Since Amazon introduced its Kindle ebook reader, analysts and rivals have attempted to gauge its success via learning sales numbers. Because of that, the online bookseller has jealously guarded those figures – at least until Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Thursday let slip “millions” of people own the device. That number is actually 3 million, according to a new report.

“The total number of all types of Kindles out there in users hands hit 3 million sometime in December,” Michael Arrington of TechCrunch writes, citing sources who’ve been “amazingly accurate” in the past.

Although Amazon spokespeople refuse to elaborate on Bezos’ “millions” remark, the word sent BusinessWeek to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations.

“Assuming that at least two million people have bought the device, and that each paid at least $259 – the cost of the least-expensive Kindle – Amazon now has a business worth more than $500 million in sales,” the publication said Thursday.

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney also figures Amazon could sell 2 million Kindles this year. Other analysts predict Apple’s iPad may sell twice that in 2010 alone.

Why is it so important how many Kindles is sold? Not only has Barnes & Noble’s Nook attempted to challenge the ebook leader, Amazon figured prominently in Apple’s introduction of its own “Kindle killer,” the iPad. CEO Steve Jobs announced his company will “stand on their [Amazon’s] shoulders and go a bit further.” In private, however, Apple has used Amazon’s pricing as a wedge to split off some big-name publishers. Although Amazon has attempted to adopt some of Apple’s practices (raising the royalties for publishers and adding apps to its e-reader), the company is squarely in Apple’s sights. Little wonder Amazon doesn’t want to talk numbers.

[Via TechCrunch and BusinessWeek]

Guest commentary by David Barnard, owner of App Cubby, publisher of the popular Gas Cubby and Trip Cubby apps.

Much has been written about all the iPad surprises, disappointments, features, missing features, hype, expectations, future, etc. adnauseam. But not much has been written about what the iPad says about Apple. I’m excited about the iPad because of the many ways it demonstrates that Apple just gets it.

Palm almost gets it, Microsoft may be on it’s way to getting it with the Zune platform, Blackberry doesn’t have to get it, and Google just doesn’t get it.

What’s this “it” I’m referring to? Humans.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCHzgRPXRCM&feature=player_embedded

There’s some pretty good jokes is this Barely Political mash-up of President Obama’s State of the Union address and Steve Jobs’ iPad presentation.

Via Giz.

Enough of my dumb opinions. I thought it would be interesting to find out what some Mac and iPhone developers make of the iPad. What are their first impressions? What do they intend to make for the iPad platform? Do they have any concerns?

I got in touch with a whole bunch of developer contacts and asked them if they’d like to share their thoughts with you, the Cult readers.

Here are the replies I got.

Ken Case of OmniGroup revealed that the company is working on iPad versions of apps like OmniFocus and OmniGraffle:

“We’re really excited about Apple’s iPad, and are looking forward to updating OmniFocus to take advantage of the larger screen size. We’re also looking at creating iPad adaptations of several of our other productivity apps, such as OmniGraffle.”

Manton Reece of Riverfold Software (maker of Clipstart and Wii Transfer):

“I was so annoyed with the closed nature of the App Store that I stopped developing for the iPhone. The iPad will still have those frustrations, but the large screen opens up a whole new class of applications. It’s impossible to resist.”

Mark Bernstein of Eastgate Systems (maker of Tinderbox):

“The iPad announcement leaves many things unclear. Does iWork depend on private APIs, or will developers be able to write first-class applications? Will individual books be subject the the approval process — leaving 40 overworked Apple employees the additional task of approving or rejecting books an magazines?

“Since 1982, Eastgate’s been publishing original hypertext fiction and nonfiction. These works — many of which are now studied in universities throughout the world — can’t be printed and can’t be simulated in ePub. But, if we bring them to iPad, would that be vetoed as duplicating the built-in book functionality?

“In short, the app store is a source of grave concern for software developers. That said, the iPad is the most exciting personal computing development for a decade. It will transform our notion of computing and redefine the idea of the information appliance.”

Steve Jobs will never pitch a product more effectively than he did at the announcement of the iPhone. He said he was introducing three products: “A revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a break-through internet device. And they’re all one product: The iPhone.”

I thought back to that legendary pitch when I saw Steve affix one of his weakest lines ever to the iPad, a device I think actually has remarkable potential:

Image via Gizmodo

That’s right, the selling point is that it’s “Our most advanced technology in a magical & revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.” Really? Your selling points are advancement, magic, revolution, and cheapness? The best thing that line has going for is that device and price rhyme. First of all, almost no one buys magic. More importantly, Apple should never make price a central selling point; other companies can make cheaper knock-offs and then Apple has to re-convince people that that higher prices are justified. Once you try to become the price leader, you can’t really try to go premium again.

