Apple finally announced an official release date for the original nine named countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, to receive the iPad. Residences of these countries will be able to buy the iPad from Apple Stores and authorized resellers on May 28. Apple will begin pre-orders for these countries on May 10 (respective local time).
At the time of writing, official pricing for each of these countries are yet to be announced. The most exciting part of this press release for myself and fellow Hong Kong residences, is that Apple will added nine additional countries to receive the iPad in July 2010. They are: Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore. The exact availability date and pricing will also be announced by Apple at a late date.