Apple Signals Possible Early iPad Shipment by Tapping Windwalker's Bank Account

H'mm. Very interesting.

The screenshot above, as you have probably already figured out, was grabbed from my online banking display this morning, and shows that Apple has surgically removed $636.44 from my bank account, as I authorized them to do when I placed my iPad pre-order last week. It doesn't matter that the transaction shows a date of March 28 or that it is labeled "preauth." The money has left my account and is racing, wirelessly I assume, toward Cupertino.

I'm pleased, actually. Call me Mr. Wishful Thinker, but I think that there's a good chance that this means that my iPad may arrive before April 3. April 3 is the date on which Apple promised that it would arrive at my front door, and that would be fine. But it would be silly of me to deny that I am waiting more or less breathlessly for its arrival.

We shall see. I don't think it is like Apple to tap its customers' bank accounts a week before it ships their gadgetry. Amazon has an explicit policy against this sort of early debitry, and I expect that Apple does as well. But we'll see.

If the first iPads do go out on Sunday or Monday, and arrive at homes like mine by Wednesday the 31st, Apple would be delivering on its initial promise to ship the iPad by the end of March. Delivering on that promise and surpassing the revised promise of an April 3 delivery would be good on Apple, not only because customers would love it, but also because in these high-velocity days of the Kindle, er, eBook Revolution, a single day can be ... well ... l all it can really be, Grasshopper, is a single day. But with a gazillion new ebook readers and ibook stores being launched each and every hour by established and start-up companies all over the universe, each day is important.

And meanwhile, it is important to Amazon, too. The sooner that a bunch of iPads arrive at Amazon's Lab 126 Kindle development site (which is practically down the street from Apple's headquarters in Cupertino), the sooner Amazon will be able to test-drive its Kindle for iPad app, upload it to the Apps Store, and start selling Kindle books to iPad owners.

And the sooner Apple starts shipping iPads directly, the sooner (one would think) Amazon will be able to begin selling iPads to its millions of Kindle owners and other customers from this page on the Amazon website. And given some reports that iPad sales slipped from 125,000 on the first pre-order day to 30,000 units on March 15, 10,000 on March 17 and 5,000 on March 18, I suspect Apple would welcome the help.