Apple expected to sell 700K+ iPads overseas, beating the Mac - Page 2

well the rumour running around Australian blogs is that 70K went out the door yesterday (launch day) and all physical stock in stores were gone in around 2 hours.

10 million is achievable and now likely. I think John Dvorak will owe Leo Laporte a nice bottle of wine.

Got mine (62gb + 3G) at 5:30 pm from PC world no queue then but sales assistant said it had been very busy in the morning - only four left after I got mine... Loving it btw although some initial registration problems and a long synch time and frustrated it won't charge from my 2007 MacBook Pro.

Charge it from the charger supplied. It is a known fact it requires more juice than many USB connections supply but man it charges fast.

BTW Once you get used to not having to hit shift after a full stop for caps it screws you up on the Mac lol. I hope Apple offer the same feature in the full OS X soon.

Can't be true ... remember ... Apple is Doomed™

OK message to all iPad happy campers .. do yourselves a favor, go buy lots of AAPL. If you already have some, go buy some more Let's see Apple overtake Exon Mobile next. Who wants to be number two?

Actually 10 million looks conservative now, since we're counting internationally. It might sell 15 million by the end of the year!

THERE'S NO RIGHT WAY OR WRONG WAY WITH THE iPAD. As far as use, It'll never be known for one way or another. People will use it differently than others. I guess that's what makes it great. I was laughing when Jobs said it's magical. I didn't think I will have any use for it but then I tried and found way more things to do with than I ever thought I would. Now I'm beginning to think Steve wasn't exaggerating about the magical thing.

Gee, a brand new gadget that costs about half the price of a Mac outselling Macs? NO WAY!

YES Way!

Still using Mine 16gb WiFi version bought on day 1 and still loving it just like I did on the very first day....

Also, I have to recommend ppl trying Atomic web browser, I love my tabs....

(sent from my iPad)

Thing is, even Apple couldn't have seen this coming.

Same here. The iPad is really cool for what it does, but I can't see myself being pried away from my MBP either.

If you want to send me your iPad, I will accept it though

Not an AAPL shareholder, I see.

Just goes to show ... people never appreciate as much what they don't pay for ...

Another application: I use my iPad 3G to listen on the go to a favorite FM station that's 900 miles away. I'll connect an audio cable from the iPad headphone jack to the auxiliary input of the car’s audio system. To make things even easier, I added an icon for the station's mp3 feed to the iPad’s home screen, so merely touching it connects to the station's live stream on the Internet. The iPad’s 3G connection seems more robust than the iPhone. Hooking the charging cord to a regular 12V iPod auto charger seems to provide enough juice to keep the iPad's battery from discharging, though I don't count on it for charging. It gives me the programming I want to hear and I don't have to pay a monthly subscription to Sirius.

Then why are you commenting in an article about how many iPads Apple expected to have sold?!

And no one said you should base your needs on how well something might sell.

He already said he could care less. I doubt he could care less, since he obviously doesn't care at all.

I think people are really waking up to what the iPad offers.

My current setup is iMac at home, MBP for when I'm away and iPhone for everyday. Now the MBP really does little more than surf the web and the odd Excel/Word file, I bought it as a device specifically to play iTunes content. Today I would certainly buy an iPad instead of the MBP I bought last year. It fills the web surfing, iTunes player and occasional office document that I suspect that it is all most consumers need (I accept that a lot of you here will be Pros). iPad will do all that without the hassle of copying files back to main computer. The problem with replacing the MBP with the iPad for me would be the overlap with the iPhone functionality - although being on Pay As You Go means I only pay when I want to - real use is £15 per 45days. At about the third or fourth gen of iPad my MBP will be elderly enough to be gracefully retired.

The second area I think the iPad will be a winner (perhaps not initially but later) is for the non-tech savvy relative (what's a flash dear?). I can see myself buying iPads for a couple of family members who don't have a computer, internet or even a landline at home. I'd register the device with a new iTunes account for them and then hand it over for use as web surfing, email, app, BBC iPlayer and iTunes content. Possibly combined with MobileMe they'll have iDisk and Calendar, Contacts etc backed-up too. O2 PAYG iPad is 3GB + unlimited WiFI for £15per month which is ample for light surfing and cheaper than home broadband (about £10pm landline + £15pm broadband).

EDIT: I see 3UK are now offering iPad data plans . £15 for 10GB per month or £7.50 for 1GB. 3UK have never openly sold the iPhone but they have sold the iPhone 3G to customers who were threatening to leave citing iPhone as the reason. They do sell the iPod touch 8GB as part of a package with their MiFi device.

