Report: iPad to Reach Apple Stores Mar. 10

Ed Sutherland ()

Report: iPad to Reach Apple Stores Mar. 10

Apple Store employees could be the first civilians to touch the mythical iPad tablet device. The iPad is set to arrive Mar. 10 in Apple Stores for employee training. Television commercials for the iPad should begin airing by mid-March with sales of the Wi-Fi iPad happening by the end of this month, a Tuesday report claims.

The Examiner cites a Southern California Apple Store manager who wanted to remain anonymous. A 3G version of the iPad will appear in late April or May, according to the report.

Additionally, it seems Apple fans who camp out to await the iPad’s sales with receive more than a feeling of pride for being first in line. The report says early birds will receive a “special gift.”

Although March sales had been announced when the iPad was first unveiled, a recent report that production problems could cause a delay prompted a stir among consumers eagerly awaiting the tablet device. Earlier this week, an analyst said the iPad’s chief supplier was experiencing a “manufacturing bottleneck” that could potentially derail the product’s March sales.

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[via 9to5Mac and Examiner]

8 comments »

About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • Tommy T

    See now this is confusing. Is it delayed is or is it not? A lot of holes in these “inside” reports!! (not talking about you Ed).

  • Patrick

    When version 2 comes out, after the early adopters have done the in field testing free of charge for Apple, maybe I’ll consider getting one. Never buy the first version of hardware Apple releases….unless you have money to burn.

  • Tommy T

    Yeah I paid $599.99 + tax for the original iPhone. It was really awesome that it dropped $200 in price like a month or two later! But I don’t regret it at all.

  • Jacob smith

    I heard it starts at $499 for the 16 gigabyte one, $599 for the 32 gigabyte and $699 for the 64 gigabyte one

  • Alfred

    Sometimes it’s worth the experience of playing with something new and awesome – even though you know full well a new one will be released soon enough.

    ..//..

    On another topic: I signed up for the Cult of Mac e-mail subscription service — and I’ve not received a single message yet. Is it not switched on yet or am I doing something wrong?

  • strangel00p

    Apple seems to be confused by having the release at the end of March. My birthday is March 17th.

  • Gene

    I have a lot of trouble believing that new products are shipped in early for store employee training. Every Apple store employee I know says that they haven’t ever seen a product before the day of release, and even then only just before they open the store.

  • Charli

    funny I was told by a Northern California manager named Fred that they aren’t in store training units. All Employees are getting a free ipad for keeps this friday. Each of which will have the serial number etc recorded and if anyone is caught trying to craigslist or ebay it, the guilty employee will be fired immediately.