While the date for the U.S. unveiling of the iPad 3 is widely agreed to be March 7, there is still some speculation about when Apple’s next tablet will be making its way to foreign shores. New products usually make their way to a selection of European and Asian countries within a few weeks of their U.S. release, with launches in other countries happening over the next few months after that.
Now a pair of blogs – one Chinese, one German – are having something of a disagreement on when the iPad 3 will be launching in Germany. This morning Apple.pro (Google Translation) posted that the iPad 3 would be available in the US in mid-March, followed by Japan, the UK, France, and Germany in April. A German tech blog, iFun.de (Google Translation), disputed the April release date. Citing a reliable source, iFun argues for a German release date of March 23.
Assuming Apple unveils the iPad 3 on March 7th as expected, iFun’s date seems more likely based on Apple’s previous launch behavior. Though the international launch of the iPad was delayed by nearly two months, the iPad 2 window was much smaller. Apple announced the device on March 2, 2011. It went on sale in the US nine days later, on March 11. An international launch to 25 countries (including those listed by Apple.pro) came ten days later, on March 25. If Apple holds to that pattern, the iPad 3 will be available for sale in the US sometime around March 16th, and in Europe around the 26th. While Apple may not stick to the exact pattern, they are unlikely to broaden the window between US and international availability by much. So iFun’s date may not be exactly correct, but it’s much more likely to be correct than Apple.pro’s.
Meanwhile, rumors about the iPad 3’s features continue to fly as the launch date approaches. This morning we ran a story about the most recent leak, which showed that the iPad 3 will be slightly thicker than its predecessor, with a larger opening for the camera, suggesting that the iPad 3 will be getting a camera upgrade. For all our iPad 3 coverage, click here.
