Among the Silicon Valley community Easter was less about the death and crucifixion of Jesus, or appropriating pagan mythology into a good excuse to cram down as much chocolate as possible, as it was about the iPad.

As predicted the lines stretched around the block and then some at Apple's main store in San Francisco, which led to some friction between the VIP line and the common plebs. One reason for the queues could have been the presence of iPad designer Jonathon Ive in the store, and Steve Jobs also put in a brief appearance at the main Palo Alto outlet.

Another Apple celebrity feature of the weekend was the now inevitable argument over Woz pushing in line to get his, or not as the case may be. It seems hardly a launch goes ahead at Apple these days without someone accusing Apple's amiable first wizard of ungentlemanly conduct. Given the reverence of most Apple fans I doubt he'd ever have to push in, but still the stories persist.

But the smart people have cottoned onto the fact that delivery services are a much better bet. A friend got her iPad delivered to her door in Palo Alto by a lightly sweating UPS man who had delivered 35 to the same neighbourhood.

All in all Apple looks to have sold over a quarter million of the devices this weekend, not a bad piece of work. The early buzz is mostly good. Despite reported overheating issues the social media pages are positive, with the saddest moment a couple who ordered one 3G and one Wi-Fi, consigning them to a month of arguments over who gets to use the new device.

06 Apr 2010