I was just out for a stroll with the dogs after getting home early, I stopped to talk with two UPS drivers on my street. I asked one of two if they heard anything for Apple's iPad deliveries to occur on or near the 3rd of April.

His answer was at first, "not really, we only deliver air on Saturday's", which I then replied, "Oh, wasn't sure if maybe Apple had some deal with UPS for that particular saturday delivery since I felt it would be a lot of work for Fed Ex alone, considering the amount of pre-orders Apple had for the devices."

This is when he said, "well we were told that we are expected to ship tons of them out, this, week." After a puzzled look on my face, I got to thinking, my sources typically are believable at the local UPS warehouse, can I believe this guy too?

If there is any truth at all to his statements, my first guess would be that perhaps secretly iPads are starting to ship to local Apple Stores and or perhaps developers that are significant users of the App Store and Jobs thought he would ship a little early to them, one to get them into the hands earlier for testing purposes and two, to lesson the load of shipping ALL iPads on the 3rd which had been pre-ordred.

Another thought occurred at this point, why was there two drivers on one truck? Normally we have one driver, the only time I see two to one truck is for holiday shipping or when they have a rare heavy shipment to an address that one driver alone can not handle. Could this also mean training or adding the other driver on the route to handle the extra packages if indeed they are shipping out "tons" of iPads this week?

Lots to think about, but my gut still tells me that Fed Ex will be the only ones to ship for Saturday the 3rd of April and this was all an iPad pre-wet dream and jumping to conclusions on my part.

What does this all sound like to you on the forum, I am interested in any rumors others have heard from their regular shipping hounds as well.

I heard this once in school about how UPS workers once had a strike and nothing was delivered in that time therefore companies started using two shipping companies to prevent such a big lack of shipments.
i would think that they would use at least two shipping companies but its just an educated guess

I can't imagine a couple of hundred thousand boxes being shipped in one day requiring THAT much more UPS/FedEx help... but then again maybe it would.

I don't think they would ship it early though... not without at least letting people know first. Imagine all the people who ordered an iPad who have made arrangements to make sure they are home on April 3rd all day so they can be there when it is delivered. No imagine their frustration when an attempted delivery is made a week or so earlier and either nobody is home to accept delivery, it has to go back to a warehouse or even worse either FedEx or UPS leave it on their front porch step and it gets stolen, rained on, etc...

I'm 99% sure they will be delivered on Apr 3rd or later.

I thought FedEx delivers for Apple? also you have to sign for all items delivered.

Wow, this is great to hear! Can you imagine how expensive it would be if Apple was to send each iPad overnight air Saturday delivering? That would cost a fortune!! They could save millions by shipping the units ground, 1 week in advance.

I would assume that FedEx would have control of these shipments a day or two early and staged somewhere. Logistically you can't ship hundreds of thousands via airplane from China all on the same day can you???

FedEx will ship home ground 5 days before the 3rd and they will be delivered on the 3rd. FedEx home ground delivers on Saturdays. This is what I was told by Apple. You will receive an email when your package is shipped with the tracking number so you can follow your delivery on computer. You can find this info. on the computer.

Can't wait to get mine!

Well...I'll be in line on April 3rd (pre-ordered for pick up). My Son and I will hang, talk, bond etc.

It's my guess he will tell stories of "I remember when the first iPad was released..." to his kids. I think that will be way cool.

Just sayin.

I have ordered items that had a "fixed release date" like the iPad, received a tracking number saying it was shipped 3 or 4 days early and then had the local distribution center hold them until the release date.

It would not surprise me if Apple is having FedEx do it again this time.