The day is finally here, Apple is accepting iPad pre-orders. The company promises delivery by April 3rd if you preorder the infamous device, although the iPads that come 3G enabled won’t be ready until later April. The 3G enabled ones are also $130 more than their non-3G counterparts, which are priced as follows: $499 for the 16GB version, $599 for the 32GB version, or the $699 64GB version. If you are planning on purchasing a case of them for the office or a set for the whole fam, you’re out of luck. Apple is placing a 2 per company/consumer limit on the iPads pre-orders. They also reported that Apple stores that don’t have a large number of pre-orders will not receive many extras for people who did not pre-order. These restrictions could be a result of such tight production limitations; a source from AppleInsider claims to have received mixed claims about the number of iPads to be initially released-

 “Weeks ago, a handful of reports of manufacturing constraints suggested initial supply of the iPad could be limited. Analyst Peter misek with Canaccord Adams said checks with overseas suppliers suggested an “unspecified production problem” had led to a “manufacturing bottleneck,” potentially limiting the number of devices available at launch to 300,000.

 Another report, from analyst Vijay Rakesh of Think Equity, said that initial shipment could be even lower, around 200,000, due to “minor delays” in production. His checks with suppliers said any delays were only expected to be temporary, and were not related to the device’s glass screen, or any issues in the manufacturing process.

 A third report alleged that suppliers have had no issues in the manufacturing of the iPad, and expect Apple to ship between 600,000 and 700,000 devices at launch. That report claimed Apple would have the capacity to ship another 1 million iPads by the end of April.”

 It is also very possible that Apple is trying to create more hype with artificial demand.

If you want one of these sleek devices, my advice is to PRE-ORDER, or wait for the iPad 2.0 to come out, which will no doubt be cheaper, include more gadgets (camera, media ports) and have an updated OS, currently the iPad is using the iPhone OS, which is not new either. Some have criticized Apple for using an old, pre-existing OS on a brand new machine, but I don’t see it as that big of an issue… have you seen the iPad??? There is no denying how cool this thing is. So get one, you know you want it.