But the tagline was also a summation of the one problem that kept coming up for me as I watched the iPad announcement: the device simply does not have a killer app. A killer app, is the use that shows why a new technology is worth buying. For example, microwaves didn’t start selling until microwaveable popcorn was introduced and PCs didn’t sell until spreadsheet software was launched. The iPhone’s killer app, quite honestly, was Safari; the iPhone could certainly do a lot more than browse the web, but for many people, seeing the New York Times home page in multitouch made the sale.

The iPad? Well, I’ll say that the most impressive thing I saw today was the New York Times home page all over again. It’s even better than mobile web browsing than the iPhone. So what? That’s not enough to get me to spend $500. But not to worry. I believe the killer app for iPad is on the way, and possibly by launch. It’s called iLife.

“Stop, hey, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down.”

— For What It’s Worth, Stephen Stills

That sound, the one emanating Wednesday from the stage at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and reverberating throughout the blogosphere and interwebs, the one heard in literally millions of conversations at lunch counters and water coolers and dinner tables across the globe, was the sound of another ding in the universe.

Once all the snickering about feminine hygiene finally dies down, once Apple finally puts the iPad into the retail chain that saw 50,000,000 people walk through the doors in the most recent fiscal quarter, once people — aside from jaded technology journalists and geekazoids — get the iPad in their hands, Apple’s description of it as a “magical and revolutionary” product will begin to come into focus.

Why?

Just a day after Apple’s announcement, we have the iPad topping our list of deals for Mac fans. The 16GB version of the thin, lightweight device is $499 and the 32GB version is $599. Next on tap is a number of MacBooks, starting at $599 for a 2GB model with 80GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM. Finally, if you’d like a MacBook Pro, there is a $799 price on a 2.16GHz version with a 15-inch screen.

Along the way, we also look at more hardware, speakers, software and apps for your iPhone or iPod. As always, the details are waiting for you on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

With every new Apple product announcement, the press releases for third party accessories inevitably start rolling in. Here’s one of them, courtesy of bag maker Tom Bihn: a couple of iPad bags!

Neither’s particularly radical. The Cache costs 30 bucks is basically just a laptop sleeve rezised to fit the iPad’s dimensions.

The other is the Ristretto, a vertical messenger bag, which costs $120, and comes in olive, plum, black and cocoa.

Nothing too exciting here: these are just quickly redesigned iPad-specific versions of existing products. But, hey! At least you can get them shipped to you now in as little as one business day… unlike the iPad itself.

Yesterday, I speculated that the reason Apple didn’t put a camera in the iPad was to help you look thin, but as many commenters mentioned, another possibility is that Apple had another supply chain breakdown, like the one that robbed the iPod Touch of its camera in June.

Maybe that’s right. Techcrunch spotted that the iPad SDK has reference in the Contacts app to taking photos with a built-in camera.

There’s a few interpretations here. This could just be a legacy feature, having to do with the fact that the iPad runs on the iPhone OS. It could also have to do with the iPad’s ability to connect to external cameras through an accessory. Or maybe the camera was pulled at the last minute, just like the iPod Touch’s.

My guess is it’s a legacy goof. What do you think?

Although I was underwhelmed with the iPad overall — a natural reaction, I think, given how much my gig reporting on iPad rumors over the last couple months engorged my expectations — one thing I think the iPad did with its combo of a long battery life, great display and iBooks e-reading app was punch a steaming hole right through the chest of Amazon.

But I may have spoken too soon… at least as far as it concerns international iPad customers like myself. iBooks and eBooks aren’t even mentioned on the Australian iPad listing page. Other countries’ iPad pages feature similar omissions.

Now, obviously, this is simply an issue of getting deals inked with international publishers, but still, it’s troubling, and gives Amazon the leg up in at least one regard: after all, at least the Kindle’s e-reading functionality is now global, although it took them a couple years. I only hope we’re not looking at a similar 2 year delay for the iPad to do international e-books.

[via Gizmodo]

In yesterday’s purgative disgorging of iPad news, it was easy to miss some of the details about Apple’s iPad accessories… and what they cost. Here’s a quick run down of four of them.

The first accessory was the iPad Keyboard Dock, priced at $69. Although it also functions as a charging and syncing dock with stereo out, though the addition physical keyboard is what is likely to make this the most popular iPad accessory: it will theoretically allow the iPad to be used like a netbook… but in some ways, it feels like an omission of defeat by Apple: “Yeah, we want you to be able to work on this thing… but we just couldn’t figure out a good software data entry solution. Sorry.”

The iPad Case, costing $39, seems like a similar admission of data entry failure: you’re just not going to get as good a look at the screen when typing on the virtual keyboard if it’s flush with a surface. The soft, rubbery case solves this problem with the addition of a triangular kickstand. This will also likely make watching movies when the iPad is on a surface in front of you a lot more pleasant.

