GoodReader for iPad sells 24,000 copies, is now No. 2 paid app

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GoodReader, the 99-cent document and PDF reader for iPad, has become the No. 2 paid app on the iPad charts, displacing Apple’s own chart-topping offerings, Numbers and Keynote.

GoodReader has sold 8,000 copies each day since the launch of the iPad -- for more than 24,000 copies total -- according to its maker Yuri Selukoff. That figure provides a clear look into the number of apps needed to top the App Store’s iPad sales chart. (On Monday, Autodesk Inc. said it sold about 10,000 copies of its SketchBook Pro app in the iPad’s first two days.)

Since Saturday, the modest e-reading app has steadily climbed its way to the top of the iPad charts, but Selukoff didn’t expect that it would outrun even Apple’s programs.

‘That was a shock for me,’ he said. ‘That was really a shock.’

Selukoff’s app -- from his company Good.iWare Ltd. -- is billed as an easy way to carry around and read large PDF files. It’s built to allow users to transfer documents to their iPads by plugging it in via the USB docking connector.

(This in itself is newsworthy because before the iPad, Apple did not have a standardized way for Apps to store their own files on its devices. When iPhone apps like the Stanza e-reader and even GoodReader attempted to circumvent Apple’s development rules, they got in warm water.)

Selukoff said users of GoodReader could store as many large files in the app’s dedicated folder as they liked, making it a useful application for toting around textbooks, technical documents and old-fashioned normal books. Selukoff believes many of his customers, including for the popular iPhone version, are students.

The success of GoodReader may hearten small-scale developers who want proof that simple apps with modest development budgets can find major success on the iPad. But Selukoff still has his eyes on the ultimate prize.

‘Let’s see if I can bump Apple’s [Pages] applications from the No. 1 slot,’ he said.

-- David Sarno