Research In Motion’s in the news today: not only is its iPad-killing PlayBook delayed until around the time iPad 2.0 is expected to ship, but Mac users with a BlackBerry can now download the latest desktop connection kit. Meanwhile the company’s financial results were alright but nothing supercalifragilistic.
By the numbers then:
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Apple has just added Best Buy’s online store as another channel for iPad sales. Prior to today, customers were only able to purchase iPads at BestBuy.com as reservations for retail pickup. Now, all six models of iPad are available for purchase with free shipping in the US. The current shipping time from BestBuy.com is 6-10 business days with guaranteed delivery before Christmas for the WiFi-only models. BestBuy.com is now the third online store to sell the iPad with a brief stint at Amazon being the first and Verizon being second. Oh, and BestBuy.com charges $0.99 more than Apple – Dealbreaker?!
Apple has been looking for CDMA engineers since 2008 (not since yesterday!) but Apple has just started looking for Verizon iPad engineers in New York this week. Aren’t Verizon iPads just Wifi iPads with Mifis – there isn’t any special skills that are required by Verizon are there? Why is there a need for a special ‘Verizon version’?
Certainly Verizon’s business customers need SE help with the iPad that Verizon sells now. However, Apple is likely engineering up for April as well.
Apple is building a version of the iPad 2 that will work on Verizon’s wireless network either in conjunction with GSM networks with a Gobi-like Chip (just like the Google ChomeOS CR-48) or as a seperate product/version.