(Image courtesy of Retrevo)

A survey of 1,000 customers both before and after Apple’s iPad announcement seem to indicate that the device is going to have an uphill battle latching onto interested customers.

E-tailer Retrevo is reporting the results of its customer survey, and the bottom line is, those polled appear to have already lost interest in the iPad in the days since the Jan. 27 media event where it was announced.

From Jan. 16 to Jan. 20th, 26 percent of customers surveyed by Retrevo said they had heard about the tablet computer but weren’t interested in buying one. Following the iPad announcement in San Francisco, that number doubled to 52 percent, which seems to indicate that the insane hype prior to the event didn’t quite pan out for Apple.

The number of consumers who think they don’t need an iPad increased from 49 percent before to 61 percent after the announcement, while a full 59 percent said they don’t want to pay extra for 3G service -- which means it was probably a wise move on Apple’s part to offer a Wi-Fi only model in the first place.

Tucked away in Retrevo’s findings is a good indication that Apple probably doesn’t have much to worry about ultimately: Just three percent of people surveyed before the announcement said they were definitely going to buy an iPad, and that number tripled to nine percent following the media event.

Of course, had Retrevo surveyed potential original iPhone buyers in the six months between announcement and availability back in 2007, they probably would have gotten similar results. It’s hard to get too excited about something that you can’t actually buy yet -- so we’ll see how things shake out for Apple come late March.