It’s official now. Apple has sold over 1 million iPads since launch, that’s 28 days. Apple already sold over 300,000 during the first launch weekend and the sales momentum has continued. On average each iPad user has purchased 1.5 books from the iBookstore and 12 apps from the App Store. This totals to 1.5 million books and 12 millions apps sold.

The iPad has actually outsold the iPhone in the first month!

This weekend’s launch of the iPad 3G is expected to add another 300,000 units to that number.

CUPERTINO, California—May 3, 2010—Apple® today announced that it sold its one millionth iPad™ on Friday, just 28 days after its introduction on April 3. iPad users have already downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store and over 1.5 million ebooks from the new iBookstore.

“One million iPads in 28 days—that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.”

iPad allows users to connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before. Users can browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ user interface. iPad is 0.5 inches thin and weighs just 1.5 pounds—thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook—and delivers up to 10 hours of battery life.*

Developers have created over 5,000 exciting new apps for iPad that take advantage of its Multi-Touch user interface, large screen and high-quality graphics. iPad will run almost all of the more than 200,000 apps on the App Store, including apps already purchased for your iPhone® or iPod touch®.

*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.

Day four of iPad mania and here it is. You load up your new iPad, which you only got a few days ago and guess what…where’s your files? Your contacts? Your schedule? You’ve fallen victim to the first iPad virus!

Last night, we received an unconfirmed report  from a user who appears to have the first iPad virus. From what we know, this has actually been an iPhone virus infecting an iPad device and the virus has not been developed purposely to hit the iPad. We are investigating this ourselves now and will report further on this when we have more details.

iPad’s iPhone OS

How is this possible anyway? An iPhone virus on the iPad? Well, the iPad actually runs the iPhone’s OS. This gives the iPad the capability to run the thousands of applications that have already been written for the iPhone but it also endangers it into giving virus writers an even bigger platform to write for; as most iPhone viruses will work on the iPad too, and vice versa.

Below are some tips on how to prepare and avoid viruses on your iPad and how to remove a virus if you have it.

How to prepare and avoid getting a virus on your iPad?

Preparation is key as with viruses on all computer platforms. Follow these steps to make sure you do not get a virus and are prepared if you do get one:

1. Regularly back up your data through the iTunes synchronization feature. It can automatically store your contacts, schedule, tasks and other data.

2. Install Apple’s regular firmware updates to your iPad. These updates are essential as they patch holes in the security of the iPhone OS. Again this means syncing your iPad up with iTunes often.

3. Be careful which apps you install. Only install applications you trust and do not install apps or open files from outside the iTunes App Store.

What to do if you have a virus on your iPad?

1. Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes by going to the Apple website and downloading the installation file.

2. Connect your iPad to your computer and open up iTunes.

3. Select your iPad when it appears in iTunes under devices

4. Click on the Summary tab

5. Choose the Restore option

6. iTunes will now ask you if you want to back up your device before restoring it. If you have already backed up your device previously, choose ‘Don’t Back Up‘ otherwise press ‘Back Up‘.

7. In the next windows press the ‘Restore‘ button.

8. Your iPad will now restore itself to factory defaults. After it has completed it will show the Apple logo and start up.

9. After the iPad has booted up it will display a ‘Connect to iTunes’ dialog. This will disappear after it is connected again.

10. From iTunes, a dialog will show to ‘Set Up Your iPad’. Choose to restore the backup (pick the backup file you want) and press ‘Continue‘

11. You now hopefully have a working iPad again with your old data restored. Congratulations and stay safe next time!

Envivio today launched its HD television platform which makes it possible for iPad owners to tap stream video content to their devices. Envivio‘s 4Caster platform is meant to be leveraged by content distributors like movie publishers and television broadcasters who can use it to stream to their audiences.

“Apple devices have been tremendously influential in driving consumer interest in Mobile TV services,” said Julien Signes, President and CEO at Envivio. “The combination of Apple’s brilliant displays and adaptive streaming technology with Envivio’s video over IP platform and compression technology deliver the quality of experience that has driven most successful Mobile TV service launches to date. One only has to look at to the reviews posted to iTunes by users themselves to see the importance that quality has on capturing the interest of subscribers. The iPad promises to open entirely new dimensions of content consumption and Envivio is pleased to deliver the engine that will power that opportunity.”

A video of Envivio’s service on the iPhone shows the service’s capabilities:

Interested broadcasters or network operators can sign up for a demo at Envivio’s website.

It took about four days for the Tom Dickson, BlendTec’s director to get the iPad and ask the age-old question men and women all over the world have been raising ever since they saw the device: “Will It Blend…?”.

Find out the answer for yourself in the video!

Another iPad-owner from Pitssburgh wanted to be the first one to actually destroy the device with a baseball bat. Ofcourse, why not? It shows the iPad’s glass display is more prone to cracking when you drop it than for example the Apple iPhone.

