New orders of the iPad 3G won’t ship until May 7 but Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) confirmed ahead of today’s earnings that earlier preorders will start shipping April 30, giving it bragging rights on meeting the promise of “late April.” The confirmation comes a few days after Apple admitted it would have to postpone the tablet’s international launch until late May. The company blamed heavier-than-expected sales of the WiFi-only iPad.
Sales start at 5 p.m. that Friday in Apple retail stores at prices about $130 a device higher than the WiFi-only units ($629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB.) No promise of units that day at Best Buy or other Apple sales channels. Also no sign yet that it will be sold by data-plan provider AT&T (NYSE: T) at all.
Still no international pricing. That comes May 10, which is also when preorders start for the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and Switzerland. Availability is still slated for the end of May. We may get some new numbers on the iPad this afternoon, when Apple reports Q1 results but the sales won’t be reflected until the second quarter.
It’s not too late to register for our State of Gadget Media event tomorrow in NYC.

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