I've never been on their network but the prices are good so I hope this stirs the other networks into a bit more competition on the iPhone contract front. The downside for me is the lack of WiFi on 3UK which for O2 is everywhere (The Cloud + BT Openzone).

EDIT2: Apple have dropped the cost of a microSIM on the AppleStore to £0.02 vice £0.20. Not a large cost admittedly but they are available free from the companies themselves.

How come everyone is surprised Apple is selling more iPads than Macs? Look at the prices and you will know which one is going to sell more units of: the cheaper one, of course.
In Switzerland there was a sale on entry level iMacs for CHF 1'111.- instead of Apple's 1'449.- at MediaMarkt recently. They were sold out in less than 24h. I tell you, if Apple came down from the high margin horse just a little, they'd start selling even more units. The iPad is just another proof to that.

Well, at least you were right that the WiFi+3G would be a huge flop.

Smart idea. Will try it out!

Originally Posted by extremeskater
While I like my iPad and have been using one since the day it was released...

We were wondering where the typical haters and trolls had gone. Many speculated that they were off playing with their iPads. Seems they were spot on.

Apart from SpotOn.

I've got most of the resident rolls on my ignore list. Fake trolling is cool however.

The market capitalization issue can be debated. Revenue and profit are something else. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article that suggests Apple is closing in on Microsoft on those two benchmarks too. Projected revenue for MSFT in the fiscal year is 61.x billion, AAPL is 59.x billion. Either way you look at it AAPL is very close to MSFT in value, revenue, and profit. Who would have thought. No one is smirking about Steve Jobs being named CEO of the decade anymore. The trolling community here is apoplectic and sputtering nonsense. You know the trolls have hit bottom when all they have left is to call the people who buy Apple products ignorant morons. The market share straw man argument has blown up in their faces.

I'll be interested to know how it works for you in your area. In the Chicago suburbs I've been getting very consistent streaming while driving except for very isolated dropouts 5-10 seconds in length. Generally the audio feed restores itself when that happens without my having to do anything. An exception when I was driving near O'Hare around 5 p.m., which I'm guessing was due to high local cellular usage. Okay signal at our daughter's house in the Ravenswood neighborhood, but I haven't tried it much in the Loop to offer an opinion.

We know they are $7.5 billion ahead of MS (already) and only $50 billion behind Exxon in valuation.

As you stated, the projected revenue is pretty much even now and based on growth rates Apple is likely to best MS within a few quarters.

As a general rule, software makes a considerably higher percentage profit to revenue than hardware, but in grabbing the numbers to show that MS is still very far ahead of Apple on that front I discovered some interesting data.

The gap between their profits is closing in fast. Based on MS' stagnation and Apple's growth combined with the apparent success of the iPad this could happen much sooner than the 2 years I figured it would take based on my 2009 projections. Now that is crazy!

. . . . . Apple . . . . . . .Microsoft
Quarter ending Mar 2010. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Revenue = $13.5 billion . . . Revenue = $14.5 billion
. .Profit = $.3.1 billion . . . .Profit = $.4.0 billion

Quarter ending Dec 2009. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Revenue = $15.7 billion . . .\tRevenue = $19.0 billion
. .Profit = $.3.4 billion . . . .Profit = $.6.7 billion

Quarter ending Mar 2009. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Revenue = $.9.1 billion . . . \tRevenue = $13.7 billion
. .Profit = $.1.6 billion . . . .Profit = $.4.4 billion

Just being cheaper doesn't mean it will sell more. The price point obviously makes it more affordable to a larger group of potential customers, but as many article on the subject have stated, for better or worse, the iPad isn't a must have device like a PC or phone.

It's an auxiliary computing device that many have found hard to justify or even imagine fitting into their lifestyle. I can name countless countless complaints that people have had. Some founded and some so completely off the wall I wonder how they were even able to use a computer to write their absurd comments.

Personally, it doesn't fit into my lifestyle since I use a 13" MBP as my main machine, but I also think it's going to be Apple second most profitable division, behind the iPhone, in short order. Out of the gate and they now are financially dominate in the tablet market with everyone scampering to follow their lead. On top of that they now control the majority of profits from PMP, PC and handset market*.

* As an aside, I laugh at the people who think Apple would trade all that by opening their OS to other PC vendors just to increase marketshare but killing their profits.

Not forgetting floppy drive.

Yes and I work for the AMES research centre, so my needs are outside of average as well.