Reports have erupted from iPad users on issues with charging their new devices by USB. The device shows the message “Not charging” eventhough it is connected by USB to a computer or USB hub. Well, it seems to be impossible to charge it through the proprietary USB cable connected to a PC. Nor do any (powered) USB hubs show the ability to charge it. However, it does charge on Apple computers and from AC outlets with the 10-watt power adapter.

What’s going on? Well, the iPad appears to suck so much power that most USB ports simply cannot deliver it to it.

What to do about this? Well, in general it’s best (and quickest) to charge the iPad from your wall socket with the adapter. Otherwise connect it to your Mac and it will charge fast too.

If you need to charge it from a Windows PC and the device shows “Not charging”, simply put it in sleep mode and the device will in fact charge, albeit slowly!

Update: Read more on iPad’s launch weekend sales

It’s day two now of the iPad mania and like everyone we are very curious to know what the sales figures were of yesterday and what they will be for this year. Most iPad coverage by the press and voices from the public (just look ath the hashtag #ipad on Twitter) have been fairly positive. The backlash electronics manufacturers usually see after a hyped product is released, seems to be non-existant with the iPad. There are some bugs to be worked out as usual but overall the device seems to be what people expected it to be.

Now let’s look at those sales predictions for this week, this year and onward. There is many industry analysts who have an opinion about this flaky subject. Four analysts stick out from the crowd: Gene Munster from PiperJaffray, Mike Abramsky from RBC Capital Markets, Brian Marshall from Broadpoint-Amtech and research firm iSupply.

As all analysts have a different idea, we have averaged up their numbers to come to a rough idea of what we can expect. At the launch weekend (yes that is this weekend) we can expect an estimated 275,000 units to go over the counter and some 2.65 million units in the current quarter (that is from March 2010 to the end of May 2010, or Q2). In the whole of 2010 it is expected Apple will sell 8 million iPads. If we extrapolate that number from the rest of 2010 to the whole of 2011, we can expect over 10 million units to be sold next year. Again these are just averages but do give us an indication of what to expect.

The analysts are conclusive and what are the constraining factors for the iPad’s sales: a lack of supply and the missing of Adobe Flash on the device.

The lack of supply is why the iPad was previously delayed a few days in the U.S. and why it will be released later than planned in the rest of the world.

In addition, many mainstream users who want to use the device to consume content on the web choose to wait out to buy the device since it does not have Flash support. It’s a fair judgement and it will be challenging to see how Apple deals with this issue, which Steve Jobs himself created.

Joshua Topolsky from Engadget just came off Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night in which he presented the iPad to viewers all over the U.S. Of course most of us geeks have already seen the iPad in action through previews and reviews but it’s good to see the final product being presented to a more mainstream audience.

Watch the video

Joshua assures Windows users they can connect the iPad to their PCs through to iTunes. He shows us the amazing iPad Elements app which displays all the chemical elements of the standard table in a visual full-3D view and may be an example of how textbooks at schools and universities might look like in the foreseeable future.

He then talks us through the Marvel Comics application, which we previously showed you. It enables users to read comics by simply sliding through the pages with their fingers, from comic box to box. The quality of the imagery looks very high.

On to games! The air hockey game Touch Hockey and the racing game Asphalt 5 are played and especially the latter (shown in the video above) catched eyes with its control experience. The iPad becomes your steering wheel and you rotate it left and right to steer in the game. The response seemed close to real-time. We couldn’t see the graphics that well but it did look like the iPad was capable of at least some rapid 3D graphics rendering.

We did see some negative aspects; the fingerprints on the screen showed up pretty quickly after Joshua took it out. But we kinda already knew that was going to happen, didn’t we? Overall, it looked like a great presentation of the iPad. The device has the ability to move a product range like tablet computers from geeks to everyday people. Just like the iPhone made smartphones usable to everyday people. That is why these kinds of demonstrations on prime-time television, alongside with standard advertisement, can propel change.

The announcement of the iPad included Apple’s own proprietary iBookstore, an application through which users can buy, store and read fiction and non-fiction works. Apple struck deals with Penguin, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, MacMillan and Hachette publishers to fill the store with their book titles. So is this the only way we’re going to read books on our iPad? Not at all!

Here’s a question for you: which platform has the biggest repository of book content in the world, as of now? Google does. With over ten million titles, Google Books is the leader in digital book content now and no competitor has come close this amount.

Google Books is not an e-book store

Google Books has its qualities. It is integrated into Google’s search engine and when our search query matches one of its millions of books, Google shows us the page. However, Google is not leveraging its book platform as a digital e-book store, as you’d expect. It chooses instead to link to online stores where the physical books are sold.

Google’s tense relationship with publishers is one of the reasons for this; Last year, Google settled a court case with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers about its unlimited scanning of books from libraries without any permission from their authors or publishers. Google defended its usage as fair-use under copyright law but as it is a profitable business, the judge was not really going to recognize Google’s defense and a settlement was the result.

