If I get an iPad I'll just do what I did with my first gen iPhone. Use it for 2-3 years until the battery isn't as good as it should be, sell (or give) it to a family member who has wanted your device from day one and is more than happy to pay to get a new battery (if they deem it necessary), next go buy a new device slightly subsidized from selling the old one, finally write a run-on sentence describing this process in vague detail.
This makes complete sense, and I <i>thought</i> this is the way battery replacement for iPods and iPhones always worked. Note you do not get a new iPad. You get a refurbished iPad of the same model. Your iPad then is refurbished and sent to a future customer.
"it is important to sync your iPad with iTunes to back up your contacts, calendars, email account settings, bookmarks, apps, etc. Apple is not responsible for the loss of information when servicing your iPad."<p>Equally important, it would seem, would be to wipe your iPad clean before sending it in, after backing it up of course.
It's consistent with the iPad's central concept: it's about simple, zero-hassle access to media, online or stored. It has to be <i>much</i> more hassle-free than a laptop, to justify its purchase and create the niche netbooks tried and failed to create and occupy (1).<p>Zero config, zero user-serviceable hardware, dramatic restrictions on applications' ability to behave puzzlingly, almost-zero connectors: it's just a "magic" window on your media, marketed for the 80% of non-geeks who just wish to forget the hardware.<p>(1) netbooks might have been a success, but not in the niche they originally targeted.