Two million sales already. I've seen the queues here in the UK, not just on Friday but also on Sunday morning outside the Westfield Mall store: People rushing around to get their iPads, with hundreds more crowding round the display tables to feel and touch the device. These scenes, without doubt, are common in all countries where the device is now on sale.
There can now be no doubt that the new Apple tablet has caught the imagination of the masses. There has been a tremendous amount of anti-iPad rhetoric in some sections of the media but, above all, on internet comment and chat sites. It seems that every time Apple introduces a new product the Apple haters come out in full cry. Well, they are entitled to their views, but the real test comes from watching people's reactions when they get hold of an iPad; and in watching those sales graphs rise. Sales are booming almost in direct ratio to the amount of bile and vitriol being poured out on the internet.
The iPad may be too big, it may be too heavy. It could even have a reflective screen that shows finger marks. It may even lack USB ports, parallel printer ports, ethernet ports, DVD slots, SD slots and a cassette tape interface. Somehow, though, none of these perceived sales killers seem to be stopping people getting out their credit cards. Critics can at least give Apple one star for that.