Apple's iPad up for pre-order, WiFi model arrives on the 3rd of April

However, the 3G model ships ‘late April’, and the 'iPad Keyboard Dock' ships in May

The WiFi model will arrive 3rd of April

The 'iPad Keyboard Dock' ships in May

The iPad: delayed with no improvements in sight

The iPad is now available for pre-order at Apple.com. Pre-order customers can only purchase two iPads each, due to a limit set by Apple. The manufacturer states that the WiFi iPad will be delivered on the 3^rd of April; customers unable to receive Saturday orders will get their goods on the 5^th of April. The 3G iPad doesn't have a specific delivery date yet, and Apple.com states that it will ship 'late April'.

We recently reported a rumor that Apple was delaying the launch of its iPad by up to a month, changing the date from March to April. Apparently there was a manufacturing bottleneck at Hon Hai Precision (Foxconn) and Apple only had 300 thousand units ready for launch this month, instead of its target of 1 million units. The company was supposedly restricting the launch of the iPad to the US market; this has since been confirmed by Apple's website, which states that the UK can expect the iPad 'late April'. UK customers cannot pre-order the iPad yet. Apple is withholding the UK prices for the iPad, but apparently some prices have been leaked: the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi models will cost £389, £439 and £489 respectively.

The 3G version of the iPad is not the only device that has been delayed; the keyboard dock costs $69 and doesn't ship until May, as our faux order of a WiFi iPad revealed. As well as using multi-touch gestures as the primary input method, users can also use an on-screen virtual keyboard. There have been concerns about the efficacy of such a feature and the level of comfort attainable whilst using it. It seems Apple wanted to give customers the option of using the virtual keyboard or a real one, which is why they created the 'iPad Keyboard Dock'.

Is a manufacturing problem the only reason for the iPad's delayed release date? It was suggested recently that Apple was worried about the iPad's competitors: the 'Slate' by HP and the 'Courier' by Microsoft, and that Apple was planning to reduce the iPad's price and improve its specifications and capabilities prior to launch. Apple hasn't done either of these things, so the prices of the WiFi iPad and 3G iPad still start at $499 and $629 respectively.

The number of consumers placing orders for the iPad may exhaust Apple's stock, but I'm skeptical because this widely anticipated tablet PC has attracted a lot of criticism. We recently listed ten of the iPad's most significant weaknesses. Some of which were the device's lack of: multitasking, Flash support, an integrated card reader, a USB port, a HDMI port, a webcam and 16:9 aspect ratio. The anticipation of Apple's new device may have caused a strong demand for tablet PCs amongst consumers. However, Apple has failed to improve the iPad so this consumer interest may translate into sales for Apple's competitors rather than for the iPad.

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