General iPad Questions

After many early iPad pre-orders were updated several days ago to indicate that they were prepared for shipment, Apple has actually begun shipping those orders. Many eager iPad owners-to-be were happily greeted by an Apple shipping notification, such as the one shown in the image below, sitting in their inbox.

Somewhat interestingly, despite most outlets previously assuming it would be FedEx handling the Saturday deliveries of Apple's long awaited tablet, early reports from consumers indicate that UPS is handling the initial shipment of iPads. Despite some customer concerns that UPS does not deliver on Saturday, the UPS website clearly states "For time-critical shipments, UPS offers the convenience of Saturday Delivery."

Apple now officially owns the trademark for the term "iPad". A recent article on patentauthority.com details the transfer of the iPad trademark, which was first registered in 2003 by Fujitsu, to Apple Inc. (AAPL).

Fujitsu originally registered the trademark for its now-defunct iPad device, a hand held computer that was used by retailers for inventory and check-out purposes.

Initial expectations that Apple would challenge the iPad trademark were confirmed when Apple initiated opposition proceedings last year. However, according to the article, these proceedings never progressed and left Apple only to file extensions on their proceedings, with Apple filing its last extension in December of last year.

Steve Jobs has been spending more time lately replying directly to user inquiries, and he's been sending quite a few messages using his iPad. Here's a summary of six recent questions that have gone public with answers from the Apple CEO himself. The first three were followed by the signature line, "Sent from my iPad."

1. Andrea wanted to know whether or not she could sync her collection of free ePub books to the iPad using iTunes. Steve replied, "Yep."

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone to argue with the notion that Apple as a company and in turn, AAPL stock, has been on a steady road of success and good fortune. AAPL, which has more than doubled in value, is currently trading at around $227 per share. Many analysts rate the stock's value well above $250 per share. With the iPad ready to hit shelves in just a few weeks, will another potentially successful product push Apple stock over the $300 mark?

As mentioned above, it isn't uncommon to find analysts rating Apple stock well above $250. Some recent analyst values include: Piper Jaffray ($284), Broadpoint AmTech ($280), Kaufman Brothers ($253) and Deutsche Bank and Canaccord Adams ($250).

As a recent StreetInsider.com article points out, however, those projected values are based on

One of the most requested features on the iPhone was the ability to natively share files between the iPhone and a USB or wirelessly connected PC or other device. Third party applications such as AirSharing and DropCopy have arisen to fill this void, but as useful as they are they don't offer the same flexibilty that a full OS integrated filesystem or file sharing system would provide.

Considering Apple's targeting of more complicated tasks, such as word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation development with iWork, it should comes as little surprise that Apple has decided to handle things differently with the iPad.

In somewhat oddly preemptive fashion, Apple has released a support document on its website detailing the process for battery replacement on the Apple iPad. The crux of this document is that, unlike with the iPhone, iPad owners who have batteries that have a diminished capacity, fail to hold a charge, or are otherwise defective will have their entire iPad replaced instead of Apple servicing the unit and replacing the battery itself.

The cost for this replacement service is $99 + $6.95 shipping, for a total cost of $105.95 per iPad. Service can be arranged through

As part of its pre-order launch day site updates, Apple posted updates detailing new apps that the iPad has brought into the fray. This includes the new iBooks application, as well as iWork suite. One of the most talked about details about the iBooks application that was revealed today is that, if you want it to, it will read books to you.

The dictation/read aloud feature is a product of Apple's VoiceOver technology. VoiceOver, which received an overhaul as part of OS X Snow Leopard, is an accessibility that can read

UPDATE (03/12/10): Although the iPad is now available for pre-order, many readers are still unclear on some of the details found below. If you're vague on any of the details regarding pre-ordering, we suggest reviewing the Q&A below.

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The long-awaited opportunity to pre-order the Apple iPad starts tomorrow. Although Apple announced over a week ago that iPad pre-ordering would begin on March 12th, 2010, Apple has been otherwise vague in the details they've volunteered. For those of you that plan to pre-order tomorrow, those details are likely very important.

What Apple did tell everyone in their press release was when the iPad would be available for pre-order on the 12th, and that both versions of the iPad (WiFi only and WiFi+3G) would be available for pre-order at that time. Following are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions regarding pre-ordering of the Apple iPad which Apple's press release, and other iPad information, failed to make clear.

What time on March 12th does pre-ordering begin?

Apple Media/PR Team has confirmed that iPad pre-ordering will be available as of 5:30 AM PDT (8:30 AM EDT).

Will my pre-ordered iPad arrive or ship on April 3rd?

Apple made a considerable effort to get the iPhone 3GS in the hands of pre-order customers on release day. It is likely that Apple intended to get all of the pre-ordered 3GS units in hands on release day, but were surprised by the volume and thus some pre-order customers received their phones well after release.

Apple released iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 4 yesterday, and developers sunk their teeth right in to determine what new features or hints of coming features might be lurking in the codebase. What a number of developers turned up, within hours of the SDK's release, surprised many. There is a good deal of evidence contained within the SDK to indicate that Apple is either currently developing, or already prepared for, video conferencing via a front-facing camera in the iPad.

MacRumors reported today that developers who dug around in the newly released SDK turned up the following variables related to camera support in the iPad

The article explained, "it seems Apple built in API support to test to see if