Will Apple's iPad sink or swim?

As the clock ticks down to April 3--the day Apple unleashes its iPad slate on the U.S. market--industry watchers and consumers alike have been feverishly trying to predict the number of pre-orders for the device, and whether it will surpass the sales of previous products by the company, such as the iPod and iPhone.

While Apple has been keeping mum on its sales figure since opening its U.S. Web site for pre-orders on March 12, recent announcements indicate that online sales have already exceeded the company's original supply. According to a Monday blog post on ZDNet Asia's sister site ZDNet, the Cupertino giant indicated on its Apple Store that it will ship its Wi-Fi-only device from April 12 for new customer orders.

Apple's latest product is a large-screen, Web-browsing device that also functions as a e-book reader, digital photo display, video and music player and portable game machine. Furthermore, with its iWork suite which has been reformatted to suit the multitouch-enabled slate, users can create content, though this is limited in comparison to notebooks and desktops.

The iPad comes in Wi-Fi-only and Wi-Fi with 3G flavors and appears competitive enough, price-wise. A 16 gigabyte (GB) edition starts at US$499 for the former, and US$629 for the latter. In comparison, competing devices such as Fusion Garage's 4GB JooJoo retails at US$499. Shenzhen Great Long Brother Industrial Co., the Chinese PC maker that had earlier threatened to sue the Cupertino firm for copying its slate design, is selling its 1GB P88 device for less than US$440, according to online magazine, the Shanghaiist.

Speaking to Apple spokesperson Jill Tan, ZDNet Asia was told the company is currently "focused on the upcoming U.S. launch", and there are no official figures to be disclosed right now. She also said only the U.S. Apple Store is taking pre-orders for now, with other markets earmarked for an April release--such as the U.K., Spain, Australia and Japan--yet to open their Web sites for order taking.

Similarly, Tan declined to comment on queries as to when the iPad will be available for purchase in Asia-Pacific (excluding Australia and Japan).

Analysts share their predictions
Industry watchers were slightly more responsive to queries, with Ovum's devices and platform analyst, Tim Renowden, predicting that sales of the iPad will "not be as successful" as the iPhone.

"[This is because] this category of slate device hasn't been popular with consumers yet. Everyone carries a phone, but not everyone will see the need for a tablet device that is too big for a pocket," the analyst said in his e-mail, adding that he expects Apple to sell around 12 million iPads globally by end-2011. Slates are a sub-set of the tablet computing category comprising also convertible tablet notebooks, and are multitouch-optimized.

Gartner's research director for mobile devices, Carolina Milanesi, too, had a slightly cautious iPad sales outlook, saying that because the product "fits between a computer and an iPhone", Apple will have to "work hard to convince people" that they need one.

However, she did add in her e-mail that of the 10.5 million tablet PCs the research firm forecasted to be sold for this year, "we expect the iPad to represent the majority of sales".

Of the challenges facing the Cupertino-based tech giant, Ovum's Renowden thinks the main issue is the "unproven demand" for such tablet devices. He said other manufacturers have not been able to convince consumers they actually need an expensive device that sits between a smartphone and a notebook, and questioned if Apple would be able to succeed where others have failed.

The analyst cited another cause for concern regarding Apple's refusal to support Adobe Flash on both the iPad and its iPhone devices. Renowden said: "Many companies and Web sites rely on Flash to deliver rich media and video, and Apple's intransigence means the iPad will not fully support a large proportion of Web sites. This makes cross-platform deployment of rich Internet applications more of a challenge."

Importance of content partnerships
Considering slate devices are generally app-oriented, what differentiates Apple's iPad from others is its app distribution ecosystem. The Apple App Store platform, previously used to serve iPhone users, is well-developed and ready to offer iPad consumers almost all of its 150,000 apps, most of which are optimized to fit the iPad's larger dimensions, together with another 1,000 iPad-specific apps.

