Writing for AdAge.com, Nat Ives reports that Popular Science magazine has sold 10,000 subscriptions to its iPad edition. That represents only a small fraction of the magazine’s overall subscriber base (1.2 million), but it’s the first hard number we’ve seen showing how Apple’s new subscription service is working.

[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]App Store subscriptions first became apparent in early February when News Corp. unveiled The Daily, a new daily newspaper published directly on the iPad. By mid-February Apple announced the new service, which enables users to buy subscriptions to periodicals through iTunes.

Apple acts as a gatekeeper between the App Store customer and the publisher, and takes 30 percent of the revenue generated from the sale of subscriptions inside the app. That and other restrictions imposed by Apple have caused some publishers to balk.

Not Bonnier Technology Group, which publishes Popular Science. They gave it a shot, and Gregg Hano, VP-group publisher, said that they are “excited” with the results.

In addition to the subscriptions, Popular Science’s March issue sold 2,500 individual copies at $4.99 each, the same as it’s available on newsstands.