Apple iPad Goes On Sale April 3

This morning Apple announced that its iPad tablet device will be available for pre-order starting March 12, and it will ship by April 3. That's for the Wi-Fi version, mind you. Apple said the 3G version won't be available until some time later in April.Well, looks like Apple will miss its own target launch date by a few days. When it was first announced, Apple said the iPad would hit the market by late March. The launch date has now been pushed to April 3, a Saturday, just four weeks from today.

Apple said that people can pre-order both the Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi+3G iPads starting Friday, March 12. People can choose to have the iPad delivered, or they can "reserve" one for in-store pick up. Apple did something similar when it launched sales of the iPhone 3GS.

Apple fans outside of the U.S. should be happy to learn that iPad the will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

"iPad is something completely new," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "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."

It will be interesting to note if Apple releases or otherwise announces any pre-order details about the iPad. Many people were unimpressed with the device at launch, and it is still missing some features that users believe to be essential. It would be nice to get some sort of gauge in the interest level for the iPad. Some polls suggest that there's more interest in the iPad than there was in the original iPhone.

I guess we'll find out April 3.

Here's a list of things the iPad won't have at launch.