As expected, the third wave of Retina-grade new iPads are hitting international markets today, including South Korea, Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela. The last batch was on March 23, which covered most of Europe, while the initial rollout included select major markets in North America, Europe, and Asia. The final wave will be next week, April 27, when the new iPad hits Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.

Apple has been beating Samsung on their Korean home turf with the iPad 2 alone, so it's a safe assumption that the new iPad will further cement iOS dominance there. I have the sneaking suspicion that  the new iPad will do equally well elsewhere in the world. I feel a little bad for those who have had to wait so long to get their mitts on one, but no doubt the wait is creating a fair bit of excitement for launch day. Any international readers out there really itching to get a new iPad? Have any of you resorted to ordering one from abroad?

If you get your new iPad today, jump into our iPad 3 Forum and give us your review!

Apple is set to hold a sale across Asia to celebrate The Year of the Dragon.  The sale will start on January 6 and will last for one day only. As with all Apple sales, you will not know what the sale covers until it actually starts.

Customers in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines are eligible for Apple’s one-day sale, which the company is calling ‘Red Friday’, offering a range of accessories, gadgets and software — as well as some Apple Store exclusives.

Source: TNW

Apple COO Tim Cook said we'd see the iPhone in Asia by the end of 2008, and see it we did in China and Hong Kong! Er... oops, he meant officially, didn't he? Well, then, Ars Technica (via Thompson) reports that SingTel might just make Singapore the first Asian nation to introduce Poppa Jobs' pocket universe-dent'er:

The information comes from "industry sources," and indicates that the iPhone will appear in Singapore in September. The sources don't have any information on whether or not a package deal that includes Australia and Thailand has been reached, and I wouldn't be surprised to see news or rumors concerning those countries start popping up. SingTel and Apple aren't talking just yet (not that we expected them to).

Singapore allegedly boasts over 10,000 unlocked iPhones already, but if they go legit that'll bring our official score to:

Rumors (via Apple Insider) suggest Apple may even be willing to drop its revenue sharing model in exchange for the up-front carrier subsidies more common to the industry.

What gives? No Visual Voicemail in Ireland. No unlimited data in Austria. And now no revenue sharing in Singapore? Is Apple getting beaten down by the very carrier domination they seemed so poised to uproot? Or is Apple's business model really, as Tim Cook suggested, flexible as an 8 year old gymnast when it comes to getting the iPhone in countries?

Maybe when the Canadian model finally debuts with no Visual Voicemail, a heft 1MB of data, and Rogers' branded WAP browser in lieu of Safari, all for the low-low price of $199 a month for 100 min., we'll have our answer!