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The good news for Apple is that it has clearly accomplished its objective of getting the word out about its new iPad tablet computer. The media blitz that began weeks before CEO Steve Jobs' Jan. 27 launch in San Francisco garnered front-page coverage in 47 states and 24 countries. So you'd practically have had to turn off your TV and computer and avoid newspapers to not know about it.

The bad news is that with about a month until the product starts shipping, people aren't likely to line up to get their hands on an iPad, according to a follow-up survey from Retrevo Pulse.

No, Thanks

The company's survey of 1,000 people found that the number who had heard of the iPad nearly doubled from 48 percent in the days before the launch to 80 percent in the Jan. 27-Feb. 3 period immediately following. But the number of those who knew about it but were not interested doubled from 26 percent to 52 percent. The number of definite buyers rose from three to nine percent.

The participants are users of Retrevo's electronic marketplace. The number of people who were hiding under a rock and hadn't heard of the iPad shrank from 35 percent to just 18 percent, but the number of people taking a wait-and-see attitude was statistically unchanged, from 19 to 21 percent.

A ChangeWave Research survey released about the same time found that just 14 percent of respondents said they were likely to buy the device. Both surveys found that a majority would not pay more than $700 for the iPad.

So when Jobs announced that the price point for the basic iPad model was $499, some boost in interest might have been expected.

But after learning the price and many features, the number of people who said they didn't feel they need an...