Which is why Gartner's Milanesi thinks the development of e-book content, particularly for markets outside the U.S., will be the deciding factor for the iPad's success.

"[Apple has to] make sure the e-book applications and content roll out to countries outside the U.S. quickly, as this is a key application for the device," she said.

Reuben Tan, IDC's Asia-Pacific senior manager of personal systems research, concurs. He noted a significant group of consumers looking for an e-book reader, who will hold off purchasing one until Apple is able to iron out its "teething issues" with regard to having sufficient partnership content.

So far, reports say the Cupertino company has inked deals with major publishing houses such as HarperCollins, Hachette, Penguin, Macmillan, Simon & Shuster and Perseus Books Group. Titles from these publishers are to be sold through its new iBookstore platform, not unlike how applications are bought through the App Store.

However, its efforts to tie up deals with newspapers and magazines have been shelved, while its original plan to offer television subscriptions that would be viewable through the iPad seems to have been scaled back, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The March 19 report stated that Apple is still negotiating with media companies for a price reduction in TV shows that people can download onto the device, while efforts to collaborate with newspapers, magazines and textbook publishers on new ways to present content digitally are said to be "put on [the] backburner".

Competitors remain tightlipped
Meanwhile, competitors which have announced plans to release slate devices this year, from Hewlett-Packard (HP) to Samsung, as well as those that have released competing devices, such as Fusion Garage with its JooJoo device, have disclosed little to nothing.

HP, for one, replied ZDNet Asia's queries by saying: "HP has declined to comment prior to the availability of the product in Asia-Pacific," which is scheduled for a 2010 release.

Earlier this month, its vice president and CTO of personal systems group, Phil McKinney, posted two short videos on HP's prototype slate device in a blog post. One of the videos shows an Adobe employee demonstrating how Flash applications can be run on the device, contrasting it with the iPad's lack of Flash compatibility.

Samsung, through its spokesperson Daniel Goh, pointed out that it had actually introduced its first ultramobile PC (UMPC) in early 2006, and has "continued to develop advanced technology for application in tablet-style PC devices".

"We [have considered] whether the time is now right to introduce a new tablet-style device…and are aiming to bring such a device to market in the second half of this year," he said. But Samsung has yet to confirm product specifications or markets for launch, Goh added.

The company had announced earlier in March it will be jumping back on the tablet bandwagon with a slate device of its own.

Among Apple's competitors, only Fusion Garage has managed to bring to market its slate device, the JooJoo, before the iPad.

However, according to Endgadget's report Tuesday, the JooJoo is stuck in Los Angeles due to a "paperwork-related customs delay", and purchasers who had expected to receive their orders on March 29 will now get their hands on the Web table only on April 2--one day before the iPad hits the market.

Furthermore, early sales figures for the multitouch-enabled Web-browsing slate are turning out to be a disappointment. The same report cited a new document from Fusion Garage's lawsuit with TechCrunch which had collaborated with the former to create the JooJoo (then known as "Crunchpad"), revealing that as of February 11, only 90 orders for the machine had been made.

When queried on JooJoo's sales performance, a Fusion Garage spokesperson told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail: "Due to the current litigation between Fusion Garage and Tech Crunch, we cannot provide details on the number of JooJoo devices sold."

She added that while Apple has been "very successful at meeting customers' needs", the Singapore-based company knows there are consumers out there "looking for an alternative to Apple's closed [application development and approval] environment…this is what JooJoo brings to the table".

In an earlier interview with ZDNet Asia, Chandrasekar Rathakrishnan, founder and CEO of Singapore-based Fusion Garage, had predicted its device will stand its ground against Apple's iPad, and hoped to "manufacture and ship in high volumes".

Ultimately, IDC's Tan thinks consumers need to "strip away the hype" of the device and see it for what is: "an easy-to-use device that can pack in many apps, [but] that is not able to really replace a full-fledge PC" due to its smaller computing power and limited content creation capabilities.