Domestic demand for Apple's
That's what Apple claims, anyway. Do you believe it?
We have a right to be jaded when companies blame handheld gadgetry delays on overwhelming demand. Amazon.com's
Some may have interpreted the outages as bullish indicators, but they really boiled down to breakdowns in their respective companies' supply chains.
That said, I completely believe Apple this time, for one simple reason. Amazon and Barnes & Noble never divulged any actual sales metrics. It took Amazon a couple of years to even address the volume of Kindles out in the wild, and even then, it only vaguely cited "millions" of cumulative owners.
Apple, on the other hand, is shouting its iPad sales figures from the Cupertino rooftops. The company delivered more than 500,000 units in its first week on the market -- and that's before the 3G model, for which some of us true gadget geeks are waiting, begins shipping by month's end.
Even better for Apple, all these iPads aren't winding up as shiny paperweights. Disney's
The tablet game remains in its infancy. Hewlett-Packard's
Hopefully, Apple sees the competitors coming, and doesn't get cocky. This is clearly its war to lose, but the battlefield is about to get crowded.
Are you one of the 500,000 iPad owners already? Will you be buying one in the future? Share your thoughts in the comments box below.