Apple Retail Stores Begin Prepping for iPad Launch as First Third-Party Retailers Open

Thursday March 15, 2012 6:26 am PDT by Eric Slivka

With Apple's official launch of the iPad in Australia, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong just hours away, it seems that some of the company's retail stores are beginning their preparations. At Apple's Fukuoka Tenjin store in Japan, which closed for the night a little over an hour ago, employees are currently hard at work removing iPad 2 units from display in order to replace them with demo models of the new iPad.

Apple's retail stores will be opening at 8:00 AM local time to begin selling the new iPad, but some third-party retail partners will be opening even earlier. In fact, our friends at iFixit have traveled to Australia in order to be among the first to obtain an iPad for teardown purposes and were first in line at a Telstra retail store in Melbourne that opened just a few minutes ago at midnight. The carrier is even celebrating the event with a meter square iPad cake.

Update: iFixit now has its iPad in hand and will begin tearing it down shortly.

Top Rated Comments

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mertyz

17 months ago

We spend months following every single new internal leak.
We finally see an assembled one at the Apple's keynote event.
We tear it down to see internals again after the launch.

What's wrong with us?

Rating: 6 Positives

HelveticaNeue

17 months ago

Cake would have been perfect if they hadn't mixed up the locations of Newsstand and Settings ... shame

Update: Oh, judging from the down votes I am either offending fans of Telstra or Apple fans who don't appreciate the details. Didn't mean to offend. It's just that the cake came so close to perfect.

Rating: 6 Positives

KingJosh

17 months ago

I'll say it, that cake sucks, heh

you can't just say that without giving a reason or it makes you look jealous.

Rating: 5 Positives

greytmom

17 months ago

Cake would have been perfect if they hadn't mixed up the locations of Newsstand and Settings ... shame

All you have to do is press and hold until the icons wiggle, and you can rearrange the apps.

Might be a little squishy with the icing and all.

Rating: 4 Positives

powerslave12r

17 months ago

Update: iFixit now has its iPad in hand (https://twitter.com/#!/iFixit/status/180283743326576640) and will begin tearing it down shortly.

Here we go. :D

Rating: 4 Positives

AppleScruff1

17 months ago

The cake probably tastes like garbage.

I've had cakes with designs like that before, and calling them "edible" is the same as calling paper "edible". The design literally peels right off... it's just a layer of fondant. And for those who have never eaten fondant before, let me tell you, fondant sucks. Though it's made of only sugar and water, it tastes nothing like sugar or water (or soda, which is also just sugar and water.)

It's an iPad cake. It will be magically delicious. :D

Rating: 3 Positives

RevToTheRedline

17 months ago

I'll say it, that cake sucks, heh

Rating: 3 Positives

G5isAlive

17 months ago

I don't know whether to laugh or ... oh heck I am laughing. IFixIt has travelled halfway around the globe to beat father time and tear the thing apart before its even opening day here in the states? Too funny that I will see the iPads guts here before I even have the chance to open my shiny new box tomorrow (go FedEx!).

Rating: 2 Positives