I need a better water resitant case to keep all the shite off as I clean the crappers

Because "Solip" gave a clear assessment of why it wasn't right for him while allowing that it was a great device for those for whom it would fill a niche. You, on the other hand, seem to take some glee in trying to convince everyone that only an idiot would like it.
From your next post:

He sounds like an honest critic (fine).
You sound like a troll (sad and tiresome).

It may charge, when off, even if it says "Not Charging" when on. I know my 2007 Macbook can charge my iPad when off.

...and you wonder why people don't like you!

Extremeskater seems to have avoided the question and pretty much fallen down into switch and bait with casual abuse.

Anyway.. I accept that your non disclosed usage of computing devices may not find much use for an iPad. You maybe a .net programmer glued to the screen, or a video editor or designing 300dpi+ multilayer print jobs or a 3d animator. It's concievable that you are a balanced fellow and don't spend the non work part of your life at a screen.

That said, if you have experience then you can also see it's strengths, but for some reason you just feel like being negative.

I've not seen or used one yet but from observing my changed usage and that of others with an iPhone (not much else to call a usable smartphone in oz) it's bleedingly obvious how interesting the iPad will be.

I do plan on getting one and with it i know that along with everything the iPhone has taken away from my desktop (mini server) and laptop (17" MBP unibody) I will be adding most word processing, spreadsheets, database entry and calendaring. All that will be left will be dev work. In my case that will be heavy photo work, print design and video editing.

Even having not seen an iPad I am already recommending it in my consultant capacity and the obvious desktop/iPad combo. It is killer across a wide range of industries from server admin to doctor. I will be using it in a business venture to stock take, handle membership, seating plans, present, do email, book acts, manage the online presence and more. I look forward to 2011. Accessories will be out, wired network adaptors, storage, card adaptors and more.

Apple has gone back to the days when companies made computing platforms instead of trying to jam everything into one. It's an important milestone in that respect, it wasn't long ago that people were howling about companies being distracted by feature adding, iPhone OS is refreshing in this way, it allows the soft/hard devs space to make money from extending the device.

Another more loathed milestone is that the iPad is the first true computing appliance, it's designed for usage not just a workstation that happens to cobble on whatever. Now we finally have three classes of computing device, the server, the workstation (mobile or desktop) and the terminal. True personal computing is the majority of what is done these days. Long gone are the falsely presented romantic days when if you wanted the box to do something you had to write yourself.

Personal computers, PC's are anything but. They were the rise of the workstation branded as a personal computer to segment the market for business/home. Workstation class computing has a very important role in content creation (Of all types) but the reality is most users are not content developers.

The even more real truth is that most commentors aren't developers of content either, they pose as such but in the main they are script kiddies, or simply users puffed up cause they know how to overuse filters in Photoshop or learned Flash at school and can't use anything else because sadly they aren't IT savvy. They crap on all right though.

I for one am grateful for the emergence of true personal computing devices, not scared of it. A true IT savvy person would be aware of the waste of resources and useless complexity that the current workstation class systems offer to achieve quite basic communication and consumption tasks. Such a person, maybe a sys admin would be cheering at how they might implement iPads due to their instant configure, quick wipe, easy lock down, hardened firmware, simple to write corporate access apps, baked in exchange blah blah blah. They would be able to see how using such devices company wide will reduce help desk calls, downtime, service requirents, soe testing and lots more.

Alas, I'd have to deduce that extremeskater is at the script kiddie level. Enough knowledge to be mildly troublesome and need to have IT fap competitions to prove themselves but not actually very useful or able to think outside their small box provided to them via learning a few applications at college.

Show us your IT wisdom not your troll twaddle. Show us you can think outside your own trumped up super user facade.

30 years of IT/media up my sleeve bud. My first computer had a flashing cursor, thank f..k for the iPad, I'm tired of having to be some kind of freak just to read the news or type a letter. Let's me relish the actual times I do hard core dev stuff, the rest of the time I can just get on with the task. Perhaps the computer is about to become an actual tool, not just a foundry for making tools.

/end story time for the trolls

The SCSI port made me laugh! I have SCSI cables that weigh more than the iPad... I suspect a SCSI terminator weighs more than an iPhone!

An S-100 bus would be nice though, then we could throw in some Dazzler cards:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco_Dazzler
.

Don't be too quick to dismiss the iPad's capability for the dev work you mention. There is an iPad app called Air Display:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/air-d...368158927?mt=8

It comes with a companion app that runs on a Mac (and soon on Windows). This is the first step in allowing the Mac and the iPad to be co-peripherals to each other.

What it gives the Mac is:

-- an additional Display
-- touch input

What it potentially gives the iPad is:

-- a mouse/kb and any other Mac peripherals (scanner, camera, etc.)

