Which says absolutely nothing about its eventual carrying capacity.

And extrapolating based on that is exactly why so many have been so wrong about the iPad's growth trajectory and why it's slowing down so rapidly.

The iPad was a global product with an existing application base from launch. The first iPhones were geographically (and operator) limited and didn't even support 3rd party apps.

But also without subsidies and a limited selection of iPad specific apps as well as less of a defined role in between smartphones and PCs.

Correct about the apps. But they were not geographically or operator limited. From the beginning, they were used around the world on any service.

Are you sure? I thought that the first iPhone was only sold by AT&T in the US at least initially?

I'm pretty sure that they weren't sold outside the US at least to start with.

Wikipedia says this[0]:

Jobs unveiled the iPhone to the public on January 9, 2007, at the Macworld 2007 convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.[34] The two initial models, a 4 GB model priced at US$ 499 and an 8 GB model at US$ 599, went on sale in the United States on June 29, 2007, at 6:00 pm local time, while hundreds of customers lined up outside the stores nationwide.[35] The passionate reaction to the launch of the iPhone resulted in sections of the media dubbing it the 'Jesus phone'.[36][37] Following this successful release in the US, the first generation iPhone was made available in the UK, France, and Germany in November 2007, and Ireland and Austria in the spring of 2008.

On July 11, 2008, Apple released the iPhone 3G in twenty-two countries, including the original six.[38] Apple released the iPhone 3G in upwards of eighty countries and territories.[39] Apple announced the iPhone 3GS on June 8, 2009, along with plans to release it later in June, July, and August, starting with the US, Canada and major European countries on June 19.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphone#History_and_availability

Officially, yes. But you could still get it to work on your home network outside the US if you wanted to. Just wouldn't get data.