iPad Sells A Million Faster Than The iPhone

The iPad has been selling very well, even better than the iPhone, which we know is another one of Apple's bestselling products. An excerpt:

Apple sold the millionth iPad on Friday — the day that the 3G-embedded version of the iPad went on sale — according to a statement from Cupertino early Monday. Steve Jobs boasted that "demand continues to exceed supply and we're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers."

Back in 2007, the original iPhone took 73 days to cross the million mark. The iPad managed the same feat in just 28 days, about 2½ times as fast as the first iPhone did.

iPad apps are selling at a blistering pace as well, Apple claims: more than 13 million iPad apps and 1.5 million iBooks downloaded. About 5,000 iPad apps are now available in the App Store, according to Apple's statement Monday.

The most popular paid app for the iPad as of Monday: Apple's own $10 Pages word processing app, followed by GoodReader (a 99-cent document reader), Numbers (Apple's $10 spreadsheet app for the iPad) and Pinball HD (an excellent pinball game for iPad, especially considering the $2.99 price tag). As far as free iPad apps go, Apple's iBooks e-reader app tops the list, followed by Weather Channel Max, the streaming Netflix app (a killer app for the iPad if there ever was one) and USA Today's iPad app.

Yet the current iPad sales figures may well pale in comparison with next year's expected iPad 2, which (I'm guessing) could see a simultaneous international launch, not to mention more storage and the oft-requested front-facing camera for video chat. Remember how iPhone sales exploded in 2008 once the speedier 3G- and GPS-enabled next-gen model arrived? I'd expect the same thing to happen for the iPad come 2011.

If this keeps up and this isn't a fad, I think it's logical to assume that this will have an effect on physical book sales. Like I said before, if the iPad becomes as big a hit as the iPod, it'll have a not insignificant impact on how the content of books and magazines are read, similar to the impact the iPod has had on listening to music.