Daily Tech and Gadget

iPad Apple has decided to close all of their 220+ retail stores for one hour in advance of the iPad Wi-Fi + 3G launch in the US today. As noted on the individual retail store listings: The store will be closed from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 30, to prepare for the arrival of iPad with Wi-Fi + 3G.

Retail Ten days ago we reported that eBay seller heylookitskibbe was auctioning a stair from the staircase from the Fifth Avenue Apple retail store in New York. Shortly after our report, the stuff hit the fan. Heylookitskibbe turned out to be former Apple employee, Mark Burstiner . The stair, made by Seele GmbH exclusively for Apple, was being replaced by Seele employees when Burstiner asked if he could have it. They gave the 250 pound stair to him, which he kept for a year before auctioning it.

Filed under: Hardware , Retail Looks like they might. That’s the opinion of a note out last night from Credit Suisse quoting meetings with Apple executives. The Wall Street Journal this morning quotes Senior Analyst Bill Shope as saying “While it remains to be seen how much traction the iPad gets initially, management noted that it will remain nimble (pricing could change if the company is not attracting as many customers as anticipated).” This is a similar situation to the original iPhone launch in 2007, where the original price quickly dropped US $200 from the original $599 retail. Agitated early adopters got a $100 Apple store credit from Apple. Apple will be watching sales of the device carefully in the early days, and the company appears to have enough margin built into the iPad to take some hits if it is slow moving.

Filed under: Retail , Rumors , Deals Boy Genius Report claims to have gotten its hands on Apple’s Black Friday brochure . Although they had posted another brochure earlier that made less than credible claims of 30% iPod discounts and 25% Mac discounts, BGR claims this newest ad comes from “a pretty credible connect of ours.” The new ad’s discounts are also more in line with Apple’s previous Black Friday deals, which tend to be fairly modest compared to other retailers. Below are a few of the discounts on the “leaked” ad: iMac: $101 off MacBook Pro: $51-$101 off iPod nano: $11 off iPod touch: $21-$41 off Boy Genius Report notes that these deals apply only on the online store, not at Apple’s retail stores. Though this ad seems legitimate on the face of it, it’s worth noting that pretty much everyone here at TUAW agreed Boy Genius Report’s last “leaked” ad was a fake. So take this latest “leak” with a grain of salt.