"Overwhelming" demand limiting iPad in-store pickup

@Ian, I agree. I think if you "reserve" one, it will be there for you. The res. email states it will be "held" only until 3pm, after that, will go for sale to others, first come, first serve.
Like I said earlier, I have one reserved, so does my dad, at the same apple store. If I get there at 9 and there is a huge line, I don't care, since there should be ones there with our names on them.

My guess is that if a store has X reserved iPads, that they will put that many aside from the "general sale", and if by 3PM any of the X have not been picked up, they will sell those to others. I can't imagine that a store will have less iPads "reserved" than there are confirmed reservations....then again....

I'm still on the fence....I am intrigued that for eReading, you can add through iTunes any ePub book...my local library "loans" ePub books for up to 14 days, which means you don't have to buy every book you want to read on the iPad....you can't do this with a Kindle...of course, I'm typing this on my MacBook Pro, so do I really need the iPad? Not really...but it really isn't about need, is it? And my birthday is next month...hmmm....

Question - if you order one and pay online (to be shipped to your door) - does it ship on the 3rd (and take some days after that to arrive), or does it ship in order to arrive on the 3rd? Do they guarantee it'll be at your door on the 3rd?

When you reserve one for in store pickup you are not laying any money down. Apple is not obliged to hold on to "yours" any longer than they feel like. The fact that they are doing in store pickup at all is a great thing.

I am having my 32gb wifi model delivered. Really not worried about it not getting here in a timely fashion. After all with all the goodies my total after tax was $708 and well spent I'd say. Better to just have it delivered and not deal with the stress of the Apple Store

Placed my reservation for pick up at 8:35AM EST and got the e-mail a few minutes later. I'm confident it will be there. Especially since I intend to show up at the door about an hour before they open the doors. If there's no line to speak of, I'll just wander around the plaza for a while, maybe grab a coffee while I wait.

Steve W - just going on what I was told by Apple, and I was very surprised to be told that. I specifically questioned what that meant, because to me, if I order it for in-store pick up, there should be a box with my name on it. I was told that WAS NOT the case. Now, the person I spoke to may well have been misinformed, and I would hope that he was. But I was not going to leave it to chance, especially as I will be out of the country on the 3rd and couldn't pick up until the 4th. So I stuck with my online order for delivery.

Pre-ordered my iPad this morning in Hawaii. Got the conformation email a couple minutes later. It says 9-3, I better have one with my name on it when I show up. Why wait in line to get an iPad if you pre-order now?

I thank all of you who pre-ordered and will go through the ordeal of waiting in line, etc... I am going to get an iPad - eventually - but I really look forward to real-world use of the product and perhaps an update or two to the OS.

I mean this, I am thrilled to see the massive numbers rack up. I want to see a paradigm shift in personal computing. I love my iPhone, but it's just not big enough. However, I'm more than willing to dump my laptop and go to my desktop when I need the horsepower. When I travel, less is more.

my daughter got this email after she ordered her iPad:

Thank you for your interest in the AppleCare Protection Plan for iPad.

Apple is not authorized to sell the AppleCare Protection Plan for iPad
in your state at this time and we have removed the item from your recent
order. Any other items on the order will be processed as usual. For
up-to-date information on your order, please visit our Order Status
website at http://www.apple.com/orderstatus.

You may wish to check the Apple Store at a future time for availability
of the product in your state. We apologize for any inconvenience and
thank you for shopping on the Apple Store.

Sincerely,
The Apple Store Team

I wonder what caused this?