June 01, 2010 - In "less than 60 days", Apple has shifted two million iPads. If you remember, it took just 28 days to sell the first million, so it doesn't look like sales are slowing down much yet. In fact, it seems like Apple could have offloaded a lot more if only it could make them fast enough.

The announcement, somewhat callously released on memorial day yesterday, comes after the opening weekend of the iPad's international launch. While there's no way to tell just how many units made it to Europe, Australia and Japan, one thing is certain: they sold out. Of the few places stocking the iPad in my hometown of Barcelona, Spain, the only iPads to be found were the demo units being pawed and covered in finger-grease by eager crowds.

Accessories, too, remain in short supply. There are plenty of cases and screen protectors, but Apple's own add-ons - the docks, cables and camera connection kit - are still weeks away.

Two million sounds a lot, but how does it compare to a rather more mature segment, lets say the Mac? In the first quarter of this year, Apple sold 3.36 million Macs. Extrapolate the iPad figures to three months (three million) and you get pretty close to that figure. And if you compare the sales of portable Macs for that same quarter (2.1 million), the iPad is already outselling the MacBook line. Sure, the entry level iPad is half the price of the cheapest MacBook, but the iPad is also a brand new category of device, not a seasoned - and known - bestseller.

The iPad, then, is a success, and the tablet mass-market is officially here. We can't wait to see what Google and Palm have got coming.