Apple said on Friday its eagerly awaited iPad tablet computer would go on sale in US stores on April 3 and in other countries toward the end of next month, slightly later than originally announced.
Unveiling the touchscreen multimedia device on Jan. 27, the California company behind the iPod, iPhone and Macintosh computer had said the iPad would be “available in late March worldwide.”
Apple said it would be accepting pre-orders from US customers at its online store from Friday for the iPad, which allows users to watch video, listen to music, play games, surf the Web or read electronic books.
The iPad also runs most of the 150,000 applications made for the iPod music player and the iPhone. Apple said on Friday the device would come with “12 new innovative apps designed especially for iPad.”
The iPad model featuring Wi-Fi wireless connectivity will be available in Apple’s US stores from April 3 and the model which offers both Wi-Fi and 3G cellular connectivity late next month, Apple said.
The company said both the Wi-Fi and 3G models will be available in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland late next month and in additional countries later this year.
Apple said international pricing will be announced next month.
The slight delay in availability did not appear to concern investors on Wall Street and Apple shares hit a record high of US$219.70 at one point.
Apple shares were up 3.94 percent at US$219.01 at 3pm in New York.
Apple did not provide any explanation for the delay of the iPad, which an analyst with Canaccord Adams, Peter Misek, attributed earlier this week to “an unspecified production problem” at an iPad manufacturer in Taiwan.
Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty forecast iPad sales of 6 million units this year, a figure she acknowledged was above the “consensus” of between 3 million and 4 million units.
The iPad has a 24.6cm color screen and resembles an oversized iPhone. It is 1.3cm thick, weighs 0.7kg and comes with 16, 32, or 64 gigabytes of memory.
Apple has been pushing the iPad’s abilities as an e-book reader and analysts have described the color screen device as a potential rival to Amazon’s Kindle.
Apple said its new iBookstore will include books from the New York Times bestseller list and a number of publishers including Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster.
Apple said the iBooks application for the iPad will be available as a free download from the App Store in the US on April 3 and in other countries later this year.
The cheapest iPad model, with Wi-Fi connectivity and 16GB of memory, is US$499 while the most expensive — which includes 3G connectivity and 64GB of memory — costs US$829.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last