President Dmitry Medvedev at home enjoying his iPad earlier this year.
Official sales of Apple’s iPad 2 will kick off Friday, retailers said Wednesday, in an apparently hurried response to unauthorized sales of the device in recent weeks.
The iPad 2 will go on sale at authorized dealers including re:Store, Bely Veter Tsifrovoi, , Z-Store, Tekhnosila and Eldorado from 7 p.m. Friday evening.
The short notice announcement ends months of impatient speculation among Apple fans over the iPad 2’s launch in Russia.
But it appears that Apple was forced to bring the date forward after telecom chain Svyaznoi started unauthorized sales May 12.
The early sales led to allegations published in online newspaper Gazeta.ru on Tuesday that Svyaznoi’s iPads may have been purchased though “gray” channels.
Svyaznoi spokeswoman Yelena Nogotkova rejected the allegations. “We bought the shipments from Russian distributors, and Apple authorized these shipments for sales on the Russian market,” she told The Moscow Times. “All our iPads were purchased in compliance with Russian law and customs procedures.”
Apple did not respond tonbsp