As we prepare the April 3rd release of the iPad, Apple has released iPhone SDK 3.2 beta version 5 for iPad. Previous releases have generated some interesting details, so we’ll keep an eye out and you do the same.

If you are a developer, you can download the latest SDK from Apple.

via TUAW

Apple unveiled a new feature for the web-based iTunesConnect this week, one that allows devs to time releases and price changes in advance. With this, the devs can schedule the precise date they want the price of their app to raise or lower. This negates the need to go in and manually change how much it will cost, a handy utility for planned price changes. Before the approved application even goes on sale, the devs can set when the app will show up in the store.

It really does seem as though Apple is trying to improve the whole app approval/handling process, doesn’t it? This isn’t a huge new feature, but it’s a sensible feature that will be well received among the dev community, I bet.

[via AppleInsider]

Wired are at the forefront of the transition to the iPad, and have previously shown off their concept of content on the tablet. At SXSW, they pulled a lengthy demonstration of their magazine—though it was running through Adobe AIR on a Dell.

This is one of the more practical designs we’ve seen for throwing magazines onto the iPad, and while this is obviously not a finished copy, it does show how it would function on your chosen tablet device.

[via 9 to 5 Mac]

A report today from iLounge indicates that Apple has effectively banned any screen film or screen protector products from their online and retail stores. The Apple Store will no longer sell film protectors or case bundles that include film protectors. Vendors have been told this woud be coming and the ban is far reaching.

The ban will impact all forms of screen film, including completely clear film, anti-glare film, and mirrored film, regardless of whether the purpose of the film is protective, decorative, or both. It will also prevent sales of film for iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers.

This move wasn’t because of demand as film solutions ranked #1 in iPhone cases for both iPhone and iPod touch products.

Is it simply that Apple feels the iPhone doesn’t require a screen protector? Is there some adverse affect from using a screen protector that we aren’t aware of? Doesn’t makes sense to us to discontinue sales of iPhone Screen Protectors.

In any event, this might be a good time for a shameless plug. If you are in the market for iPhone Screen Protector, the EverythingiCafe Store has a variety of products for both iPhone and iPod touch devices.

Brazil—who already deal with some of the highest Apple prices on the globe—have been informed by a no higher source than Jobs himself that they will not be getting Apple stores any time soon. Rio de Janeiro’s Secretary of Heritage emailed Jobs asking if there were any plans to open the stores there, and he said “no”. Why? Well, the reason Brazilians have to pay bazillions for their Apple products is due to high trade tariffs, meaning there’s a significant tax added to all incoming electronics. Jobs says the taxes “makes it very unattractive to invest in the country,” and ”many [other] high-tech companies feel that way.”

Sorry Brazil, guess you’re stuck paying through the nose for now.

[via TAUW]

The Association of Online Publishers has polled its members, some of the most powerful publishing groups in the world, and found that they’re rather pessimistic about the possibilities of the iPad and Tablets in general, saying:

• Mail Online MD James Bromley: “These are still really really embryonic devices that are great and fantastic, and I want to be at the top of the queue to buy one and play with it. But we’re talking about a very, very narrow subsection of society that will have these in 2010. This is the time that we learn about these devices - ‘11, ‘12, ‘13 is when these might become slightly more mainstream.”
• Conde Nast Digital UK manager Emanuela Pignataro: “E-readers will be the novelty of 2010. I don’t think it is a short-term adoption - it will take years.”
• Thomson Reuters consumer GM Tim Faircliff: “I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”
• Incisive Media digital manager John Barnes: “The issue with tablets is, they’re not really servicing the needs of colour, with graphics and diagrams - it’s a bit like version one of the iPod.”

So very much a wait and see approach. While I do think the iPad will be a game changer, they’re right that 2010 might not be the year for it. 2011 and 2012 will probably be when we see the real impact of the device and others like it.

Even if you don’t want to save the publishing industry, you can still enter to win a free iPad next month!

[Paid Content, via Cult of Mac]

According to TechCrunch AT&T has been emailing its San Francisco customers, telling them that Ma Bell will be stepping up their game in the Bay Area. The email says:

“We wanted you to be among the first to know! We recently enhanced the 3G network in the greater San Francisco area to provide better in-building 3G coverage, fewer dropped calls and a better overall wireless experience.The great news is coverage in Northern California will continue to improve as we expand capacity, optimize and add more sites in the coming months.

With better coverage on the nation’s fastest 3G network, there’s never been a better time to be an AT&T customer.

We thank you for your continued loyalty and look forward to sharing more good news soon.”

