Soonish.. The Likes Of Us With be Able To Salivate Over An i Pad In An Apple Store

It’s been a long time coming as Crosby Stills Nash & Young once said….


We learn though from the Paid Content newsletter that? … Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) began announcing this morning that the iPad with wi-fi will start going on sale April 3, with the 3G version coming later in the month. The company also said that while both versions of the tablet device would be made available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April, no firm date was announced. Pre-orders for the iPad in the U.S. will begin next week on March 12,? but it doesn?t look like international customers will get a chance to buy before it hits the stores in their respective countries. Among the other things still to be spelled out is the names of the operators that will partner with Apple to sell the iPad and provide the network for it.

The iPad was initially expected to go on sale sometime this month. But Apple has been plagued by production delays. Analysts at Canaccord Adams said the problems could limit initial availability to roughly 300,000 units this month?much lower than initial estimates of 1 million.

Here at HOB we hoped we might get away with not having one but as an independent publisher this is more exciting than the ipod..