That's definitely impressive, but it's not really a product less than a year old. When you're buying an Apple product (iPhone, iPad, mac) you're buying into the brand too, when they release a new product a substantial part of the product is the apple branding. If another unknown company would have released the iPad I don't think it would have got such traction. When you buy an apple product, you're buying the apple brand.
That's not anything against Apple in case I sound as if I'm suggesting that, Apple are a great company and "deserve" the success because they do build solid products, but the iPads success is down to Apple being successful as much as it is the iPad as an individual product. Does that make sense? Maybe not.
Plus, in the case of Apple, they have a distinct first mover advantage. As we learned from watching the original round of Mac vs. Wintel, in the platform market, first mover advantage accrues to the company that puts together a viable OS + application ecosystem. That's why they're printing money, and it's why Android will have a very difficult time unseating iOS. Android is somewhat behind in the maturity of their OS. They're incredibly behind in the size of their app ecosystem. While I don't see Android ever shrinking to Apple's late 90s market share, I'll be surprised if they ever exceed Apple's installed base. I think most of Android's advantage so far has been in distribution. And now that Apple is free of it's exclusive contract with AT&T, I don't think that Android's advantage will last.
That's not anything against Apple in case I sound as if I'm suggesting that, Apple are a great company and "deserve" the success because they do build solid products, but the iPads success is down to Apple being successful as much as it is the iPad as an individual product. Does that make sense? Maybe not.
Apple product = hardware + brand