Apple's Asia-Pacific Online Stores Begin Taking iPad Air Orders, Shipping Within 24 Hours
After going offline earlier today in advance of today's iPad Air launch, Apple's online stores in the Asia-Pacific region have returned for business.
In line with reports that supplies would be plentiful, all models of the iPad Air are currently listed as shipping within 24 hours in Australia, China (only Wi-Fi models available), Japan, and Singapore, while Apple's Hong Kong store is listing 1-2 week shipping estimates.
All Apple online stores around the world are currently online, but the company's European stores will be going offline later today in advance of orders going live in a number of countries there. North America will follow several hours later, with orders set to go live in the U.S. and Canada at 12:01 AM Pacific Time.
Update: All iPad Air models in Apple's Hong Kong online store have now moved to "Currently Unavailable". Apple's outlets in Hong Kong invariably see high demand as customers seek to purchase devices there and export them to China. While that impact may be partially muted by the fact that Wi-Fi models are also launching in China itself today, pricing differences mean that the same devices are up to 15% cheaper in Hong Kong than in China.
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Top Rated Comments
It's because in HK, Apple allowed people to register on Wednesday morning for in-store pickup today, so effectively preorder. That's what I did and will pick up my new 128GB Space Grey Wifi + Cellular model today :D
Depends if you want the conspiracy twist or not.
Conspiracy: they want people to be tempted by the more profitable iPad Air first.
No conspiracy: they couldn't have enough panels made to launch at the same time as the iPad Air so they pushed it back as far as they could without giving an odd early-mid Dec. launch time frame.
Can be said about any launch news. Supplies available? They made too many and will lose money on account. Supplies not available? They can't maintain their supply chain and won't make money on account of it.
All news is bad news in MR Forum land.
Umm - I am Australian and refer to Oz as Oz...
The Asia-Pacific region is a REAL region. I don't understand why you think referring to the region so is a problem. If I wanted to talk about that region, what do you expect me to refer to it as the "Japan, China, Indonesia, Guam, et etc region?" No. Just like in the US where people on the East Coast will say "oh you're a West Coaster" or vice versa. It's not racism in any way. It's called regional identification.