AT&T’s poor coverage in San Francisco and New York are the source of much of the complaints about the company, and AT&T seem serious about improving things. They recently wowed commentators by managing to keep their network running under the strain of SXSW, so hopefully things will greatly improve for San Francisco residents soon.

Since the iPad’s announcement, new apps have arrived at a dramatic rate, say Flurry. In fact, the iPad announcement provided “the single sharpest spike in Flurry history,” a 185% boost over the previous period for new developer projects. Obviously developers are incredibly excited about the potential of the new device, and how apps will work on it.

The iPad’s potential is rippling through established media outlets too. NPR is looking to create an iPad specific app, in addition to their currently existing iPhone one, as well as a newly optimized website. VIV magazine has just released a concept piece of what their content might look like on the iPad. It’s very interesting, though over-the-top and far too expensive for every day use. While it looks a bit like an overdone Flash website for a movie, it’s a nifty idea of what could be done with the tablet.

[via CNN, Gizmodo]

That picture tells it all, doesn’t it? Fandango are testing a system where instead of needing a physical ticket, one is sent to you via MMS. You buy your tickets through the app, and then present the barcode at the theater. The following theaters are participating on the first round of tests, if it goes well and the locations are willing to pay for the necessary scanners, I’m sure you’ll find it in more places soon:

• New York: City Cinemas 1, 2 & 3, Angelika Film Center, East 86th Street Cinemas, Village East Cinema, Beekman Theatre, The Paris Theatre.
• New Jersey: Manville 12 Plex.
• Houston: Angelika Film Center.
• Dallas/Plano: Angelika Dallas; Angelika Plano.
• San Diego: La Mesa Grossmont Center, Clairemont Town Square Stadium.
• Bakersfield: Valley Plaza 16.
• Sonoma County: Rohnert Park 16.
• Hawaii: Ward Stadium, Kahala Theater, Kapolei 16, Mililani Stadium.

[via TechCrunch]

Apple has pushed back the ship date on some of the iPad accessories, prompting fears of supply chain issues. The iPad case has been knocked back to from April 3 to mid-April; the iPad keyboard dock and spare power adaptor have been bumped from late-April to May. The SD card adaptor isn’t even in the Apple store at present.

This has lead some to worry that Apple may be facing supply side issues, causing the minor delays in shipping, which may have roll on effects for European buyers, as most of the available units will instead be sent to the USA.

[via 9 to 5 Mac]

PayPal has teamed up with Bump to allow users to exchange money just by thrusting their iPhones at each other. When you bump phones, email addresses are exchanged, and you can then send or request payment via PayPal. If you want to watch more of their faux-Attenborough documentary ads, PayPal have put more on their YouTube site.

While I can see this being handy to have around, I’m not sure it’s quite the game changer that products like Square will end up being. It still requires that both people have a PayPal account and an iPhone, which isn’t quite everyone yet. Plus, PayPal are renowned for being utter bastards when you need to contact them, and randomly shutting down people’s accounts for imagined infractions, so I’m hesitant to endorse them too much.

[via 9 to 5 Mac]

Pretty bold statements from Joe Wilcox of Beta News, who is saying that Apple’s suit against HTC is designed to scare off competition, but should do exactly the opposite. He thinks that by targeting HTC instead of Google directly, Apple is on shaky ground with a number of the patents, and Apple are unlikely to target any other Android handset makers. According to Wilcox, Apple aiming at HTC is enough:

• If the claims are shaky.
• If Apple is looking for one case to establish precedent.
• If the more immediate objective is to scare off existing or would-be Android licensees.

He thinks that this shouldn’t actually have any effect on other companies thinking of licensing Android, as the lawsuit is competition by litigation, and may be tied up for years.

ComputerWorld is reporting that Apple has hired Richard DeVaul as a Senior Prototype Engineer—and he’s an expert in wearable computers. DeVaul has a PhD from MIT and works with computer systems built into wearable devices, like clothes and glasses. His thesis was about broadcasting small bits of data onto your glasses, which subliminally helped with data recall and memory. He’s one of the founders of the company AWare Technologies which work on fitness tracking in corporations, and he has created an iPhone app called StepTrakLite.

According to the ComputerWorld report, “DeVaul will be working under Jonny Ive in a secret lab focused on wearable computing technology where only seven people besides Ive and CEO Steve Jobs know what he is doing.”

You have to wonder if this will come to anything. Just before the iPad’s official announcement, everyone was thinking that a company that Apple previously purchased which focused on touch-based interface would create a radical new interface for the iPad. Instead it was just iPhone writ large. It’s very cool to see Apple hiring someone as theoretical and forward thinking like this, as this isn’t likely to be marketable immediately, but I desperately hope his skills don’t get lost in the shuffle.

