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iPad could outsell original iPhone
Sources at Apple have reportedly confirmed analyst estimates that Apple received 150,000 pre-orders for the iPad in the device's first weekend on offer. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, these sources claim customers have pre-ordered "hundreds of thousands of the device" and put Apple on track to sell more iPads in its first three months on sale than it did iPhones. Apple sold around 1.2m iPhones in the three months following its launch in June 2007.
The report also claims that Apple is "racing" to tie up content licensing deals before the first iPad models are released on April 3. The company is reportedly focusing on convincing TV networks to drop the price of TV shows that users can download directly to the device. However, the networks are still cautious about signing deals with Apple for fear of damaging their current revenue streams.
Newspaper, magazine and textbook publishers are also holding off from inking agreements with Apple, partly because the device won’t support Adobe’s Flash. Many publishers use Flash in their multimedia content as well as in ads. However, sources claim Apple's new virtual bookstore, the iBookstore, is on schedule and will have almost as many titles as rival stores from Amazon and Barnes & Noble by the time the iPad is released.
Meanwhile, new data from app analytics firm Flurry shows that iPad developers are mainly testing games on the new format, making up 44% of the total activity. This is followed by entertainment with 14% of the apps being testing coming from that category, followed by social networks with 7%. According to a new 10-page pact barring partners from disclosing information about the iPad, developers must promise to keep the device in a room with blacked-out windows and tethered to a fixed object.
