I’ve got a buddy of mine who lives in the UK. Nice guy. I’ve never met him in person or anything, but we’re always chatting about how baseball is better than cricket, and how dentists are overrated. Oh, and Apple stuff. He really wants an iPad, and although I don’t have one yet, I do have the opportunity to get one, which he wasn’t going to have until a week or two from now.
Except that things have changed a bit. Let me let Apple’s UK PR team tell the bad news:
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. We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.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.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. We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.
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.
Well that sucks for him, I suppose. For me, not so much. But then again, I’m an arrogant American who thinks football is played with pads and eats KFC like it’s going out of style – or at least, that’ll be what my friend in the UK will say. That, and something about crumpets. Or my mom.
Looks like the eBay market for iPads is gonna shoot up, huh?
One thought on “iPad Delayed Overseas”
As an overseas iPhone and iPad developer it is very frustrating to try and develop for an unseen, untouched, untried product. Two months is an eternity for developers and it is very frustrating to have to try and develop blind – it is virtually impossible (witness the number of iPad apps that didn’t work quite right on day one for this reason).
Apple should at least support their developer base and allow overseas developers to buy directly from the US Apple Store. Very poor treatment of overseas devs. Very disappointing.