91,000 Apple iPads pre-ordered in first 6 hours

Neither recession nor gadget overload shall slow the mania surrounding the introduction of Apple’s iPad mobile computer. Last Friday, the first day that buyers could pre-order the device (it arrives in stores next month), Apple racked up an estimated 91,000 sales in just the first six hours of availability, putting temporarily to rest the Internet’s persistent “iPad fail” meme.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has described the iPad as a new category of device that falls between smartphones and low-priced netbook computers. It has a 25cm touchscreen and can serve up webpages, e–mail, music, videos, electronic books and iPhone applications.

Apple said earlier this month that it would accept pre-orders beginning last Friday. Analysts predict that first year sales could reach five million. Still, despite the avalanche of pre-release hype (media-tracking firm O’Leary Analytics found 25,000 news mentions of the then unnamed product in January alone), last Friday’s pre-order mania was tempered by considerable ambivalence among the geeked-out on discussion boards and on Twitter.

“Early adopters,” scoffed a post on Appleinsider.com about the early buyers. A Twitter poster named Mash187 offered: “Avoiding the rush to pre-order an iPad today. Going to wait until the (basic) version is in the wild to see how people really like it.”

Had enough with the iPad hype? We probably have not seen anything yet. The product arrives in Apple stores on April 3. It can mean only one thing: TV reporters doing stand-ups in front of long lines of buyers camped out in front of the stores – including the untold numbers who will be there just to appear on TV news reports about people camped out in front of Apple stores.

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