Ever since the iPad was first unleashed upon the eagerly waiting world of Apple fanboys and critics alike, everyone's been looking forward to that “magic” moment when the company would finally start selling the thing (or at least taking pre-orders for it). And that moment has arrived, quite a large number of people rushing in to be among the first to experience the thing live and hands-on.

According to SlashGear, sales estimates for the iPad just for the first day (Friday, March 12) go as high as 120,000 units, which is really a very large number. Of course, we're pretty sure that the first people to have pre-ordered the tablet are mostly hardcore Apple fans (those kind of people who'd buy absolutely anything produced by the company from Cupertino), but that's really besides the point. What matters is that Apple has raked in somewhere in the vicinity of 75 million dollars just on the first day, and we can envision Steve Jobs being pretty happy right now.

Anyway, while pre-orders seem to have targeted the Wi-Fi version of the Apple iPad in particular (probably because it was the first to actually be shipped), everyone who's already purchased the device seems to have overlooked an important matter, namely that of the battery replacement. What battery replacement issue, you say? Well, it seems that Apple will go down a pretty nasty path (at least as far as end-consumers are concerned) and charge quite a hefty amount of money for getting the battery replaced... and that's just the beginning.

The bad part is that Apple won't be replacing just an iPad's battery should it get damaged, but the whole thing altogether. Quoting the company itself, “if your iPad requires service due to the battery’s diminished ability to hold an electrical charge, Apple will replace your iPad for a service fee. The service costs $99, plus $6.95 shipping. The total cost is $105.95 per unit.”

So, if you haven't been careful enough and you forgot to backup your personal data via iTunes, you'll most likely lose it... forever. Not very cool, is it, now? Oh, well, it remains to be seen whether this issue will affect future sales or not, but we're willing to bet the answer is no.


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