昨天，苹果（Apple）首席执行官蒂姆•库克“非常兴奋”地宣布，第三代iPad创造了“周末销售新纪录”。仅仅过了八小时，苹果公司就发布了官方声明，详细描述了全新iPad的创纪录详情。

    全新iPad并不是苹果有史以来首发销量最高的硬件产品。记录保持者是iPhone 4S，它创造了三天销售400万部的记录。

    声明引用苹果营销主管菲尔•席勒的发言，称“全新iPad正大卖特卖。”

    我们很难把它与上一代iPad进行对比，因为全新iPad的首发国家比iPad 2多出了不少，而且其预定时间也提前了足足一周。

    而且，我们也无法得知iPad 2首周末的销售情况，因为苹果并未发布一个类似的“星期一声明”。去年这个时候，iPad的供应链非常紧张，而苹果最终在2011年第二财季财报中公布了销售情况——470万部iPad，令人大失所望。

    这一次，对于300万这个数字，无论人们如何吹毛求疵，也不大可能说全新iPad令人“大失所望”了。

    译者：项航

    Eight hours after Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook pronounced himself "very thrilled" with what he described as "record weekend" sales of the third-generation iPad, the company issued a press release clarifying what record the new iPad had broken.

    It wasn't Apple's all-time best hardware launch. That record is still held by the iPhone 4S, which sold 4 million units in 3 days.

    It took the new iPad nearly 4 days to sell 3 million units, according to the press release Apple issued at 5 p.m. Monday.

    It quotes Phil Schiller, Apple's marketing chief, declaring that "The new iPad is a blockbuster."

    It's hard to do comparisons, because the new iPad launched in more countries than the iPad 2 and was available for pre-order a week ahead of time.

    Also, we don't actually know how many iPad 2 units sold the first weekend because Apple never issued a Monday-after press release. Supplies of the iPad were constrained at this time last year, and the sales number Apple finally released in its Q2 2011 earnings report -- 4.7 million iPads -- was considered a disappointment.

    At 3 million units, it's hard to cast the new iPad as disappointment, no matter how hard some will try.