Bad news for people who are not in the U.S. who’ve been waiting for Apple to release the iPad internationally. Apple just announced via a very short note that the international release date of the iPad has been moved towards the end of May. Previously, Apple was hoping to release the iPad to selected countries on the last week of April.

And what was Apple’s reason? Apparently, the iPad has been pretty successful in the U.S. that Apple could no longer meet the increasing demand for the iPad resulting to inadequate supply. So to meet the U.S. demand for the iPad, Apple will most likely be using its allotment for the international market.

According to Apple:

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.

This is only for the current available iPad model which is the Wi-Fi version. Apple is also reported that pre-orders for the iPad 3G version is also increasing. The iPad WiFi + 3G will be deliver by the end of April.

Now here’s the good news, Apple also announced that it will start accepting pre-orders from selected international customers starting May 10.  International pricing is yet to be announced though.

So there you go folks. Sorry to disappoint those who’ve been clinging on Apple’s promised availability date of the iPad in your countries. But if you really want to get the iPad now, I’m pretty sure you’d find some work-around to get the iPad even if it is not released in your country yet.

Originally posted on April 14, 2010 @ 11:54 am