If you were ready to whip out your credit card at the end of March to buy an iPad, we have some good news and some bad news for you.

The bad news is, Apple has finally announced that the iPad will go on sale on Saturday, April 3 -- for those of you playing the home game, that does indeed fall short of the originally promised “late March” ship date. But the good news is, you can preorder your new digital friend beginning on March 12, according to AppleInsider.

For now, the U.S. will be the only country getting the iPad on April 3, and the 3G-enabled model is still expected in late April, when both versions of the hardware will also be available in the U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Italy, Spain and Switzerland as well.

U.S. customers can preorder either model of iPad beginning on March 12 at apple.com, with the Wi-Fi model available in stores on April 3.

“iPad is something completely new,” boasts Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

The rest we already know: The iPad starts at $499 for 16GB of storage and maxes out at $829 for the 3G model with 64GB of storage. Only 0.5 inches thick and weighing 1.5 pounds, the device promises battery life up to 10 hours. Out of the box, the device will include 12 “new innovative apps designed especially for iPad” and as promised, will run “almost all” of the more than 150,000 apps on the App Store.

Sadly, there’s no “one more thing” included in Apple’s availability confirmation -- many potential iPad users were hoping for the inclusion of a camera at the very least, particularly a front-facing one which could be used for video conferencing. If you’re one of those people who was holding out hope for such a last-minute addition, you are now welcome to slide your credit card back into your wallet and hang your head in sadness. Maybe next time...