14 DAY TRIAL // Upon taking down its online store this past weekend, Apple updated the shipping date on the iPad 3G to May 7th. Apple has reportedly already sold out the first batch of iPad 3G units set to ship at the end of this month to those who pre-ordered it. The Wi-Fi iPad now ships in 5-7 business days, while the iPad order limit is two per customer.
Apple reported last week that Europe and other markets would have to wait until the end of May to get both iPad models, while pre-ordering was set to start on May 10th. “Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad,” the company said earlier this week. “We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.”
The Mac maker added, “Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May. We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10. We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason—the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far.”
While the WiFi-only models now ship in five to seven business days in the US, WiFi+3G units are slated to ship by May 7th, Apple’s online store reveals. Both versions are available in three different storage configurations – 16GB; 32GB; 64GB – priced between $499 for the low-end, 16GB WiFi model, and $829, for the high-end, 3G-capable version with 64GB of storage.