It is totally wireless. It is release 1.0, so it's a little slow and jerky!

It also needs some fleshing out... but it's a start! I have been able to use the pen (Bezier) tool in both Photoshop and Pages by drawing the points with my finger (or a stylus) on the iPad. You can manipulate the time line in FCP or Motion with your finger on the iPad.

The apps on the Mac side need to be made more touch-friendly: bigger targets for fingers (buttons, tools, etc.), loupes, etc.

The Air Display app on the iPad needs a way to handle the kb shortcuts (undo zoom, etc)

But it certainly is doable.

Then, there are already some excellent iPad apps for drawing and sketching... you can do things that just cannot be done with a mouse/kb and even some things that cannot be done with a graphics tablet (alone).



Those are some excellent iPad app ideas. I've already written a custom iPhone app that allows a mover to wander through your house and tally all the items (pianos, chairs, Pachinko Machines, etc). to be used in preparing a quote. A variant can be used to take menu orders at a crowded drive-in restaurant... where the lines reach far beyond the intercom speakers.



The seating plan idea is a natural-- you just type up (annotate) little boxes and move 'em around like refrigerator magnets.


Well considered, and well said.

.

Point by point:

Having to wait for your laptop to boot before you can read the news, how freakish is that.

I can remember, not so long ago, when desktop computers were called toys... I worked at IBM at the time, marketing Mainframes.

The iPad's purpose is not to make "technology easy", rather its purpose is to make technology get out of the way (to disappear) so the average user can do his thing with his stuff! The iPad, while not perfect, succeeds in this better than any device in history!

The iPad has a full UNIX file system. The fact that it is hidden from the user is one of the things that makes the iPad easy to use. File systems are in a state of evolution-- metadata, collaboration, cross-application use, cloud computing, synchronization, etc. I think we'll see a different paradigm as files are manipulated and shared in the next decade. Times, they are a-changin... File systems, too.

The bulk of the earth's billions of people have no need, or desire, to use (or know about) any OS. I can drive a stick shift, but an automatic is more practical for my purposes .

If you are n years old and so set in your ways that you won't even investigate/consider potentially better alternatives [to your status quo]... then someone needs to stop paying you!


See how easy that was!

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Makes me wonder: what's the fastest selling computer or gadget so far? The Nintendo Wii? The Sony Playstation? How many did they sell the first year in the market? And could the iPad break that record?

The iPhone, which is universally seen as one of the biggest bestsellers ever took 74 days to sell one million. The iPad did that in just 28 days, and it hasn't slowed down one bit. If the iPad does indeed sell 8 million in 9 months wouldn't that be a new record of sorts?

Between the iPad announcement and launch many estimated that Apple will sell between 4 to 8 million iPads. The trolls reaction was "it will never happen", "you will be an idiot to buy an iPad", "You guys are living in a dream world", "will never happen", and my favorite "Only fanboys will buy it".

Now that Apple sold one million in less than a months their reaction is "I don't care", "it doesn't matter", and "I don't base my choice on how many are sold".

In few years when the iPad growth start slowing, which is normal since the market will reach saturation, they will come back and say "iPad growth is stagnating" and "We've told you no one will buy it", and "it is a flop".

In short.. Apple is Doomed!

This was their reaction to the iPhone and so far it seems we are going the same road again with the iPad

Nice summation of the facts!

Unfortunately the technobigots lack the perspective and common sense to look beyond their own set of knowledge/beliefs.

BTW, I am a pretty happy AAPL shareholder!

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You have missed a key fundamental of technology. It's not necessary designed to replace the needs of a different technology, but to accompany it or replace it for very specific uses.

The Swiss Army Knife fills up a spec list nicely but I can't imagine anyone saying they'd take that over a specific tool designed for specific jobs.

Please please please... stop lumping US all in with YOU! I personally know several people who since their iPad arrived weeks ago have not had the need to boot up their MPBs since. Yes they will need them for the hard core heavy lifting, programming, video editing etc, sure, but for the vast majority of their leisure time or general web time, no need at all.

Just because YOU do not see it being a system replacement, do not generalise that there are a whole bunch of people out the for who it is, my folks included!

All you are trying to do is ram your view of it down our through, and we are trying to do the same back to try and sway your opinion. Let's just all agree that neither side will budge, and stop polluting the informed discussion.

Edit, just to add to the above, a random quote on my local forums from someone..
"The opposite. I sold my netbook within a week of getting the iPad and have not regretted it for one minute. Even at over the odds I payed to be one of the first to get it 7 weeks ago."