Maybe Terry McGraw III forgot the old World War II saying about loose lips. Not only can they sink ships, but prime exposure for your brand as well. It seems Apple CEO Steve Jobs didn’t like his iPad being unveiled by McGraw, CEO of textbook publisher McGraw-Hill on CNBC a day before the big event.

“Insiders say as soon as Terry shot his mouth off on CNBC, Jobs had the company cut from the presentation,” according to VentureBeat. Sure enough, Wednesday, when Jobs took the stage, McGraw-Hill’s logo was absent from a screen listing publishers involved in the iPad.

“Hi, can I speak to Steve please?”

Steve speaking.

“Steve, hi. Listen, we’ve just found out that someone else already has a product called iPad.”

Uh-huh.

“Yeah. Fujitsu. Looks like they’ve had it for quite some time. Since about 2002.”

Really.

“Um, yeah. What do want us to do? Call Legal?”

UPDATE: Check each contest website for details and closing dates — newer ones are last.

The contest list has doubled from the original post. If you hear of others, let us know. Scams have also cropped up with iPads as bait, so remember your due diligence.

Before the launch, we wrote about a daring intern who risked his job by staging a contest with the as yet unseen iPad as a prize.

Today,  a bunch of contests giving the iPad out as prizes have already cropped up, many involve no-brain activities like tweeting (sorry, witty chiruppers!) or signing up for Facebook groups. (If you can bug fix, try here or here. )

So if you want to get your hands on one without spending any cash, this may be the ticket.

Mashable

Springwise

MacMall

Failbooking

TeenCastic

Big Prize Giveaways

Appletell

Weekinrewind

Dealsplus

Retailmenot

3Dbookshelf

TheRagTrader

Winanipod

Geeknewscentral

Swagbucks

Squidoo

Catalink

Pricecanada

The tech buzz

Geeksugar

Savings.com

Meritline

Getafreeipad.co.uk

TheWhuffieBank

Zemime

Mouseenvy

EverythingiCafe.com

IrishAisle

Mahalo

Gimme

Artamata

Whytheluckymobile

Gazelle

Smarta

Appqanda

iPad contest

My contest

Socius

Simply free ipad

If you come across other ones, please add them in the comments.

NB: If you win one, Cult of Mac staffers reserve the right to come over and play with it.

It’s mostly been assumed that the iPhone SDK’s omission of terms enabling VoIP over 3G was prompted by Apple bowing not just to AT&T’s bandwidth concerns, but by concerns that 3G VoIP would make calls and minute moot.

It now looks like that assumption may have been unfair: Apple has just updated the terms of the iPhone SDK to allow VoIP calls over 3G. iCall is the first company to be jubilantly crowing that their free VoIP app has implemented 3G VoIP, but others (hopefully Skype!) should be soon to follow.

That’s not to say that VoIP 3G will work universally — T-Mobile in Germany, to my irritation, doesn’t allow VoIP over 3G — but it’s nice to finally see this functionality hit the iPhone after a couple years wait.

[via 9to5Mac]

One analyst Wednesday expressed ‘measured enthusiasm’ for Apple’s iPad, the thin, lightweight tablet device Cupertino announced after months of speculation. Despite the cautionary optimism, Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster said the iPad could mean $4.6 billion in new revenue for Apple by 2011.

“We have measured enthusiasm for the device’s first year, but we expect 2011 to be a breakout year for the iPad,” Munster told investors. The Apple watcher said it will take a year for the iPad business to ‘solidify’, but be worth $4.6 billion, or 7.5 percent of the company’s revenue in 2011.

Journalists streaming into the iPad event yesterday were greeted by a handful of volunteers from the Free Software Foundation protesting DRM restrictions in the about-to-be released device.

They dubbed the iPad the iBad for two reasons:

* All media in the iTunes store (with the one exception of music) is wrapped in Apple’s DRM. That means films, TV shows, movies and audiobooks (NB: books are in an open format ePub) are locked to Apple’s platform, taking away your right to share.

* All applications must be signed by Apple if they are to run, an unprecedented level of control for a general purpose computer. On top of this, Apple can push updates to the device over its wireless connection, letting them add or remove capabilities at any time.

There were only about six or seven naysayers outside Yerba Buena center yesterday, but they still hope to bring about some long-term change, namely by getting people to sign an online petition.

Analysts appear to be in love with the iPad’s low price, a figure falling below most expectations. The morning after Apple unveiled the device, many experts raised sales forecasts for 2010 and 2011.

Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray nearly doubled his sales expectations to 3 to 4 million iPads this year and 8 million of the devices in 2011. Earlier this week Munster warned if the tablet were price between $800 and $1,000 “adoption is going to be much lower than the hype would lead you to believe.” At the time, the analyst said 1.4 million iPads would likely sell in 2010.

“Yes, we were surprised by the $499 price point,” Piper Jaffray’s Andrew Murphy tells Cult of Mac. “We were originally expecting $600-$800 and 2 million units in its first calendar year of sales,” he said.

When Steve Jobs first revealed the iPod on 23 October 2001, no-one had the slightest inkling of what it might become.

Nobody at the time predicted that the music player would morph into a phone, and then into a multi-purpose tablet device.

The iPad is itself a very similar starting point. What we’re looking at here is the very beginning of a new product line, one that we can expect to adapt, metamorphose, and grow just as the iPod did.

Netflix instant streaming on the iPad? Not any time soon.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says, “Until we get our TV ubiquity and our Blu-ray ubiquity and we’re getting close on video game ubiquity, then we would next turn to the small screen. It’s just not a primary movie-watching (option). So it’s something we will get around to but it’s not in the near term.”

Even with iTunes’s thumb in the movie rental pie, Netflix instant streaming on the iPad needs to happen as soon as it drops. If I’m going to pay $15 for Wi-Fi on a plane I need to watch a couple episodes of Due South for it all to be worth it.

(via Yahoo! News)

Watching that MLB.tv demo on the iPad had me thinking: The iPad is going to add some serious interactivity to my live TV as long as they can figure out how to get live tv onto my iPad.

As we’ve seen, sport fans can benefit from the live stats and home/away team announcers, but how far can we take this?

Am I going to be able to vote my favorite American Idol on to the next round while I’m watching?

We’ll have to start seeing networks with their own apps and subscription fees like MLB.tv, but if Rachel Ray shows me a recipe for ribs and the iPad lets me download the recipe while watching- that’s what we in the business like to call a game-changer.

We have seen an electronic instrument renaissance with the introduction of the iPhone. Apps like DopplerPad, RjDj, Beatmaker and the new synth Argon have shown the potential of a multi-touch device in a live performance setting. The only thing keeping professional musicians from diving all over these devices for music performance and production has been their size. The iPad changes everything.

The monome, pictured above, goes for a lot of money on ebay. If you buy one of these babies new it will set you back $500-$600. What’s worse is the device is very limited release so they sell out, you have to go on ebay and the price gets jacked up. The iPad would replace this midi controller instantly.

While everyone got wild and crazy with the Leaf Trombone and Ocarina on the iPhone, the iPad is large enough to be a legitimate synthesizer/virtual instrument. Also Korg has a line of Kaoss effect pads that the tablet could easily replace.

Not only live music but recording and production: ProTools, Reason, Abelton Live. All could have versions of the software for the iPad or use it as a control surface to make the best use of multitouch.

DJ tool too. Create live techno joints. Hip Hop. Flava Flav. Boyeee

iTunes’s acquisition of LaLa.com and the cheap(ish) data plan from AT&T may be signaling a significant change in the way Apple would have us access our media. If so, the iPad is going to fit perfectly into their little plan.

Even if this isn’t the case, apps like those from Simplify Media allow me to access my photos and music from a non sleeping computer as well as stream media to my Xbox 360.

I’m hoping I’m right on this one, but I think the 16GB iPad is going to be enough to cover my must have media and I can access the rest when in range of 3G or Wi-Fi.

On Sunday night, I made a set of predictions for what to expect from Wednesday’s keynote. It was intended to be direct, straightforward and make a clear forecast of what we would actually see. How’d I do? Let’s go to the tape.

The Tablet Will Have a Custom UI, but Closer to iPhone Experience Than Mac

Probably the biggest question on everyone’s mind is what operating system will power Apple’s tablet of the future, with the leading candidates being Mac OS X and iPhone OS. The more I’ve thought about it, neither is perfectly suited to running such a device, which will be more focused on content creation than the iPhone but less so than the Mac. I’m therefore willing to say that the Tablet is a lock to get its own user interface built on top of core OS X technologies. It will be heavily gesturally driven (yes, even more so than the iPhone), and have far more precise sensing than the current iPhone screen. That said, this UI will more closely resemble the iPhone in look and functionality than it will Snow Leopard. Multitasking is still of less overall utility on a purely touch device than it is on one with a keyboard and mouse combo, so expect full-screen applications, no overlapping windows and possibly iPhone apps that run as widgets on a Dashboard.

NAILED IT! I was wrong about the apps as widgets on a Dashboard, but that’s a tiny miss — and I think it would have been better than the actual solution, which is to run iPhone apps as either iPhone resolution or blow them up to double size.
Score 9.5/10

Who knew Hitler was such a geek?