Legendary game developer John Carmack was interviewed by Kotaku at GDC after winning a lifetime achievement award, and was asked about gaming on the iPhone and iPad. The creator of Doom and Wolfenstein wants to keep making games for Apple’s devices, and is planning on bringing versions of the upcoming Rage to both platforms. Many of Carmack’s older games have made it to the iPhone, including recent RPG variations of the franchises.

I’m sure these won’t quite have the graphical complexity of the console/PC versions, but it’s always good to have large budget creators targeting handheld markets in a competent way.

[via Cult of Mac]

Following reports of 120,000 pre-orders on day 1, the same group of investors believe that sales dropped dramatically after the first day. On Saturday and Sunday, they calculate pre-orders as clocking in at around 1,000 per hour—a far cry from the 25,000 an hour from when the orders started. These estimates are based on a sample of 120 orders for 137 iPads over the course of 39 hours. Over 72 hours, they’re pegging the orders (not counting in-store pickups) as 152,000, with a probably half-million by launch.

“My best guess, although very tentative given the early stage and few data we have so far, would be that they hit the 1 million unit milestone by the second week after it ships,” says Daniel Tello, the Venezuelan blogger-analyst who crunched all the numbers.

[via CNN]

Got a spare $20,000 burning a hole in your back pocket? Want to use it for the most hideous, conspicuous show of wealth imaginable? How about a diamond encrusted iPad!

This gorgeous diamond studded iPad features 11.43 carats of diamonds, hand-set in a micro-pave styling. The diamonds are graded G/H in color and VS2/SI1 in clarity.

Price tag: $19,999.

Very limited quantities available. Orders will be available June 1..

Please call 703.287.1615 to order

You know, I don’t think “gorgeous” is quite the right word…

However, if you don’t feel the need for a bedazzled iPad, you could always win a normal one through our competition.

[via Gizmodo]

In a bonus spread between $5 million cash and 75,000 restricted stock units, Apple gave its COO a one-off bonus for his time running the company while Jobs was absent. This was revealed via a Form 8-K submission with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission describing the bonus, saying:

On March 10, 2010, the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. (the “Company”) unanimously approved a recommendation by Steve Jobs, the Company’s CEO, to award Timothy D. Cook, the Company’s Chief Operating Officer, a one-time discretionary bonus of $5,000,000 and 75,000 restricted stock units in recognition of his outstanding performance in assuming the day-to-day operations of the Company for the period in fiscal 2009 during which Mr. Jobs was on medical leave of absence.

Fifty percent of the restricted stock units are scheduled to vest on each of March 10, 2011 and March 10, 2012, subject to Mr. Cook’s continued employment with the Company through that date.

Cook is widely pegged to become CEO once Jobs steps down.

[via MacRumors]

The AAPL Sanity Board have crunched some numbers, and come up with what they think is a fairly accurate breakdown of the day 1 pre-orders for the iPad. They’re saying around 120,000 iPads were sold. They got this by taking all of Apple’s orders for Friday (124,596) and subtracting the average number of online orders for other products (16,500) and multiplying the result by the number of iPads bought on average (1.11). From their numbers, two-thirds of people got Wi-Fi only, and the different storage sizes were an approximately even split.

These numbers seem pretty believable, but they’re basing it on a sample of 99 orders over 19.5 hours, and I don’t know if this is a large enough sample to extrapolate over all the pre-orders for the day.

Of those pre-orders, it seems around 40,000 were set up for in-store pickup.

If you weren’t quick enough to pre-order on day 1, you still have a chance to pick one up in our competition.

[via CNN]

The New York Times has written a mammoth article about the fight between Google and Apple. It’s nothing particularly surprising—Apple thinks the Google phones and Android take off their work; the two battle over buying up companies; fighting over multitouch; etc. While Jobs and Schmidt are publicly cordial to one another, according to this report both are not happy campers. According to NYT “the clash between Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Jobs offers an unusually vivid display of enmity and ambition.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a report about two business rivals without massive hyperbole: “it’s World War III. Amazing animosity is motivating two of the most powerful people in the industry. This is emotional. This is the biggest ego battle in history. It’s incendiary.”

Once your iPad is finally in your hands, what do you do when the battery dies? Rather than pulling apart the device and replacing just the affected part, Apple’s new Battery Replacement Service for the iPad gives you a whole new iPad. It’ll set you back $99 plus shipping, and the new unit won’t have any of your data with it. Make sure to backup before you send off your old one then!

In the same vein, details for AppleCare for the iPad have been unearthed. It appears the AppleCare is limited to two years maximum, and won’t be sold in Florida.