An estimated 700,000 iPads bought on day one | Hacker News Reader

An estimated 700,000 iPads bought on day one

mercurynews.com

7 pointssinzone16 comments

An estimated 200,000 people that bought an iPad today will forget they own it sometime within the next two weeks.

I doubt it. I know exactly why I bought mine, and I believe this reason will make it very addictive to everyone else. I see it as an entertainment device. The iPad makes it very hard to do work, and very easy to consume entertainment. It's the perfect device to have next to your bed if you are a workaholic and want to read or watch videos without the temptation of doing work. On my next vacation I'll leave the laptop at home and take the iPad.

Hmm... what I need is a device that makes work more compelling than music, movies, and HN.

When I started programming in the early 80s computers had no mice, the default mode was a single-task text console and it was pretty hard to do anything other than write code and play the occasional game. It's interesting how entertainment features started to pile up and now entertainment-oriented computers are being built.

You could always disconnect the speakers on your computer, remove video players, redirect distracting sites to localhost, and generally hack it so that it's more work-oriented.

I think my point was that you don't need a special device to make doing something pleasurable more enticing.

Maybe you don't need it, but people want it. Reading on an iPad is a superior experience compared to a laptop. The iBooks app is outstanding. In a way it's like watching Avatar at an Imax theater. Sure, it's not required but it's a better experience.

But the Kindle is even better. It's so good, in fact, that I have one despite the DRM. (Not that my opinion matters, of course... just sayin'.)

"Do one thing and do it well."

iPad.putOn(iShelf).iForget();

And 90 JooJoo tablets. Minus 15 orders that were cancelled.

Totally forgot about this. Arrington could have beaten Apple to the punch if only he had not been such a jackass.

No. I bought an ipad today at the main store in SF. There was no line. There was definitely a crowd of people checking out the demo units and a steady stream of people buying units, but there was no where near the number of people when the iPhone came out. It will sell well, but there was not 700k on the first day.

While I do doubt they sold 700k iPads in just a day, it is certainly possible that a lot of people opted to pre-ordered their devices online.

Especially as home delivery was free.

Your anecdotal experience is not valid evidence that 700k iPads were not sold.

(700k #iPad sold today) x (avg price of $700) = $490,000,000

Considering the 3G iPads aren't out yet, I doubt the your average price figure.

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