Apple sells 3 million iPads in 3 days

With the Apple iPhone 5 already breaking records with over 5 million units sold in its first weekend, it's now the iPad’s time to shine. Apple has announced that it has sold three million iPads in three days since the launch of the iPad mini along with the fourth generation iPad, which is double the previous 'first weekend milestone' of 1.5 million Wi-Fi only models sold for the third generation iPad in March. The Wi-Fi + Cellular versions of both iPad mini and fourth generation iPad will ship in a few weeks in the US, followed by many more countries later this year.

"Customers around the world love the new iPad mini and fourth generation iPad," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "We set a new launch weekend record and practically sold out of iPad minis. We're working hard to build more quickly to meet the incredible demand."

The new iPad mini features a 7.9-inch Multi-Touch display, FaceTime HD and iSight cameras, ultrafast wireless performance and 10 hours of battery life. The new fourth generation iPad features a 9.7-inch Retina display, new Apple-designed A6X chip, FaceTime HD camera and ultrafast wireless performance.

iPad mini and iPad 4th gen post record sales

Both iPad mini and the fourth generation iPad with Retina display are available in 34 countries including the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and the UK, and will be available in many more countries later this year, including mainland China. However, there is no word on the date of availability in India yet. Apple claims that the demand for iPad mini exceeded the initial supply and while many of the pre-orders have been shipped to customers, some are scheduled to be shipped later this month.

Apple had officially announced the iPad mini along with other products at an event in October at the California Theatre in San Jose. Apple declared that the new iPad design is such that it is now 23 percent thinner and 53 percent lighter than the third generation iPad. Both devices come with iOS 6, which Apple refers to as the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, with over 200 new features.

Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing stated during the launch, “iPad mini is every inch an iPad. With its gorgeous 7.9-inch display, iPad mini features the same number of pixels as the original iPad and iPad 2, so you can run more than 275,000 apps designed specifically for iPad.” Schiller went on to add that the “iPad mini is as thin as a pencil and as light as a pad of paper, yet packs a fast A5 chip, FaceTime HD and 5 megapixel iSight cameras and ultrafast wireless ― all while delivering up to 10 hours of battery life."

The iPad mini has an aluminium and glass design just 7.2mm thick and weighs only 0.68 pounds. As per an official statement by Apple, the iPad mini has 35 percent more screen real estate than 7-inch tablets and up to 67 percent more usable viewing area when browsing the web. The dual-core A5 chip on the iPad mini allows for responsive graphics and a multi-touch experience that Apple believes to be both fast and fluid while still providing all-day battery life.

The iPad mini features a front-facing FaceTime HD camera and a 5-megapixel iSight camera at the back, which allows for recording full 1080p HD videos. The iSight camera includes video image stabilisation and both cameras feature backside illumination to let users capture great pictures in low light. The iPad mini also allows easy sharing of photos with friends and family using iCloud’s Shared Photo Streams.