone tried to buy an iPad at Best Buy recently? They have been sold out in my area for a while, and they have no idea when they'll get more since Apple randomly ships them to Best Buy stores.

honopu• 16 years ago

I am not sure why this is downvoted, but I did stop by Best Buy here in Cincinnati and they only had two 64gb 3g ipads, and said they had not received any of the 16 or 32gb wifi ipads in the last few weeks.

thenduks2• 16 years ago

Does Apple offer free shipping in your area? Rather than wait an unknown timeframe, just order one online - then keep checking with WorstBuy and if they get some in before it ships you can just cancel the order. Worked for me :)

singer2• 16 years ago

Good plan... if I didn't have gift cards to Best Buy.

josefresco• 16 years ago

I ordered my 3G version online on May 29 and received it by June 16th. I found that to be easier (albeit longer) than camping out in front of Best Buy.

d0m• 16 years ago

Oh wait, it's been 2 years I have some bestbuy gift card and I never knew what to buy with it!

datasink• 16 years ago

My local Best Buy (in Sarasota) is the same. A BestBuy employee said they're working through a backlog. People ask when the next shipment arrives, and when it does they come in to buy them up. In some cases the entire shipment is gone in the same day.

chopsueyar3• 16 years ago

Did you check Computer Advantage across from the airport. I got mine in Sarasota from Computer Advantage about a week ago. It was the 32GB wifi only model.

aresant2• 16 years ago

I've noticed from the developer side that our iPad app downloads are really strong compared to the relatively low #s - I dont know if we're just better suited for that format - anybody else notice that?

tortilla• 16 years ago

Probably because there's currently less noise in the marketplace. Also the iPad itself is a much better device to browse and search apps than the iPhone.

snewe• 16 years ago

Press release: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/apple-sells-three-mi...

bradleyland• 16 years ago

This is a device that received a strong negative reaction from many in the (non-Apple-worshiping) tech press. It just goes to show you how out of touch many of them are with what really excites users.

robryan• 16 years ago

It's one of those devices which you can sell really easily to people even if they may not need it. Combined with Apples always effective marketing.

tjogin• 16 years ago

Yeah, or maybe it shows that you actually weren't an "Apple worshipper" just because it was obvious to you that the iPad was going to be huge.

nkassis2• 16 years ago

I don't know, I knew many people who wanted such a device, I was just hoping someone other than Apple would make one too. It was obvious for years that tablet had potential but for some weird reason, no one saw how crappy windows was on a tablet. At least none of the manufacturers noticed it. I got a macbook tablet mod for one of my bosses in the past. It was unusable considering OSX wasn't built for touchscreens (exactly like Windows tablet).

Android has been out for years now. They could have seen the tide coming and released a tablet running it way before apple. But they didn't. They just seem to want to leech of apple's market research.

halo2• 16 years ago

Windows Vista sells nearly 40 million licenses in the first 100 days (http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/16/microsoft-vista-sells-nea...).

This is an operating system which received a strong negative reaction from many in the (non-Microsoft-worshiping) tech press. It just goes to show you how out of touch many of them are with what really excites users.

masklinn3• 16 years ago

Vista took 7 months to reach 4% market share, 7 took 3 weeks.

7 sold 90 million licenses in its first 4 months.

anigbrowl4• 16 years ago

I'm somewhat surprised that none of the other manufacturers has brought a similar product to market yet - well, a few have, but in a muted, almost diffident fashion. Given the lead time and the existence of fairly competitive hardware already deployed in netbooks, I had expected that Asus or someone would move more aggressively to get a foothold in this opening market rather than allowing Apple to brand the form factor. Perhaps they are calculating on launching competing products for late summer (for students going back to school) or Christmas (the family sofa computer).

there are a lot of commercial possibilities going unexploited at present. I'm already seeing iPads deployed commercially; at the mall the other day, I saw someone using one to take consumer surveys, and I noticed over a year ago that 7-11 stores use (older) tablets for inventory management. As a pure consumer device, tablets - preferably slightly larger ones - are just begging for deployment as a family boardgame platform.

nkassis2• 16 years ago

Yeah, I don't get it either. I find it odd they did not see the iPad coming. I guess I'm looking at it with hindsight but an device running the iPhone OS was rumored way before the release. An android tablet could have been out and running before the iPad. It seems they were just waiting to see if apple could sell any and then start building one.

Pretty crappy way to tag along on another companies research and marketing.

I just want a damn tablet with android with decent specs. I don't care if it's flat like a pancake. Make it 720p with a front facing camera and at least 32gb of flash memory. Then ew nvidia chip and BLAM, I'll buy it so will all the real computer users. :)

Terretta• 16 years ago

> I'll buy it so will all the real computer users. :)

There are considerably fewer “real computer users” than non computer users.

