iPad Pre-order March 12, Launch April 3

So the original word from Apple was that the iPad, their long-rumored and finally revealed tablet (sort of), was going to be available in larch March. Announced in January, Steve Jobs said it’d be available in about 60 days. Well, they may have missed that mark by a couple of days, and certainly there’ll be a few people who jump all over that, but really, does anyone care? At this point, I can’t be the only one who wants to get his hands on one of these to see what they can really do. And now it looks like they’ll be available for pre-order in a week.

On March 12, you’ll be able to hit Apple’s store to place your pre-order. Whether you’ll be shipping it or picking it up in a store might be more of an issue than normal, because Apple, always the pranksters (well, not really), have decided that April 3, the day the iPad will launch, is actually a Saturday.

What does that mean for people who were hoping to overnight one? Will it still be delivered on Saturday? There’s a whole hell of a lot of services that aren’t available on weekends, and UPS and Fed Ex tend to be a couple of those, unless you pay an additional fee to get Saturday delivery. At this point, it’s too early to say whether you’ll actually receive your iPad on April 3 if you choose to have it shipped, but I think it may be a consideration for some.

And if they don’t? You’ll be waiting until April 5 for your iPad. Decisions, decisions.

Anyhow, here’s a few more specifics about the impending launch:

The iPad will start at $499 for the 16gb wifi-only model, and while the 3G enabled models won’t be available right away, Steve has said they’ll be available roughly 30 days after the wifi model launches, so that puts the 3G models, starting at $629 for the 16gb model at either the end of April or very early May. Additionally, pertinent to yesterday’s thinking-out-loud post on how the iPad is going to change book publishing, the iBookstore (everyone hates that name, right?) will open on April 3 with the launch of the iPad.

So there you have it. Those who have been waiting for the iPad to become available for pre-order, you don’t have to wait much longer. Perhaps now is the perfect time to write that article about why the iPad won’t be the flop half the critics seem to think it’ll be.