Apple iPad pre-ordering for US goes live

iPad - now available for pre-order
iPad - now available for pre-order

Apple is now taking pre-orders for the Apple iPad, with the gadget now available from $499 in the US.

The announcement was made after Apple posted its usual We'll Be Back Shortly message on its website – which is always a thinly veiled hint that some new release is coming to the store.

While the message was also posted on the UK version of the store, there is still no iPad pre-ordering facility available. And, what's worse, we are still no closer to finding out the price.

April UK release

The Apple iPad was announced by Steve Jobs back in January. The tablet device should be winging its way to the UK late April, but there is still no confirmation on who will be the data carriers for the 3G version.

In fact, there are already a trickle of sites who are offering the iPad, with BundleBox claiming it will bring the iPad to the UK £30 cheaper than whatever the official price is and it will ship it to arrive within three days of the 3 April US release date.

Currently, Orange, Vodafone and O2 are the three being hotly tipped to bring the device to the UK.

There are also some strong suggestions that the Apple iPad will be coming to the UK with a pricing structure that seems to directly swap dollars for pound – so $499 in the States will be £499 in the UK.

For now, though, we'll have to keep waiting till the company come 'back soon' with official confirmation.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.