In the wake of yesterday's iPad sales estimates of 50K in the first couple of hours (now revised by Silicon Alley Insider and Apple 2.0 to about 91,000 in the first six hours), we have an unconfirmed but plausible number from inside the retail stores. According to our source, the in-store pickup reservation count differential between the start of the day and closing time was about 41,000; that represents reservations for the WiFi iPad only.

If you've got a pickup reservation and you happen to know your ID number for it -- and you made your reservation either at the very beginning of the day yesterday, or at the very end of the day -- let us know in the comments and we'll start doing some arithmetic. We'll also try to cross-confirm this number with other little birdies from the retail front. Update: Looks like there's no tracking info on the registration emails. Drat.

If your iPhone backups and restores are taking a ridiculously long time, Apple suggests you take a quick peek at your Camera Roll.

In a new Knowledge Base entry, Apple reminds users that photos are backed up each time you do a sync, even if there are no changes to the Camera Roll. The result can be a sluggish backup or restore.

If you already have the photos copied into iPhoto, you're good to erase them from the Camera Roll. Apple has some advice for getting the pictures back to your iPhone if you need to:

It seems that a lot of Apple-related events happen while I'm on cruise ships. Back in 1998, for example, I was aboard a cruise ship when I read the headline that Apple had decided to drop the Newton MessagePad. Before we went on this trip, I knew that Apple would start taking iPad pre-orders and reservations on March 12, so I expected that I'd just be able to pull up the Apple website early in the morning, pop in my reservation, and then go on with my vacation. Little did I know that it was going to take me until 4 PM local time (3 PM ET) on March 12th to get my reservation into the system.

Just before I went to sleep the evening of March 11th, I saw a post here on TUAW that outlined when the Apple Online Store would open for pre-orders and reservations. Doing a quick time calculation in my head, I determined that I'd be able to pop in at 9:30 AM local time and make my order... no, wait a second. At 8:30 AM, I was going to be taking a ship's tender over to shore. Dang.

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Many folks were excited when Apple announced Back to My Mac as part of MobileMe. Being able to remotely access your Mac from anywhere sounded like magic. We're used to products from Apple that "just work" but for most people most of the time, Back to My Mac "just doesn't."

To maximize your chances, you're supposed to use a supported router, but even that's no guarantee. At home I have an Airport Extreme Base Station (Wireless-N), and at the office I have an Airport Extreme Dual-Band model. I don't think it's possible to get a "more compliant" setup, yet I still can't get it to work most of the time.

Under the adage "nothing ventured, nothing gained," I took a chance and signed up for a free account with DynDNS. DynDNS gives you a free hostname which will go to your computer even when your IP address changes. There are scads of DynDNS domain names available, but for the purposes of this example, let's assume that your domain name is imac.homeip.net.

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According to MacDailyNews, shoppers who placed iPad pre-orders this morning are being told by Apple Store employees that demand could affect their plans for in-store pickup.

It seems that several customers ordered iPads this morning, opting for at-home delivery. For whatever reason, they later changed their minds and opted for in-store pickup. That's when things got tricky.

When requesting the switch, those customers are being told that their existing orders will have to be cancelled and new in-store orders placed. However, the employees warn, demand for the iPad has been so "overwhelming" today that they can no longer guarantee that an in-store pickup order will be available on April 3rd if placed at this late hour.

As of this writing, the online Apple Store notes that Wi-Fi iPads ordered today will be able for pickup at Apple Retail Store "...between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on April 3."

In other words: Selling like hotcakes.

The early adopters are out in force today. Based on analysis from Fortune's Apple 2.0 blog & the investors of the AAPL board on Investor Village, it seems that as many as 50,000 iPads were pre-ordered in its first two hours of availability this morning. That's pretty staggering demand, especially considering that on a typical day Apple only receives an average of 15,000 online orders for all products combined.

