Shoppers waiting until the last minute to pre-order their iPad will be facing a week long delay now that Apple has pushed the ship date for new orders from April 3 out to April 12. iPad orders placed before Saturday are still scheduled for delivery on April 3.
The 16GB, 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi only iPad models are set to hit store shelves on Saturday, April 3, and the Wi-Fi plus 3G models are still scheduled for a late April release. Apple also pulled the option to reserve an iPad for in-store pickup on launch day.
Pushing out the ship date for new Wi-Fi iPad orders means that Apple most likely has run through its inventory for pre-orders, reservations and walk-in purchases. For shoppers willing to wait in line next Saturday, there’s still a chance they’ll be able to pick up an iPad on the first day of availability, but once the supply runs out it looks like it will be about a week before more units are available.
4 Comments
Hasn’t there also bee rumors of screen shortages and/or changes in suppliers?
Note that it’s OVER a week as the initial orders will ARRIVE April 3rd while the late orders will be SHIPPED April 12th. It’s a minimum of two weeks delay for those who waited.
Rather than the rumored screen shortages causing the delay, I wonder if the online store move is an effort to get buyers into Apple and BestBuy brick and mortar stores (?)
Possible. The stores are probably convenient to a majority of the USA population. Long lines of Apple customers generate a lot of media attention.
Yep - long media lines! Is this the first time Apple has included initial release hardware at a store (BestBuy) other than its own stores? I’m sure the lines at BestBuy will also be long, especially in those communities where there’s no Apple store. I do understand, however, that the BestBuy release will be in about 675 of it’s largest stores.
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