Rumor: The iPad To Go On Presale Next Week
It's time to warm up your credit cards folks. Despite the fact that you won't have it in your hands before March 29th (or 60 days after the announcement, according to Steve Jobs), you should be able to put in your iPad order as soon as next week.
Context & Ripple Effects
The iPad was unveiled without a firm retail date beyond Steve Jobs' own '60 days' framing, so this App Advice report that preorders could open within the week is the first concrete signal of when money changes hands. It lands mid-courting-season: Jobs spent the prior days personally selling the device, with a confirmed February 18 demo to Wall Street Journal executives and reported visits to New York publishers.
That sequence matters because Apple is pitching the iPad as a reading device to the very outlets whose pricing terms will define its content shelf — and Jobs has already picked a public fight with Adobe over Flash while lobbying the Journal to drop it. A presale window, if real, would let Apple bank demand and lock in early adopters before a single unit ships.
First-order effects
- Buyers could place iPad orders roughly five weeks before the earliest stated availability, converting announcement buzz into committed revenue for Apple before the March 29-or-later ship date.
Second-order effects
- Publishers like the Wall Street Journal, whom Jobs was actively courting as of February 18, gain a hard deadline: subscription and pricing deals need to be settled before paying customers actually hold the device.
- Rivals watching the preorder ramp get Apple's first real demand datapoint for the tablet category, which will shape how quickly they respond with their own slate announcements.
Third-order effects
- If the presale pattern holds, Apple cements the announce-then-presale-then-ship cadence as the template for hardware launches, letting the company gauge demand and tune supply chains before inventory hits stores — though the report itself remains unconfirmed rumor.
The trend: Apple is shifting product launches from single-day store events toward extended preorder windows that monetize hype weeks before shipment.