We’ve been waiting for Apple to announce pricing and availability of their latest tablet computer invention, the Apple iPad. On Friday, they did.
On Friday morning, Apple finally put us all out of our misery announcing via an official press release that the iPad would be available to US customers on April 3rd. Starting March 12th, US customers will be able to pre-order the high anticipated device from either Apple’s Online Store, or reserve a unit for in-store collection. Unfortunately, for international customers there’s an even longer wait, with the Cupertino company announcing Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK will get the iPad in ‘late April’. If the US pre-order date is anything to go by though, I’m guessing we’ll see also see UK pre-orders open around April 13th to 15th.
Pricing & Availability
iPad will be available in Wi-Fi models on April 3 in the US for a suggested retail price of $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in late April for a suggested retail price of $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB. iPad will be sold in the US through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers.
iPad will be available in both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models in late April in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. International pricing will be announced in April. iPad will ship in additional countries later this year.
The iBooks app for iPad including Apple’s iBookstore will be available as a free download from the App Store in the US on April 3, with additional countries added later this year.
What’s even more interesting though is even with this official press release, UK and international customers still didn’t get the luxury of finding out overseas pricing of the device. Some people have speculated that Apple waiting until the very last minute to announce this pricing may not just be hype-building, but also strategical. Some say that due to the current currency exchange rates, Apple may be trying to avoid loss of profits through the current rates.
It’s not all bad news though. Apple originally planned to launch the Wi-Fi model in ‘late March’ and the Wi-Fi + 3G model in ‘April’. While the WiFi iPad model launch slipped slightly into the month of April for the US, this now means both the Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available for UK and international customers, starting ‘late April’. For those countries not mentioned in the press release, Apple says you’ll get their iPad “later this year”.
So, What’s Your Guess on the UK Launch Date?
Purely based on the US launch date of April 3rd, which resembles ‘late March’ in Apple’s eyes due to April 3rd being a Friday AND being in the same week as the last week of March, I’m guessing we’ll see the UK iPad launch either April 30th (Friday), or May 7th (Friday).
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