By now most of you would have heard that Apple have delayed the release of the iPad. Whilst there’s specifics for dates and prices in the US, the same can’t be said for Australia. The iPad pre-orders will begin on March 12th, and be available on April 3 for the US. Many other countries including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain Switzerland and the UK will have to wait till late April.
Late April was the original timeframe for the Wifi+3G version, so it’s probably safe to say that date will slip into May.
What’s annoying is we still don’t have official pricing here in Australia. On the Apple website it says ‘A magical and revolutionary product at an unbelievable price.’ however it fails to list what that price is. Naturally this will be revealed in the coming weeks, but given it’s been a couple months since the iPad announcement in January, that should have been enough time to nail down production costs, shipping, taxes, and partnership deals with Australian carriers.
Make no mistake, price is critical here. The delay is annoying, but consumers will bear a slippage of a couple of weeks, but if the iPad is too expensive, consumer adoption will be severely limited.
More information when Apple deems us worthy.
