If you were Apple, how far would you go to protect the privacy of your yet-to-be released iPad? As it turns out, pretty doggone far.

BusinessWeek has a fascinating story out Friday morning which sheds some light on just how far Apple has gone to protect the secrecy of the iPad, which will finally land in stores on April 3rd. A few select partners actually get the device for testing -- but not before they “promise to keep it isolated in a room with blacked-out windows” as well as a host of other restrictions, part of a 10-page pact presumably drawn in blood.

Additionally, the iPad must also “remain tethered to a fixed object” to “ensure that it can’t be removed,” according to four people familiar with the details of the 10-page agreement. Apple won’t even send an iPad to potential partners until they provide “photographic evidence” that steps have been completed.

“They are very serious about the NDAs,” explains Edward Eigerman, a former senior systems engineer at Apple from 2001 to 2005. He’s referring to the unholy document known as the “non-disclosure agreement,” which is supposed to silence anyone working with Apple from talking about whatever it is that they’re doing. Eigerman found out that hard way, having been terminated by Cupertino after providing unreleased software to a customer.

“They’re facing greater and greater security challenges,” Eigerman, who now heads his own New York-based IT consultancy firm. It’s widely known that Apple has “always required developers to keep prerelease versions of its devices under lock and key,” but they’ve also been known to alter products in some way so that they can trace the source of a leak, should details or photos become public.

And that extends to the latest craze, Twitter. Last month, Wall Street Journal deputy managing editor Alan Murray posted a tweet announcing that he was actually using an iPad -- which was quickly removed from the site by Apple.

Of course, few people have actually touched an iPad, let alone gotten exclusive access to use one. “We’ve never actually touched one,” says CEO Phil Libin of Evernote, the popular multi-platform software that helps organize your life. But that hasn’t stopped them from working feverishly on a new iPad version within hours of Apple CEO Steve Jobs stepping on stage to introduce the device back on January 27th.

The vast majority of developers are using the iPad simulator software built into Apple’s SDK, which emulates how the app will run on the device using a Mac computer. Many developers have gone even further, taking the hardware specs and creating cardboard mockups of the iPad in an effort to get the general feel of the device.

Unlike the iPhone, which was already widely available by the time Apple launched an SDK for developers to write apps for the handset, the iPad won’t get into anyone’s hands until the April 3rd release date -- and by then, developers will have to scramble to get their apps fine-tuned so they can be in the App Store as early as possible.

“The thing about developing anything new is that you need some examples to work form,” concludes Mashery CEO Oren Michels. Apple would do well to pick a few promising coders, Michels says, and let them “be the inspiration for everyone else.”

Under a cone of silence, of course…