Apple Thoughts: What Can You Expect Tomorrow?

"The iPad design was finished months ago, the introduction was given in January and now the essential burden of bringing the device to customers is in the hands of Apple's retail team."

According to the article, not one of the 14,000 US Apple Store employees have had their hands on an iPad, and the first exposure to it will be the morning of April 3rd when they get a two hour hands-on training session before the stores open up at 9:00am. Apple is pressing the issue of making this a "superior" buying experience for it's customers, making sure ALL employees show up and work until 10am to handle the expected rush. They also plan on having employees assist in the set up of the iPad and are scheduling various workshops throughout the day. Interesting news is that besides the reserved units, Apple is making sure to have at least 100 iPads in each configuration available for walk-ins, except at Best Buy which will only have 5 units of each configuration per store. I'm not sure how just two hours of training will translate into being able to educate a customer but we shall see! I'll be at the Bridgeport Village Apple Store in Tigard tomorrow around 9:30 am to pick up mine if anyone is in the area and wants to say hi.