The Illini Apple Center sold out on its first shipment of iPads, which arrived Saturday morning.

“There were people waiting outside before it opened,” said Elle Destree, marketing and PR coordinator. “It was raining, so we let people into the lobby area, but we weren’t allowed to take orders before 9 a.m.”

Interim Operations Director Tim Braun said he cannot specify the number of iPads sold, but he said three iPads are on display at the Illini Apple Center for the customers to test out.

Some customers have already interacted with the iPads and decided to order them.

“My girlfriend and I are planning on getting two of the 16G Wi-Fi iPads,” said Andrew Stone, sophomore in engineering. “It used to be a pain to scroll around a 5-inch screen on the iPhone. Now (on the iPad) I can pull up my homework directly and have a nice full-screen view.”

Stone said not only do iPads offer handy applications that help with school work, but it facilitates entertainment, too.

“There’s an iPhone application for Scrabble that can turn each iPhone into a tile rack, and the iPad would be the board. I’ve got the application on my computer already.”

The iPad includes applications both adaptable for iPhones and exclusive to iPads.

“A lot of people come to view (iPad-specific) applications like the iBook,” Braun said. “They look at the web browsing, e-mail video, and photos to see if it works with the existing iPhones.”

Braun added that iPads offer three iWork applications including a word processor called Pages, a spreadsheet called Numbers, and a presentation called Keynote, which can be hooked to a projector.

The price of iPads is $499, as listed on the Apple Online Store.

“We’re an Apple-authorizd campus store,” Braun said. “The prices are the same. There’s no educational discount.”

In tandem with the arrival of iPads, Braun said the Illini Apple Center is launching a deal on store products: all third-party accessories are 20 percent off and white MacBooks are sold for $30 off from now through April 18.