Like iPhone, iPad ad premieres at Oscars

Talk about big premieres. Like it did with the iPhone and its "Hello" ad, Apple used the Oscars as the platform to debut its iPad commercial. The ad, set to the background of The Blue Van's "There Goes My Love," shows the iPad being used in a variety of ways: viewing a movie, reading an eBook, displaying photos, editing an iWork document and viewing email among them. The ad follows Apple's recent announcement that pre-orders for the device will be accepted beginning March 12, with shipments slated for April 3.

Here's a link to the ad at Apple's site. The ad is also embedded in the second half of this post.

As we noted on Twitter earlier, Apple chairman Steve Jobs was spotted on the red carpet before the awards... maybe he brought his iPad with him.