iPad pre-order frenzy commences

March 12, 2010 by Beatweek

At 8:30am Eastern Time, online pre-orders for Apple’s iPad in the U.S. commenced as expected, for an April 3rd rollout date. Customers are being given the choice of having the iPad shipped to them with expected arrival on said date (meaning that pre-orders will ship at some date slightly prior to April 3rd), or opting for in-store pickup at a local Apple Store on that same date. As of this morning, there were no changes noted to the originally announced configurations or pricing. While the 3G-enabled iPad won’t be available until sometime after April 3rd, it too was available for preorder.

Prices for various iPad add-ons from Apple were confirmed: $69 for the keyboard dock, $39 for the case, $29 for the non-keyboard dock. AppleCare for the iPad, which extends the standard one year warranty by an additional year, is offered at $99.

Anecdotal browsing on Twitter confirmed a large number of iPad pre-orders being placed at the precise moment the device became available this morning, but not everyone who is interested in the device plunked their money down this morning; Twitter user razz2 commented “Can’t get myself to pre-order an iPad until I’ve touched one.”

Those located in the U.S. can place their pre-order at apple.com/ipad.