With more than three million iPads already sold am I the only one surprised not to see more of them out in the wild? Even in central London I’ve not seen more than a handful being used out and about which is pretty surprising.
Is it just that people are wary of getting such an expensive and scarce item out in public?
If so I can understand the hesitation but my experience of using iPad out and about is that, while it certainly draws a lot of attention, interest is universally friendly.
Sure, there are places no-one would sensibly show off a £500 device but I routinely use mine on trains and in cafes without any issues.
The other day I was in a cafe in central London demonstrating iPad to a friend who is thinking about getting one, the guy at the next table was obviously listening in and watching my brief tour out of the corner of his eye.
That’s pretty typical of my experience and I suspect the more people see or get to play with an iPad, the more Apple will sell – for the foreseeable future hands-on time is likely to be a big sales driver.
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I have seen only about half a dozen iPads since they were sold in late March. Apple claims they have sold over 3 million, but it sure doesn’t appear that way. U would think they would be in every coffee shop and place with free WIFI. Is Jobs pulling a fast one to create hype to sell them? I should’ve kept the link, but AT&T claims they 600K using their network. At $495 they are still a bit too expensive. Get it down to $295 and I might consider one. I think I will wait for Windows/HTML tablets from HP, Dell and others to come out.