After months of speculation, Apple’s iPad 2 finally went on sale at 5 p.m. EST on March 11, and eager Apple fans formed lines that went around the block at some stores. Many retail outlets found their stocks of the 9.7-inch tablets depleted within hours.
Analysts like Gleacher & Co.’s Brian Marshall predicted as many as 600,000 iPad 2’s would be sold in its first weekend. The updated iPad 2 features a dual-core processor and cameras, a feature many found lacking in the first-generation iPad.
"That early response could bode well for Apple, which faces a number of very aggressive competitors in the tablet space: The Motorola Xoom, a high-end device boasting the tablet-optimized Google Android 3.0 operating system, is just the first next-generation rival expected to arrive on store shelves in 2011," wrote eWEEK’s Nicholas Kolakowski, who got his hands on one of the hotly-anticipated devices on launch day.
See Kolakowski’s slideshow on the iPad 2’s launch and see his photos of the tablet in action at eWEEK.