Apple sells million iPads

WASHINGTON - The Apple iPad has hit another major milestone with the sale of the one millionth iPad after a little less than a month of retail availability.

The milestone was reached Friday the same day the company released its 3G version of the much-hyped device, as sales of the tablet continued to build, Apple said Monday.

“One million iPads in 28 days-that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said.

“Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers,” he was cited as saying by PC magazine.

The iPad first went on sale on April 3. The company had celebrated the sale of the 500,000th iPad on April 14. In its first 28 days, iPad users have downloaded more than 12 million apps and 1.5 million e-books, Apple said.

The 5,000th iPad app was recently introduced in the iTunes App Store. Including those apps designed for the iPhone, that’s a total of more than 200,000 apps that can run on the device.

The company on Friday began selling a 3G version of the device, and consumers had cleaned out many of the company’s stores by Sunday.

Apple stores in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Houston told The Wall Street Journal they didn’t have any iPad 3G models left by Sunday.

Apple last month said it would delay the international launch of the iPad because it has been unable to keep up with stronger-than-expected US demand.

It had planned to start selling the iPad overseas in late April but is moving the launch to the end of May.