Apple Fans Scramble For First UK iPads

Hundreds of British Apple fans queued outside the tech giant’s flagship store in Regent Street today to get their hands on one of the first iPads to be sold in the country.

The much-hyped tablet device went on sale in the UK, Europe, Japan and Australia at 0800 GMT – forcing stores across the country to open an hour earlier than normal to help cope with demand. Some particularly eager customers had camped outside overnight, in order to ensure they were one of the first in the queue.

A number of celebrities also attended the launch, including British television presenter and writer, and Apple devotee, Stephen Fry.

Wi-Fi or 3G?

Prices for the iPad start from £429 for the entry-level Wi-Fi only model, which has 16GB of storage. The most expensive model has both Wi-Fi and 3G connection, allowing users to surf the web while on the go, and costs £699 for the 64GB version. The device is available from Currys and PC World, as well as Apple’s own stores.

Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi has been using a Wi-Fi only iPad bought in the US for about a month. “If you are an iPhone user you can only but appreciate an iPad,” she said. “I am also more convinced that this is a device that you want and not a device that you need.”

“I have not seen the Wi-Fi only model as much of a limitation but with the plans that have been announced I think I would like to upgrade to one with 3G just to have that extra flexibility,” she added.

Read eWEEK Europe’s full review of the Apple iPad here

UK data plans are available from Vodafone, O2, Orange and 3, and range from £7.50 for 1GB to £25 for 10GB. So far no operator has offered an unlimited plan, as AT&T does in the US, suggesting that operators are wary of the effect of increased data traffic.

O2 is only too aware of this problem, after it suffered embarrassing network failures in London over the Christmas period. The operator was forced to admit that the crash was caused by the bandwidth strain from the increasing use of smartphones.

iPad queue exit poll

Text question and answer service 63336 has provided some interesting statistics in its “exit poll” on the iPad queue, after spending the morning outside the Regent Street store.

Apparently 75 percent of people in the queue already owned Mac a computer, suggesting that the crowd was dominated by Apple fan boys. Only 8 percent of the queue were women, and the predominant age group (36 percent) was between 26 and 39 years old.

Jason Lee, aged 17 from Essex, was the first inside the Regent Street store after queuing since 11.55am on 27 May. Just over half of the queue had been waiting overnight.

The 32GB 3G version of the iPad was by far the most popular at the Regent Street launch, according to the 63336 exit poll, with a third of people choosing this model. The most common reason for buying the device was to browse the net, with 57 percent claiming this would be its main purpose.

Just over a quarter said they were buying it for the apps, with 12 percent interested in games alone. Less than 10 percent said they would use it mainly for listening to music, for reading books or for watching films and TV.

Tablet goldrush to follow

Apple is expecting strong sales for its iPad in the UK, after taking less than a month to sell one million devices in the US. By 3 May, iPad users had downloaded more than 12 million applications from the App Store and more than 1.5 million ebooks from Apples new iBookstore.

According to research firm IDC, the successful launch of the Apple iPad is likely to spark a compound annual growth rate in worldwide media tablet shipments of 57.4 percent. Competitors including Hewlett-Packard and Dell have already announced plans for tablet products, and Google and Sony are also both rumoured to be exploring the field.

“These are early days for media tablets, an altogether new device category that takes its place between smartphones and portable PCs,” said IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian. “IDC expects consumer demand for media tablets to be strongly driven by the number and variety of compatible third-party apps for content and services.”