It’s a big day inside of mobile’s most massive community.
On Friday, after months of hype and unanticipated delays, Apple launched its third generation iPad today in China.
Despite substantial interest from tablet buyers, there were no long lines or riot scenes reported. The reason for the calm, however, was due to a well-planned and orderly reservation system that helped cub the chaotic frenzy that tends to accompany Apple product releases elsewhere in the world.
“I’m very surprised that there is no line. I thought there was going be a long line so I came over a bit earlier to pick it up,” Sun Xufei, a Chinese iPad buyer, tells Reuters.
Apple adopted an online reservation system that allowed it to control the flow of people to its stores and avoid a repeat of the riotous iPhone 4S launch in January, when one of its flagship stores in Beijing was pelted with eggs by scalpers who had turned rowdy.
As of this writing, it isn’t clear how many iPad buyers actually got their hands on the product today. But we are hearing that China’s inventory of new iPads is going very, very fast.
