Vodafone and 3 mobile today announced that it will offer dedicated iPad plans for all models from the end of May in Australia.
The iPad, originally scheduled for release in Australia on April 23, has been pushed back to a ‘late May’ release date for Australians, with pre-orders available from May 10.
Apple today made the announcement that the iPad had been pushed back for sale in Australia due to higher than expected demand by US customers after the product’s launch last month.
“Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month,” Apple said yesterday.
“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,” Apple said.
“We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10,” Apple said.
Given that the 3G iPad is not yet available in the United States, it is presumed that initially the WiFi only version will be sold in Australia, as Apple mirrors it’s release strategy in the US by offering the WiFi only model first.
The announcement today of dedicated iPad plans by Vodafone and 3 Mobile is suggestive that Australia may also be receiving the 3G iPad when the device launches here in late May.
Unfortunately users cannot simply swap their existing mobile phone’s SIM card into the iPad to use for data, with the device using the Micro-SIM format that is not compatible with traditional SIM-cards. This opens up the opportunity for dedicated iPad data plans such as those Vodafone and Three are proposing.
(Update: Telstra have also announced they will be offering plans for the iPad in May on their website)