Shipment of some iPad accessories, such as the keyboard dock station, have been pushed back a month, from April to May. Over the last few days, the changes have appeared in the ship date on the Apple on-line store. It is speculated that they have simply sold out of their first batches and subsequent units will have to wait for the next order.

Speaking of iPad accessories, Charlie Sorrel at Wired’s “Gadget Lab” blog has a list of five “essential” accessories to go with your new iPad. What’s first on the list? A ziploc bag.

When Jeff Bezos reads his Kindle in the bath, he seals it inside a one-gallon Ziploc bag. If you’re going to be using your iPad in the bath, or the slightly less hostile kitchen, you should do the same. You can see the screen, hear the (slightly muffled) music and generally relax. Amazingly, the multitouch will still work through the plastic. I tried it with my iPod touch a moment ago and it was like the plastic wasn’t there.

Who says e-book readers don’t like the tub?

And second on the list is e-book conversion software—specifically Calibre and Stanza Desktop. Since the iPad will support EPUB, says Sorrel, you should be ready to convert existing titles. Of course, what he does not mention is that if your existing titles have DRM, you will either have to break the law or be out of luck.

Other items include a stylus pen (one of the metal-foam-tipped devices available for use with the iPhone now), a case, and the camera connection kit for reading SD cards.

Finally, the numbers guessing game has been popular over the weekend, with everybody trying to estimate the number of iPads sold based on order numbers on Apple’s site. Some estimates place the number at about 152,000. However, some say those numbers may be considerably off.

"That number is low," says an industry analyst who is independently monitoring the iPad sales. The analyst, who is collecting sales data for clients and asked not to be identified, says the current tally is conservative and actual iPad sales are significantly higher. The analyst declined to offer an estimate however.

Analysts’ estimates of the total number of iPads that will be sold in the first year range from 2 million to 10 million.

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