iPad now available for pre-order in US, Middle East arrival date still not known

After taking down their online US store for a few hours today, Apple has now opened up pre-orders for iPad, as they previously announced they would.

The iPad will be available April 3 but you can now order one to be one of the first customers to receive an iPad.

Pricing we already knew about but it’s worth repeating. The Wi-Fi model, which is the one being delivered on April 3 if you pre-order, is $499 (16GB), $599 (32GB) and $699 (64GB). The 3G models, shipping “late April” according to Apple are $130 more for each respective model.

Even though the pre-order only available in the US you can order one but as far as I know they only ship to a US address and the billing address for the credit card you pay with has to be a US address as well.

Some users have in the past said that they’ve had luck ordering things from Apple’s US online store with a local credit card and something like an Aramex Shop and Ship box. You can find examples of this on EmiratesMac.com, for example.

When we’ll see iPad in the Middle East is not known yet. I contacted ABM’s PR company this week and they basically said they don’t know anything. ABM (Arab Business Machines) is Apple’s exclusive distributor in the Middle East.

In the past when new products have been released in the US the time for them to reach the Middle East has varied from about a week to many months. If you’re going to wait to buy iPad until it’s sold officially in the Middle East, I guess all you can hope for is that ABM will present some dates for when that will happen soon.