Naturally, we have no way of knowing if these numbers are exact as of yet. The numbers reflect over 50,000 orders placed in two hours, and the percentage of those that are iPad orders isn't clear. Considering that the iPad was just made available for pre-order today, however, and the 15K daily average noted above, it's likely the majority of orders placed this morning were indeed for the iPad. Additionally, the numbers only reflect the number of orders placed, not the number of units ordered; taken with the 2-pad maximum for today's pre-orders, the data does suggest that somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 iPad pre-orders were placed within two hours of its availability.

This suggests a huge demand for the device, at least among early adopters. It will be very interesting to see if this trend is repeated once the iPad is actually available in stores.

One interesting note: even if all 50,000 of those iPads were the $499 version (which is very unlikely), based on iSuppli's analysis of that unit's build cost, it means Apple gained nearly $13.5 million in revenue profit from the iPad alone in a mere two hours -- and that's the bare minimum. Once you factor in all the other models and their higher prices, the numbers climb by several million dollars. Even for a company with a market cap in excess of $205 billion, that's still pretty amazing performance.

[h/t MacRumors]

Considering AppleCare for your iPad? I know that I am. For $99, AppleCare extends your iPad warranty coverage to two years from the date of purchase. Although AppleCare tends to be expensive, for certain purchases it can really save you, especially for devices which run a higher risk of component failure over a lifetime of hard use -- such as laptops and other mobile tech.

Many Apple aficionados tend to avoid buying AppleCare for robust devices like the Mac mini series. Those units tend either to die right away or last forever. They are highly self-serviceable for anyone who has a reasonable degree of comfort with a screwdriver.

The iPad and the iPhone, on the other hand, can feel like accidents waiting to happen. Without a simple avenue for owner-repair, they are more of a black box purchase. And their components can and do die much more unexpectedly. In my history of purchasing iPhones and iPod touches, I have personally encountered video driver death and massive touchscreen failure.

To be fair, both of these incidents happened within a month or so of purchase, so keep that in mind as well. For many devices, component failures tend to show themselves fairly soon. With a standard iPad purchase, you are covered for 90 days of phone support and a 1 year hardware warranty without any need for a further AppleCare payment, according to the Apple representative I talked to this morning.

What's more, if you want to wait, you can. Purchasing AppleCare extends standard iPad coverage to 2 years each of phone support and hardware warranty. You can buy AppleCare up until the last day of your 1 year complimentary coverage, so there's not really a rush unless you need phone support during that time.

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Much as I love AT&T's prepaid services, their interactive system for purchasing feature packages... well, it kind of sucks. I can't count the number of hours I have spent on their 611 purchase line trying to get the chirpy fake human at the other end (no, seriously, the robot is very cheerful and upbeat) to properly confirm my correct order.

With the help of human operators (who cannot, by the way, actually effect the purchase), I have a cheat sheet that sits next to my computer and gets updated as they change their menu system: sometimes you have to say "yes". Sometimes you have to say "buy it". It's all a bit of a mess.

So when I read through Apple's updated iPad 3G page, I was delighted to see that you can add your prepaid 3G feature packages from the iPad without ever having to speak to chirpy fake humans. It's all done from the padtop. And that, let me say, is marvelous.

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If you're living in Canada or Mexico -- but close enough to the border to make a trip to a US Apple Store -- Clean My Screen has posted instructions for reserving an iPad outside of the US. There are 23 steps in the guide, but it doesn't look terribly complicated.

It involves the creation of a new account with a US address and no payment method, but with a real email address. Then you can confirm your account and make a reservation, although you'll need to make a trek (or have a friend in a convenient location do it) to a brick-and-mortar US Apple Store to retrieve your iPad.

As noted in the article, having a US iTunes account can be handy for a handful of other reasons, including being used to buy free apps and music, and potentially get free eBooks once the iBook Store opens. If you live outside of iPad reservation territory, give it a shot and let us know how you fare.