This weekend brought an interesting surprise for anyone attempting to purchase themselves a nifty, new, Wi-Fi iPad. It’s sold out. You can still buy it, of course, but the ship date isn’t April 3rd anymore. It’s April 12th. In-store pickup has been removed as a shipping method as well.

This is a big deal for Apple’s new device. I’m still standing behind the statement that no one really knows what it does. Yes, the promise of apps and the advent of a color ereader are nice, but $500 is a lot for that promise. Will it be that much better than a laptop? We’ll have to see.

Most estimates put the sold-out round of iPads around 500,000. That’s a crapload of units, especially considering that none of them have 3G. I know some people aren’t expecting big 3G sales, but I’d bet the nerds of the world will pick up a 3G unit for the just-in-case insurance. There’s really not a compelling reason to not get one and plenty of reasons for it. Remember, there are no contracts, so you can grab a month of service whenever you need it.

Source: 9to5 Mac

As pretty as the iPad may be, it’s not the magical, revolutionary device the company would have you think. It could be – it likely will be – it’s just not there yet. That hasn’t stopped people from buying it up like crazy. According to a report from Fortune, Apple may have moved as many as 50,000 units in its first two hours of pre-sale.

That’s not exactly gotta-have-it type sales, but it’s damn good for a device in the same category as the Kindle, which has supposedly only sold a couple million over the course of a few years. It’s also possible that the numbers are a good bit higher. The data used to estimate sales were order numbers, a decent chunk of which presumably included multiple iPads.

Whatever the number, the iPad will have no shortage of guinea pigs come April 3rd.

Source: Macrumors