Malta left out of iPad 3 international roll-out

By Friday April 20 the new Apple iPad 3 tablet computer was available in several European countries and by tomorrow it will also be available in other European countries such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Montenegro. However there’s no sight of it in Malta, officially at least.

Apple regularly updates the list of the countries where the new iPad is officially available and supported through its partners. However so far there is no sign of such an announcement for Malta. The Apple website is still showing the iPad 2 which was launched a year ago.

Vodafone Malta and iCentre of Pieta’ are Apple’s official partners in Malta. Asked by i-Tech about any timeframes for the latest version of the iPad being available locally, both said they could not give any dates.

However the new iPad is already unofficially available in Malta through one of the local mobile companies and some retail outlets. Prices from these outlets start from around €499.

The local mobile companies all have reported significant increases in the use of mobile data, thanks to the increasing use of smartphones and tablets, not just the iPad but other similar devices from other vendors, mostly based on Google’s Android operating system.

This is not the first time that a new version of the iPad officially comes to Malta months after the original launch in the major markets in the US, Asia and Western Europe. Although the third generation iPad launched last month has an almost identical shape to the previous version, it has a new Retina display.

This is similar to the one found on the iPhone that delivers four times the number of pixels of the iPad 2.

Movies are now capable of playing at full 1080p HD-resolution, delivering an incomparable viewing experience on a mobile device.

It also sports the new A5X chip with quad-core graphics and a 5 megapixel iSight camera with advanced and 1080p HD video. The iPad with Wi-Fi and 4G connects to fast networks worldwide and, according to the company, still delivers 10-hour battery life.

4G mobile communication is not yet available in Malta from the local mobile network operators.

The new iPad also has iOS5.1 with new features and enhancements including: a redesigned camera app with video stabilisation technology; the ability to delete photos from Photo Stream; support for dictation in English, French, German and Japanese; and Personal Hotspot. iOS 5.1 also works seamlessly with iCloud, a set of free cloud services including iTunes in the Cloud, Photo Stream and Documents in the Cloud, that works seamlessly with the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store content and push it to these devices. When content changes on one device, the other devices are updated automatically.