Apple iPad Coming April 3, Preorders Accepted Sooner

Launch your Calendar application! The Apple iPad will arrive in the United States on April 3, according to Apple.
Beginning March 12, U.S. customers will be able to preorder WiFi and WiFi-plus-3G models at www.apple.com, or reserve a WiFi-only model for pickup at an Apple retail store on April 3, Apple announced on its Website March 5.
“iPad is something completely new,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement announcing the date. “We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”
Apple added that both WiFi and WiFi-plus-3G models will be available in late April in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, with pricing details also coming later in April.
Live somewhere else? Keep your fingers crossed-Apple will ship the iPad to additional countries later in the year.
Jobs introduced the iPad Jan. 27 in a much-hyped event held at the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco. Showing off the iPad, he told the crowd that day, “It’s the best Web experience you’ve ever had.”
The iPad is 0.5 inches thick, weighs 1.5 pounds, features a 9.7-inch LED-backlit widescreen multitouch display and combines iPhone functions, such as e-mail, calendar, contacts and application-downloading capabilities, with a screen ideal for video and movie watching and e-reader features that have companies such as Sony worried.
iPad users will be able to access applications they’ve already purchased for the iPhone or iPod Touch and will additionally have access to Apple’s new iBookstore, which feature titles from mainstream and independent book publishers, including the Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group and HarperCollins Publishers.
iBookstore will automatically sync with a user’s iTunes library, and through iTunes, iPad users will have access to more than 12 million songs, 55,000 television episodes and 8,500 films-more than 2,500 of them in high definition.
The WiFi-equipped 16GB iPad will retail for $499 in the United States, increasing to $599 for 32GB and $699 for 64GB. WiFi-plus-3G models will begin at $629 for the 16GB model and continue to $729 for the 32GB model and $829 for the 64GB.
Following the iPad’s release, it’s rumored that Apple will lower the price of the new iPhones that it’s expected to introduce this spring.