If you’re like me and have been spending your mornings hoping to see that little yellow sticky note appear on Apple’s website .. this one is for you. In an official press release published by the Cupertino firm on Friday morning, Apple has announced that its latest tablet invention, the iPad, will be available in the US on April 3rd. The device will start at $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB and $699 for the 64GB Wi-Fi model. The Wi-Fi + 3G models however will only be available in late April, starting at $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for the 64GB model. The device will be available to pre-order from Apple.com and Apple resellers from March 12th, and Apple noted it will be offering an in-store collection option.

Alongside the announcement, Apple also revealed its future plans for an international launch, announcing that the iPad Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in late April in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. Its worth noting that this announcement didn’t seem to bring with it any hint of international pricing, something which has evaded Apple product pages since the original announcement. Apple states international pricing will be announced in April. For any countries not mentioned in this initial press announcement, it’s bad news I’m afraid. iPad will ship to those countries later this year.

One other interesting tidbit to come from this announcement though is the US-only launch of iBooks. While Apple.com has stated since the device’s introduction that its iBooks application will be US-centric at launch, we didn’t yet know for sure if iBooks would be available internationally at a later date. According to the press release today, the UK and other countries can expect iBooks “later this year”.

Will iBooks make the UK iPad launch in late April? .. Who knows!