iPad Coming April 3rd; Steve Jobs At Oscars

I know what you’re thinking: “Am I reading The VAR Guy or some other tabloid blog?” But let’s face it; no matter what business you’re in, you’re interested in Apple’s business, even if it’s just an ancillary glance. Friday, March 5th came and with it was the announcement that the iPad would be available April 3rd. It kind of slipped under our radar. What didn’t, however, was the fact the iPad is coming a little late. Oh, and Steve Jobs was at the Oscars…

The official statement from Apple is here, but there’s no real answer as to why it’ll be late. On the January 27th iPad Event, Steve Jobs said 60 days for the WiFi model and 90 Days for the 3G.  MacRumors had some interesting round-up speculation as to why the iPad wouldn’t be here as hoped — March 27th or whereabouts. An early reported claimed it had something to do with “manufacturing bottleneck,” but according to John Gruber‘s blog it was software, not hardware, that is the issue for the delay. But don’t get your hopes up, (like we had earlier); Gruber notes that it’s “nothing extraordinary or unusual, just the usual hard-to-predict timing of turning software that’s almost ready to ship into software that’s ready to ship.”

He also noted that readers on his blog don’t feel the same way, and still think it’s a hardware release because sales outside the US won’t start for another month all together. But I, like Gruber, think that’s bunk. Apple doesn’t do world-wide launches unless they really want to or hype it up as such. Some argue it’s a combination of both. But whatever it is, it’s late, but not too late. But still, cause for speculation.

But since the iPad is now around the corner, Apple looked to capitalize on some prime-time commercial space during the 82nd Oscars. (It wasn’t enough that Stephen Colbert read Grammy nominees off his iPad.) Apple aired their new iPad commercial twice. Nothing fancy that you haven’t seen already, but it undoubtedly got a lot of attention. More so because, Steve Jobs was at the Oscars, One lucky tweeter got a personal picture of himself and Jobs and posted it to TwitPic, another shot shows what looks like the profile of Jobs among the hustle of the red carpet. (The MacRumors link has both shots.)

Steve Jobs, in bed with Hollywood?

Jobs was always a showman, and hey, he is on the Board of Directors of Walt Disney…