The in-court settlement stated that authors and publishers can opt-out of the Google Books program and have their content removed or instead opt-in which means they receive a lump sum for their book (about $40 to $100), a share of the revenue from advertising displayed next to their books and a share of the revenue from optional selling of their books. There you have it: Google says it would like to start selling books soon through Google Checkout and deliver them to customers as standard PDF files. This would mean you could buy and read these books on any mobile device with PDF support, including the iPad. Expected is that Google will develop a more integrated app for the iPad too, like Apple’s iBookstore.

Apple iBookstore vs. Google Books

Will Apple be able to come close to the amount of titles Google has? Possibly, yes. It has done extremely well with a similar concept: its iTunes store; of which the song catalogue now contains over eleven million tracks and which has sold over 10 billion tracks since its launch. Apple’s strategy of actually striking deals with music industry record labels and book publishers at the moment appears to be more effective than Google’s brute-force strategy of just scanning content and having authors and publishers opt-out later. The settlement will make it possible for Google to start selling books but it does not seem to be rushing to do this as I can’t find any title on the Google Books store which I can buy.

Running Google Books on your iPad

Until Google releases its own Books app for the iPad, you can already use a beta version of the service in which publicly licensed books, such as Sherlock Holmes, are available. Running it is as simple as opening up the browser on your iPad and pointing it to http://books.google.com/m.

Have you been using Google Books on your iPhone, iPad or other mobile device? Does it work well for you? How do you expect Google Books and the Apple iBookstore to develop? Can they co-exist on one device? Are they actually very different from each other? Tell me in the comments!

Apple has started its promotion campaign for its much anticipated (and slightly hyped) iPad tablet device with a prime time advert at the Academy Awards Oscars 2010. Over 40 million Americans saw the advert and many more will watch it in replay online. In addition, “Meet the iPad”, as the ad is called, will be run on American television more times in the coming months

The commercial ad features the track “There Goes My Love” by Danish blues-rock band The Blue Van and is 30-seconds long.

The ad shows us how to unlock the device, browse through our photos on iPhoto, read and buy books in the iBookstore, use the browser to read The New York Times, watch movies, use the iCalendar, locate ourselves on Google Maps, physically rotate the device and having the screen move with it, read our email, use iWorks to create documents and presentations and use the on-screen keyboard. It finishes with the iPad’s D-Day: April 3.

A bit surprisingly Apple doesn’t show us what everyone has been talking about in the last few weeks: magazines, and how their digital usability experience might be superior on the iPad. Apple probably feels it’s too early for this, considering there’s not enough magazines out there that will be publishing for the iPad, Apple might not want to create any expectations it cannot fulfill.

Overall, it looks like a good way to quickly stir up some attention for the device with mainstream consumers.

Remember, us techie readers and bloggers know about this device, the mainstream has probably just barely heard about it. They need to be informed, involved and shown why it’s the next big thing in mobile computing for them. Has Apple succeeded in that with this ad? Tell me if you think so in the comments.

In less than ten years, physical music stores were almost completely replaced by online music sharing services and download stores like iTunes and AmazonMP3. With the advent of e-ink and e-book readers such as the Kindle, the same transition to the online realm has started to take place for books. And today we’re at the brink of the next transition of content to move into the digital realm; yes, we’re talking about print magazines.

Condé Nast, publisher of magazines including Vogue, Wired and Glamour has announced it will begin making some of its magazines available for the Apple iPad, beginning this April. The first titles to be published will be the April edition of GQ followed by Vanity Fair for June and The New Yorker and Glamour following soon after. GQ has been already available on the iPhone as an app previously. WIRED will be hitting the iPad in June.

WIRED leading the way

Condé Nast is one of the first to adopt the iPad as a magazine publishing platform. Its technology imprint WIRED has been leading the way with an enthusiastic reception of the iPad in its editorials and a very refreshing opinion in how it can change the way magazines are published. Its editor-in-chief Chris Anderson called it a ‘game changer’ in magazine publishing. A few weeks ago, WIRED already presented a demonstration version of its magazine, made in Adobe Flash, and shown on a supersized screen symbolizing the iPad. This demonstration showed the digital magazines can include special dynamic content previously deemed impossible in print. Video advertisements and moving pictures were some of the dynamic features.

The iPad runs are part of a test which will run until October of this year at least, according to an internal memo. However, if they deem successful they will most certainly continue.

Laggards and pioneers

Like with all transitions, there are pioneers and laggards. Condé Nast is very smart in embracing this technology instead of fighting it; with this stand, it can most certainly become a pioneer in digital publishing. It can lay the groundwork for how future publishers will make their magazine content available on devices like the iPad.  Most other publishers are laggards and are not nearly as far as Condé Nast in how it prioritizes its tablet strategy and already experiments with it. I mean, it is only about a month after we were actually confirmed an iPad was coming and they are already jumping on it like this. Their pioneering strategy demands respect. Publishers of the world: keep a close eye on what is happening here.

How do you see the landscape of print magazines change by the introduction of the iPad? Will print magazines die out completely and be replaced by digital more dynamic versions? Or will things not take off as much as we think and will the magazine fail on a digital device? I’d like to know what you think. Tell me in the comments!