Brian Barrett - 

Apple doesn’t hesitate to trumpet its successes, but its first public acknowledgement of iPad mini sales is mostly notable for how much it doesn’t say.

The company’s crowing this morning focused on total iPad opening weekend sales of three million; that’s iPad mini and fourth-generation iPads combined. And, for all we know, still-available iPad 2 sales as well. It’s a healthy number, no doubt, and one that would be the envy of Amazon and Google and Microsoft no matter what the breakdown. Still, the fact that Apple’s chosen not to be more granular — and that it didn’t sell out of what was widely believed to be a supply-constrained product — might give some pause. From the press release:

Apple® today announced it has sold three million iPads in just three days since the launch of its new iPad® mini and fourth generation iPad-double the previous first weekend milestone of 1.5 million Wi-Fi only models sold for the third generation iPad in March.

Apple sold three million total retina iPads its opening weekend in March, but was available in only 12 countries. The iPad mini and iPad 4 were available in 34 countries at launch (and are two products, not one), so it’s not exactly an apples to apples comparison.

Again, three million tablets in three days is a lot of tablets, no question about that. But there’s enough spin here to do a top up for days, which makes you wonder if the iPad mini didn’t live up to someone’s — or everyone’s — expectations. [Apple]