Let's face it: “real computer users” are a niche.

glhaynes• 16 years ago

I think everybody was assuming: "There's no way they'll just release a big iPod touch." Nobody thought the formula for a successful tablet could be defined so simply.

illumin8• 16 years ago

The problem is that hardware is becoming somewhat easier, but the software is not there yet. Apple definitely did a lot of work on iOS and it shows.

chopsueyar3• 16 years ago

Maybe you need an aPad?

http://www.ipmart.com/main/product/APad,China,iPad,,7,0,Inch...

ugh• 16 years ago

Recently they were also used to read speeches off, as seen two weeks ago in the German parliament: http://webtv.bundestag.de/iptv/player/macros/_v_f_514_de/od_... :)

(More background information: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,702119,00...)

mlongo• 16 years ago

In Brazilian TV networks we are starting to see them in the hands of news anchors and talk show hosts all the time.

Several channels that are covering the Word Cup (in Brazil that is almost all of them :-) have the hosts reading information off iPads.

chadgeidel2• 16 years ago

Jake Humphrey has been lugging an iPad around during the BBC coverage of F1 since they were released. It's fairly prominent and I was wondering if Apple put it there.

thought_alarm2• 16 years ago

I'm not surprised. A tablet requires software that manufacturers are unable to write (except for HP, now) and their traditional software partner has nothing remotely ready for them. So they turn to Google.

Apple added a number of new APIs and UI extensions in order to make the iPhone OS suitable for a large screen. Until Google does the same with Android we'll be stuck with nothing but big Android cell phones.

protomyth2• 16 years ago

add to the software edge, the base price of $499 doesn't leave a lot of room for other companies to build one at a decent profit.

ZeroGravitas2• 16 years ago

There's plenty of footage of Android tablets running everything from 1.5 to 2.2 and nothing obvious is missing from casual inspection of people playing games, surfing the web etc.

What do you think is missing, or to say it another way, why is the iPad not just a big cell phone (minus the ability to make calls)?.

anigbrowl4• 16 years ago

(scratches head) Android isn't the only other other option for controlling a tablet. I know desktop Windows and Linux are unsuitable from a UI point of view, but there's plenty of middleware around to bridge touchscreens to software, and there are plenty of self-contained UI paradigms: game consoles rarely use the desktop metaphor.

Not the exact same thing, I know, but waving the Nintendo Wii controller around feels a lot closer to interacting with a touchscreen than it does my desktop, and there's a vast pool of UI design knowledge in the gaming market. Not instantly accessible to likes of us, but companies like Asus and their technology partners have the resources, developer infrastructure and motivation to open up alternative platforms.

wallflower4• 16 years ago

> As a pure consumer device, tablets - preferably slightly larger ones - are just begging for deployment as a family boardgame platform.

http://gametableapp.com/

A generic constrained board is interesting.

anigbrowl4• 16 years ago

Exactly - I was just envisioning something big enough to fit in 2 kids at the side too.I think once you hit ~8.5 x 11" screen area it become practical to play monopoly or scrabble, but not so big as to be unwieldy.

vaksel• 16 years ago

the iPad sells because it's an apple product, everyone gotta have..not because it's a tablet.

zyb09• 16 years ago

I'm a little bit wondering why Microsoft hasn't surprised us yet. Yea Microsoft. They had this Surface thing for years, which is allegedly pretty cool, why not turn it into a tablet? They also showed a pretty slick prototype, that later got canceled, despite the positive impressions. And It's not like it's a small company with no resources or money.

wallflower4• 16 years ago

This will explain everything.

> Real artists ship, dabblers create concept products

> But there does appear to be a weak correlation between a company’s ability to churn out concept products and its ability to design, manufacture and profitably sell products based on those.

http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/

Cached: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?oe=UTF-8&hl...

rokhayakebe2• 16 years ago

Most people want to see 3M in 80 days, but it is more like 3M in 3000 days. Correct me if I am wrong, but Apple started to work on these touch screen technology (which I guess is the foundation of the Ipad) since 2001. Or at least that's what I heard during Jobs'D8 interview.

chris24• 16 years ago

They haven't been _selling_ them for 3000 days.

jasonlotito• 16 years ago

But they have been selling the iPad for more than 80 days. Of course, Apple never counts the pre-order period.

czhiddy• 16 years ago

Using that logic, it's 3M sold in about 40 years, since that's about when the first microprocessors were developed.

rokhayakebe2• 16 years ago

That is different I believe. The key feature for the Ipad would be it's touch screen technology.

Apple sells 3 million iPads in 80 days

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