Apple's iPad Numbers Are Confusing and Misleading

The iPad is no longer a mythical beast, but a real-life gadget that prompted throngs of people to line up outside Apple Stores in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Now the publishing industry has what it has been waiting anxiously for: numbers. On Monday morning, Apple announced that it sold approximately 300,000 iPads -- a great deal less than the amount one overly eager analyst predicted, but still substantial. The company also said that newly-minted iPad owners downloaded one million apps from its App Store and 250,000 e-books from its iBookstore on opening day. While these numbers sound suitably impressive, a closer look at the figures raises more questions than answers.

The key word with respect to the e-book numbers, for example, is "downloaded", not "sold." An anecdotal survey of iPad users indicates that those who used the iBookstore app generally downloaded free e-books or sample chapters over paid books. Apple's specific word usage seems to indicate that it's counting such gratis e-books among its total downloads -- a move that takes a page from Amazon's playbook of old, when 64 of its top 100 Kindle books were available for free.

While 250,000 e-books downloaded may still sound like a big number (even with the freebies thrown in), all told it adds up to an average of less than one e-book per iPad. Looked at another way, a minimum of 50,000 iPads bought on Saturday - or 16.7% of all sold - do not have any downloaded e-books on them.

Eoin Purcell of Irish Publishing News also raised questions about the figures: Of the 1 million downloaded apps, how many of them were specifically book-related, like the ones on offer from Amazon, Kobo, or Wattpad? There might have been 250,000 e-books downloaded through the iBookstore, but that itself is an app that had to be downloaded separately - so that total is perhaps a great deal less than 250,000.

Of course, it would be foolish to make binding judgments about the iPad's viability as a game-changer for the publishing industry after one weekend. As a dedicated e-reading device, it probably won't kill the Kindle, not when the glare is too bright and the weight too heavy for lengthy reading in the sunlight. The overall e-book downloads suggests the iPad is more suited to the occasional reader than the avid one. With a few tweaks, Amazon's Kindle for iPad app (or apps available or pending from Kobo or Barnes & Noble may completely outclass the iBookstore, even though the latter presents e-books in all their color-drenched beauty.

The real test for the viability of this device remains in these weeks following the launch. Will the device continue to sell after the initial flurry of activity? Will we see another spike in purchasing when the WiFi+3G model releases late this month? It's hard to say. Price will likely play a large part in how this does, and the company has not been shy to say publicly it will tweak prices to meet its sales goals.

The answer will come when we get a better look at the demographics of its buyers. If its just the techie/Apple faithful/Gotta-have-it crowd, its going to be Apple's next iCube. However, if Ma and Pa begin snagging their own iPads, then we know Apple's onto something.

At the moment, the iPad may be more of a media-driven hype machine than actual phenomenon.

Source: AP