Dow Jones Newswire | Apple Inc. on Friday began selling a
version of its iPad tablet computer with cellular capabilities, and
consumers had cleaned out many stores by Sunday.  Apple put its iPad 3G
on sale in the U.S. late Friday afternoon at prices starting at $629,
compared with the $499 bottom price for the version without cellular
connectivity that launched a month ago.

Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co., estimated Apple
sold 300,000 iPad 3Gs over the weekend, including preorders and online
sales. While that would be about the same as the original iPad’s first
weekend, he said, the original version had a shorter preorder period
and went on sale on a Saturday rather than a Friday.

Apple stores in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Houston said they didn’t have any iPad 3G models left by Sunday. A spokeswoman for Best Buy Co. said it had “very limited inventory” for sale on Friday afternoon. She said some of its stores were sold out as of Sunday but couldn’t provide details. A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment.

Apple’s rollout steps up competition in the market for wireless gadgets. On Friday, Amazon.com Inc. said it was sending a software update to its Kindle e-book reader that will let users access Facebook and Twitter. Both the iPad and Kindle can wirelessly download books.

One early iPad 3G buyer was Noerah Alvi, of Kings Park, N.Y. She didn’t arrive at her Apple store Friday until a few hours after the iPad 3G went on sale. By then, her only choice was the most expensive, 64 gigabyte model. “I justified it to myself by saying that I take a lot of pictures and since I wanted to have my photo library on the iPad, I will need that extra space for ‘future expansion,’” the 42-year-old architect said.

Some consumers appeared to be trading up from the Wi-Fi-only model. EBay Inc.’s U.S. online marketplace on Sunday listed more than 1,200 Wi-Fi models for sale, including 250 that were listed as used.

Analysts are closely watching how well the iPad will sell in the longer run. As with many of Apple’s other products, they say, the iPads first customers are tech-savvy consumers

“Mainstream America is taking a wait-and-see approach,” said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester Research. Ms. Epps believes demand over the holiday season will be a better indicator of its long-term success. Analysts expect iPad sales this year will reach about five million units, though some are more conservative. Forrester Research, for example, expects sales of three million units.