The device will arrive at Apple’s retail stores at 8:00 a.m. local time Friday in the U.S.
It will also become available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, UK, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Apple's new tablet sports an improved “retina” display, a 5-megapixel camera with 1080p video recording, LTE support, 1 GB of RAM and an improved A5X CPU with quad-core graphics.
Although it hasn't even hit the stores yet, there are indicators that the device is already selling very well in pre-orders. Apple has pushed the delivery date for new pre-ordered iPads back several times, which points to a very high demand.
The prices for the new iPad range from $499 for the 16 GB Wi-Fi version to $829 for the 64 GB 3G model.