This is where the blogosphere becomes the wild west. Andrew Erlichson on Phanfare:
We just bought two iPads, about 30 minutes apart. Our order IDs are 10,000 apart. Assuming those order IDs are sequential, and they appear to be, then Apple is selling 20,000 iPads per hour. Assuming most orders are for the $499 model, and that people are only buying 1 per order, that means Apple is selling $10MM/hour.
Immediately, the headline Apple is currently selling 20,000 iPads per hour sweeps across the internet. Not only is the math bogus, so is the logic. Erlichson also points out the obvious:
Of course that is not sustainable, but if they did it for a year, it would be $87.6-billion.
Apple sells other products, too, which could skew the order IDs. If all that glitters is not gold, then all that we read is not fact.