Apple knocks out another million iPads

Apple on Tuesday announced that it has sold 3 million iPads in 80 days. The announcement comes only three weeks after Apple announced that it had sold 2 million iPads in less than 60 days.

In and of itself, the 3 million mark isn’t a meaningful number. But it does offer an important indication for Wall Street: Apple’s selling iPads faster now than before, having blown through another million in three weeks. It’s also an opportunity for Apple to thumb its nose once again at analysts and technology writers who expected the iPad to flop, or at least to peter out long before Apple sold 3 million units.

It also helps Apple to reassure iOS developers supporting the iPad that they’re working with a growing user base. The number of iPad apps has more than doubled since Apple’s last announcement, also. When Apple announced it had sold 2 million iPads, it counted about 5,000 iPad-native apps. Now the company says that more than 11,000 iPad apps are available.

Apple began selling the iPad in the United States in early April. Shipments began in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom this past weekend. Apple also expects to ship the iPad in nine more countries starting in July, with more countries coming on board later this year.

The news comes on the cusp of Apple’s release of the iPhone 4 in the US, UK and Japan – that rollout begins on Thursday, June 24, 2010. The new iPhone 4 is the first iPhone to ship with iOS 4, a new version of the mobile operating system which the iPad will get later this year.

http://twitter.com/PDelahanty Patrick Delahanty

What sucks is that some iPhone apps are now requiring iOS 4 (likely for iAd)…which means those apps can no longer be used on the iPad, at least until the iPad gets iOS 4 too.
http://www.loopinsight.com Jim Dalrymple

Out of curiosity, how many iPhone apps do you use on your iPad?
Paul Forrester

I stopped counting after two iPad pages, but of the 40 apps on the two pages, 15 are iphone apps. That's about 40%!
http://www.loopinsight.com Jim Dalrymple

Wow, I have nowhere near that number. I have maybe two or three.
flargh

I probably have half a dozen iPhone apps on my iPad. I don't intentionally put them there, except in a few cases, but some get through anyway – and I decide that they're worth using on the iPad too.
constableodo

Scott Moritz called the iPad the iFlop. Take this man's criticism of any product with a grain of salt. He's clearly blind when it comes to knowing what consumers like.
zholy

iOS4 will not be able for iPad Users until fall.. In Substitute iPod touch and iPhone Users will have the download today..

Apple iPhone iOS 4: Top 9 New Features to Expect:
http://www.aneesoft.com/tutorials/iphone/iphone…
bbrewer

So, double checking SJ's '3 per second' quote, it pans out to actually a bit more than 3 per second. Twenty three per minute, actually. The interesting bit is that the sales are increasing to a rate of about 26 per second, overall. That is nearly 2 per second, overall. But if you subtract out the first 2 months, they must have sold at a rate of over 2 per second/34 per minute (24 hrs per day) after the second month. You would expect that it would have died down a bit after the first two months if in fact it were only selling to 'fanboys' as the windows fanboys (the true believers) seem to think. Then again, maybe there are more Apple fans than they thought. All those iPods probably had a lot to do with it.