Report: ‘Hundreds of Thousands’ of iPads Already Sold

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Despite last-minute hang-ups on getting content onto the iPad, Apple has sold “hundreds of thousands” of the tablet devices since the Cupertino, Calif. company began taking pre-orders a week ago. The report seems to mirror a Venezualan blogger and analyst who predicted Thursday Apple will reach the 200,000 mark sometime today.

Apple could sell more iPads than it did iPhones during the same first three months, “people familiar with the matter” told the Wall Street Journal. Blogger Daniel Tello has said Apple could reach the 200,000 mark for online pre-orders of the iPad by mid-Friday. Tello, also known as Deagol, bases his estimates on order numbers buyers submitted since Apple unleashed pre-orders March 12. An equal amount of in-person pickups at Apple retail locations are also expected, according to Fortune.

Although pre-orders appear to be flooding in before the April 3 date set to begin shipping iPads, Apple reportedly is having trouble with last-minute negotiations with content providers. The uncertainty has caused Apple to put close ties between newspaper and magazine publishers “on the backburner,” according to the WSJ.

Other concessions are being made to producers of TV shows that might be viewed on the iPad. Initial plans to offer TV subscriptions to iPad owners have been sidetracked. Instead, the Cupertino, Calif. company is pursuing the idea of pricing TV shows at 99 cents, rather than $1.99 or $2.99 prices found on iTunes. Another possibility proposed to producers is avoiding iTunes, altogether, and streaming the videos to iPad users.

[via Barron's and WSJ]

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