Apple this morning boasted that it sold some 300,000 iPads in the U.S. as of midnight Saturday, April 3.
The figure for the newly launched tablet devices include deliveries of pre-ordered iPads to customers, deliveries to channel partners and sales at Apple Retail Stores.
Wonder how many of the units shipped to channel partners like Best Buy et al still lie on the shelves? In our lexicon, a sale happens only when a widget is sold to the end-user.
Also given all the hype associated with the iPad and the wild success of its older siblings like the iPhone and iPod, we think the 300,000 figure is underwhelming, to say the least.
Sure, there was the usual razzmatazz associated with an Apple launch but here’s what the Wall Street Journal found:
But the long lines soon faded, and few stores sold out of the device.
Apple also crooned that iPad users downloaded a one million apps from the company’s App Store and 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during the first day.
Moses on the Tablet
Here’s what Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the force behind the iPad and other gadgetry from this company had to say on the early response to the iPad:
It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world — it’s going to be a game changer. iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad.
Steve, make the most of your initial euphoria because it ain’t gonna last long.
Heck, Not a Game-Changer
The more we think of the iPad, the less we think it’s gonna be a game-changer.
While Apple’s iPhone and iPods were mostly compared to products in their categories, the iPad will be pitted against laptops and netbooks.
Both laptops and netbooks cost a lot less and do a lot more.
In our not-so-humble-opinion, the only iPad models worth a consideration are those with 3G (yes, we’ve changed our mind on our original position because free WiFi is increasingly hard to find when you travel and increasingly insecure as well).
And of the three iPad models with 3G, the 64GB version should evoke the most interest (none of the 3G models have been released yet).
Mon dieu, the 64GB iPad with 3G costs a whopping $829. Plus you must set aside $30 in ransom money every month to AT&T for unlimited Internet access.
Are You Out of Your Mind?
$829 for a device +$30 a month that can’t do multi-tasking, can’t handle flash, doesn’t have a camera, has no widescreen support for watching movies and forces you to buy a host of expensive accessories ($39 for the iPad case, $69 for the iPad Keyboard Dock , $29 for the USB Power Adapter for charging iPad directly through an electrical outlet, ad infinitum).
For that kinda money, we’d expect to be frolicking with Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Vimala Raman, Tabu and Bhavana on the white sandy beaches of Île aux Cerfs (Mauritius). All, at the same time, may we add. 😉
Hell, the iPad’s got disaster written all over it and/or price cuts soon.
Add to the limitations of the iPad, the steep price and the distressed economic landscape in the U.S. and much of the world, you have a recipe for a huge disaster for Apple and its head honcho Steve Jobs.
Will We Bite into this Apple?
The more we think about it the less inclined we’re to buy the iPad.
Maybe, if the price-point drops to $499 for the 64GB version and flash support is added, we might reconsider.
But as of now, we’re showing iPad the middle finger.
Since desis are cheapo SOBs forever driving a hard bargain, we don’t have to advise y’all to stay away from the iPad.
Apple ‘Sells’ 300,000 iPads; We Predict Disaster added by SearchIndia.com on
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My precise feeling about the iPad at the time of its announcement was that it was distinctly underwhelming. Assuming that OS upgrades in the future will take care of capabilities like multi-tasking and Flash thereby providing the iPad with much-needed horsepower, that still leaves us with a device that is remarkably unergonomic. Since I suffer from a form of RSI I wince at the thought of such devices, and I am sure I am not alone. I guess Apple did foresee this, so they decided to throw in the keyboard dock.
Another rather amusing thing I found was the lack of a USB port, which essentially makes it next to impossible to use a mouse, which is all the more funny because they built iWork for the iPad. How do they expect us to do spreadsheet stuff with iWork? With our fingers?
I guess one reason for not providing a USB might have been a handshake with AT&T – providing a USB port would have allowed users to use USB connectors for other carriers like Verizon and they wouldn’t be tied in to the native connectivity of the unit. Apple could have taken a leaf out of Amazon’s book and shipped their device with universal connectivity (like the Kindle) at a premium, but then Apple has never been one to give away stuff.
But all said and done, I think the device has been priced very tantalizingly. Since you can essentially buy an iPad for less than the price of the original iPhone (where you could do barely anything), there will be a fair number of early adapters. It remains to be seen if it will reach some analysts’ predictions of 6 million for the first year, but there is no shortage of Apple fanatics who would jump at any Apple product irrespective of its virtues or shortcomings. Added to that, the reviews of the iPad have been good, though guarded. Almost everybody has said something like, “Oh, it doesn’t do a lot but whatever it does, it does it excellently”.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write: Assuming that OS upgrades in the future will take care of capabilities like multi-tasking and Flash thereby providing the iPad
Don’t hold your breath on that. It’s three years since the iPhone launched and we still don’t have flash support or multitasking (except for phone & Internet).
Maybe with iPhone OS 4.0 coming on Thursday. Let’s see.
But we’ll have to live with the unergonomic device (iPad). No can do nothing about that.
2. You write: But all said and done, I think the device has been priced very tantalizingly. Since you can essentially buy an iPad for less than the price of the original iPhone (where you could do barely anything), there will be a fair number of early adapters.
Comparing products/things across different time points sans ceteris paribus inevitably runs the risk of distorting results. 2007 was a different time and age. Technology has evolved. There was nothing like the cool touch-screen iPhone then (iPods were for the most part merely music devices and the similar featured iPod touch minus phone, of course, came later). Unlike with the iPad, you could hold the iPhone to your ears, clip it to your belt or even keep it it under your pillow.
The iPad price point is not tantalizing enough for mainstream customers.
We agree with you that the Apple fan-boys will jump in at almost literally any price. We predict a price drop within the next three months after all the fan-boys have been ripped off.
3. You write: It remains to be seen if it will reach some analysts’ predictions of 6 million for the first year,
Some of the analysts have already slashed the estimates to 4.3 million.