According to a report on Digitimes, Apple’s hardware manufacturing partner Foxconn Electronics has confirmed that it is on schedule to ship 600,000 to 700,000 iPads in March, and a further 1 million iPads in April. This is contrary to claims made by Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek that “the upcoming iPad launch may be somewhat limited as a manufacturing bottleneck has impacted production of Apple’s newest device.” Due to Foxconn’s comments it is now thought it unlikely that Apple will delay the launch of the device.
Though no official release date has been set beyond “late March,” it is expected that Apple will begin taking pre-orders in the next couple of weeks. Wall Street insiders are expecting strong sales for the iPad throughout 2010, with some analysts predicting more interest than that seen for the first generation iPhone. RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky forecast first-year sales of 5 million units, while Needham & Company analyst Charlie Wolf is forecasting 4 million.
Though few details have been released regarding iPad-specific features for games titles, a number of publishers have started touting iPad support on upcoming games. The highly-anticipated social and strategy title We Rule from ngmoco and NewToy is one of the first to indicate its support for the device. The title tag for the game on the Canadian iTunes store (where the game is already available) clearly states “We Rule for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.