Apple sells 300,000 iPads in one day: UK release date revealed?
Apple claims to have sold 300,000 iPads on its first day of sales, despite Wi-Fi and charging problems. A UK release date is also rumoured
Apple claims to have shifted 300,000 units of the Apple iPad on the first day of sales. That includes pre-orders and deliveries to third-party retailers -- including massive operations such as Best Buy -- but it still means a very minimum of $150m arriving in Steve Jobs' snug Levi's back pocket. There's more to come when the much-hyped multimedia tablet arrives in the UK at the end of the month.
Apple reckons more than 1 million apps and 250,000 ebooks were downloaded on day one. iPad apps are now available to download from the UK iTunes App Store, and are stored in a new iPad section of your iTunes library. The biggest names so far are TweetDeck, Evernote, IMDb and Marvel comics, with Facebook seeming to have dropped the ball by not coming up with an iPad app yet. iPhone apps should work by simply being scaled up, however.
Despite its list of failings, the iPad received largely gushing reviews from selected US tech pundits. Some new owners are reported to have complained of problems connecting to the Internet via Wi-Fi, or charging via USB on non-Apple machines.
Our sister site CNET.com has pulled together some photos of the iPad's iGuts, released by the FCC. iPhone jailbreaker MuscleNerd has jailbroken the iPad already.
If you want to know when you can fork over some of Her Majesty's English pounds for an iPad, the consumer champions at Bitterwallet report Apple Store staff have been told not to take the day off on the last Saturday of the month -- Saturday 24 April. It's worth noting that the iPhone, iPhone 3G and 3GS all launched on Friday over here. We'd put money on Friday 23 April, with the extra staff required for the first weekend day on which the iPad is available.