Apple boasts 3 million sales for iPad mini, iPad 4

Apple boasts 3 million sales for iPad mini, iPad 4
This, times a million

Apple shifted 3 million iPads this weekend, with the company crowing that the iPad mini and new iPad 4 doubled the previous record.

Well, sort of – Apple's exact words are a little more ambiguous because only the Wi-Fi version of the iPad mini and iPad 4 have gone on sale.

So this 3 million mark is "double the previous first weekend milestone of 1.5 million Wi-Fi only models sold for the third generation iPad in March" rather than double the total of the last first weekend when the old new iPad hit the shops.

And, of course, this 3 million covers both the iPad mini and iPad 4, whereas the last opening weekend (also a 3 million sale bonanza) was for the iPad 3 alone.

iPad overload

Got that? As if that wasn't enough fluff to contend with, CEO Tim Cook took it upon himself to say that "We… practically sold out of iPad minis."

That's just another way of saying that Apple did not sell out of iPad minis. Still, Apple isn't letting a silly thing like that stand in the way of "working hard to build more quickly to meet the incredible demand".

The Wi-Fi + cellular editions of the iPad mini and iPad 4 should be with us in a few weeks (mid-to-late-November, we reckon) but there's no firm date to speak of just yet.

News Editor (UK)

Former UK News Editor for TechRadar, it was a perpetual challenge among the TechRadar staff to send Kate (Twitter, Google+) a link to something interesting on the internet that she hasn't already seen. As TechRadar's News Editor (UK), she was constantly on the hunt for top news and intriguing stories to feed your gadget lust. Kate now enjoys life as a renowned music critic – her words can be found in the i Paper, Guardian, GQ, Metro, Evening Standard and Time Out, and she's also the author of 'Amy Winehouse', a biography of the soul star.