Apple has officially announced that it is delaying the international launch of the iPad until the "end of May".

The fruity company has decided to delay the launch due to "strong US demand".

The company did note that international customers (including us in the UK) will "be disappointed" about the delay but they "will be pleased to learn the reason – the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far."

Er, no we are not pleased in the slightest.

The official release reads as follows (try to hold back the tears): "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.

UK iPad pricing

At least Apple has revealed that UK pricing for the iPad will be out 10 May – so that is one date we can pencil into our diary.

"We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10," says the release.

"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."

We knew something was up when the Apple Store went down yesterday and iPad pricing was not announced – well, we did get some shiny MacBook news but that was it.

The delay of the iPad in the UK is a big disappointment, considering the US has already got its grubby mitts over the device.

So the UK release date for the Apple iPad is now officially 'end of May'. Sigh.

Via Gizmodo