Holiday weekends always bring a number of great sales on iPad apps and accessories. EA kicked things off for this Labor Day weekend with their now-standard massive sales on their range of leading iPad games.

Marware is one of the first big iPad accessory vendors I’ve seen with a major sale this weekend. They’re offering 25% off everything at their site. This includes a number of impressive iPad cases – including the C.E.O. Hybrid for the new iPad, a great all-rounder sort of case.

The Marware sale is already going on and runs until 11:59PM EST on 9/3.Check it out at the Marware site.

Apple is now offering refurbished models of the new 2012 iPad at its online store. It looks like the full range of new iPad models, from 16GB to 64GB, and from WiFi only to WiFi + cellular (AT&T and Verizon) are all on offer at $50 less than the standard retail price for a new unit.

These refurb units inlcude a brand new battery and outer shell, and also on year warranty cover. If you know anyone looking for a new iPad bargain, these are worth a look. You can check them out at this Apple store page.

Apple has announced that the new iPad, the 2012 3rd-gen iPad, will be released in China next week, on Friday July 20th. From their press release yesterday:

Apple® today announced the new iPad®, the third generation of its category defining mobile device, will arrive in China on Friday, July 20. … The new iPad Wi-Fi models will be available in black or white for a suggested retail price of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model and $699 (US) for the 64GB model. The iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular models will be available for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. In China the new iPad will be available through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com), select Apple Authorized Resellers and by reservation from Apple retail stores. Reservation requests will be accepted daily from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. beginning Thursday, July 19 for pick up the following day. Additionally, iPad 2 is available at a more affordable price starting at just $399 (US).

There are already predictions of massive iPad sales in Apple’s last financial quarter that ended June 30. Getting the latest iPad into China’s massive market should give quite a nice boost to this current quarter.

I know we have some readers in China – let us know in the comments if you are planning to get a new iPad when they launch next week.

Image Source: The image at the top of this post is courtesy of Apple Insider, from back when the original iPad launched in Beijing.

It looks like Apple retail stores are replacing iMacs with iPads at their ‘Kids Table’ areas, as Rene Ritchie at iMore recently reported.

The tables, which had previously been decked out with a quartet of iMacs, now sport 4 iPads instead.

Like the previous iMacs, which were set up with educational and game programs, the iPads had a variety of child-friendly apps.

I think this is a great move by Apple – in my experience, kids take to iPads and get pretty heavily engaged with them much more quickly than they do with computers. Between the ease-of-use of iOS and the big touch-screen to work with, it’s far easier for kids to get around and find what they like to do on an iPad.

iPads are already used by Apple store Genius and concierge staff – I’m not sure any Apple product has as big a presence in their stores now.

A new study on iPad usage shows that users of the iPad and iPad 2 are hugely satisfied, that they’re using a lot of apps, and using the iPad for work as well as fun.

The study by Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) shows not only that over 83% of respondents are satisfied with the iPad, but that the clear majority (at 62%) rate it as ‘Excellent’.

Some other interesting findings in the study:

— Things that users like best about the iPad included variety of apps available, overall ease of use, the larger screen size, and portability. Least liked items included poor quality of some apps, the inability to play Adobe Flash, and problems typing with the keyboard. It’s good to see that apps, as expected, are a huge part of the overall iPad experience. And I expect the whole ‘missing Flash’ factor will become less and less of an issue now that even Adobe have pretty much given up on it.

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The Guardian iPad Edition was launched nine days ago in the App Store. Today The Guardian has shared some numbers on how the app is doing so far – starting with the number of downloads since its release: 145,880.

Apparently that’s a number that The Guardian brass are quite happy with: Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief, Guardian News & Media, said:

Since launching last week, the new Guardian iPad edition has already been downloaded over 145,000 times. This number of downloads in a week is a fantastic achievement, and shows the appetite among our readers to access our content in new, digital ways. This is our most successful app launch to date, and an important milestone as we continue to evolve into a digital-first news organisation.

Here’s the geographical breakdown on the app downloads so far:

Total: 145,880
UK: 85,018
US: 29,082
ROW: 31,780

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