Here’s a round-up of the latest news surrounding the iPad in the industry.

• iPad WiFi 3G: Still on-track for an April 30th arrival for pre-orders, but if you order any 3Gs today or going forward, May 7th appears to be the delivery date.
• iPad WiFi International: Pre-orders for the International markets for iPads have slipped from ‘Late April’ to ‘Late May’ according to Apple, due to higher-than-expected demand for the device in the U.S. This has certainly angered a great number of people waiting for the item outside of the US of A, myself included. It really is a challenge writing for an iPad site when you still can’t obtain one. More on that if and when Apple releases firmer dates.
• Israel lifts iPad ban: Customs had blocked the importation of 20 iPad devices into the country as they had concerns of conflicts with other wireless devices. However, the concerns were lifted and the ban with it, once it was found that the iPad did conform to wireless standards.
• Apple iPad Camera Adapter: Some interesting surprises have surfaced regarding the official Apple iPad camera adapter. Apparently, the camera adapter with the USB port (not the one with the SD Card slot) has been tested by a number of review sites and found to support a variety of USB devices. These include USB Headphones, headsets, and keyboards. This is in addition to its intended use of being able to plug digital cameras into an iPad and import JPEG and RAW with EXIF data and images.
• Concert Pianist play on iPad: China’s Lang Lang, notorious pianist pulled out an iPad during his first Encore at the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and broke out into Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee” with the help of the Magic Piano app from Smule. Check out the YouTube video at the link, it’s quite something!
• iPad X-ray: An Orthopedic doctor in Japan x-ray’ed his iPad and posted the photo to his medical blog site. Although the image doesn’t reveal anything new about the innards, it does show a unique view of the interior and how Apple worked around the large batteries found inside the device.

After cracking the screen on my iPhone last week, I decided to compare repair prices in unofficial Apple vendors on the dark backstreets of Dublin. I say ‘dark’ because these places are always located on dodgy little corners in city center – as if Apple’s power is so great that they feel they are committing a felony (one was located in the same building as a shop called ‘Little Amsterdam’, a purveyor of dodgy legal highs, and a ‘Eurotica’, a VERY creepy sex shop).

I noticed that a few were advertising the iPad, which Apple Stores and vendors have been advertising without a release date for some time now. When I asked how much I could expect to pay for an import I was blown away.

The 16gb Wifi model was being offered for 799 euro! If you’re not familiar with our currency, know that 799 euro is about $950. The price of this model is $499 in the United States. I knew there would have to be a premium, but I didn’t expect to have to pay twice as much to avoid a wait of a few weeks.

I will admit that I was half tempted to buy one – my family and friends would have disowned me for being such a reckless spender, but I was tempted none-the-less. I paid my 105 euro for my new screen and ran away very quickly to avoid any more such temptations.

What worried me the most was that the shops charging these prices told me that they had huge demand for the product and were selling out of it. In fact, two Polish guys were buying some while I was waiting on my repair.

The situation mightn’t have been so bad if Dublin wasn’t facing the volcanic ash cloud from hell. No flights to and from the States, meaning I wasn’t able to take advantage of any friends going on shopping trips to New York. I guess I’ll just have to wait ‘til May.

[What are your thoughts on inflated pricing? Is it just good capitalism, or is it slightly immoral?]

Now that the iPhone OS 4 has been officially announced, let’s recap the event from Apple and some of the press and community reaction to what is being offered. As such, we’ll break-down the seven ‘tent-pole’ features that Apple demoed for its event audience. Topping that off will be an extra section that covers what is not officially known about the OS update but has since surfaced thanks to numerous people digging around in the 4.0 Beta SDK and on Apple’s developer site.

The Known

• Multitasking: Developers will have access to seven multitasking services, which will allow tasks to be performed in the background while preserving performance and battery life. So you’ll be able to make a Voice over IP call while playing a game or checking email, find a restaurant on Urbanspoon while listening to Pandora, and more.
• Folders: Organize apps into folders with drag-and-drop simplicity. Get faster access to your favorites and browse and manage up to 2160 apps at once — many more than the current limit of 180 apps.
• Enhanced Mail: See messages from all your email accounts displayed together in a unified inbox, switch between inboxes more quickly, organize messages by threads, and even open attachments in third-party apps.
• iBooks for iPhone/Touch: The best way to browse, buy, and read books on a mobile device. Easily flip through the pages of a book you’ve downloaded from the iBookstore while listening to your music collection. Browse tens of thousands of books — many of them free — by title, author, or genre. You can even check out reviews and read sample pages before you buy.
• Enterprise: iPhone OS 4 offers more useful features for businesses. With enhancements to security, scalability, and compatibility, IT managers have even more reasons to deploy iPhone throughout their enterprises. Mail will include support of MS Exchange Server 2010 and multiple Exchange e-mail accounts, as well as SSL VPN connectivity.
• Game Center: The iPhone OS 4 will include a preview of Apple’s new social gaming network. Your users can invite friends to play a game, start a multiplayer game through matchmaking, track their achievements, and compare their high scores on a leader board. The final version of Game Center will be available to iPhone and iPod touch users later this year.
• iAd: A breakthrough mobile advertising platform from Apple. With it, apps can feature rich media ads that combine the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web. For developers, it means a new, easy-to-implement source of revenue. For advertisers, it creates a new media outlet that offers consumers highly targeted information.
• Home Screen Wallpaper: The iPhone OS 4 will include settings to change your desktop background with included Apple samples and ones from your camera roll(s). You can make your desktop the same as your stand-by image, or different if you want separation.

The Unknown

Analyzing the Apple iPhone OS 4 Media Event initially in low-res streaming and subsequently in high-definition streaming has revealed additional details about the forth-coming OS update. This section covers what has surfaced in the days since the Apple Event.

• Quick Look: Applications can now present previews of documents, like attachments in Mail, using the new Quick Look APIs.
• Video Playback & Capture enhancements: You now have full programmatic control over video playback and capture, using new APIs in the AV Foundation framework. This includes 5x Digital Zoom and Tap-to-Focus video as part of iPhone OS 4 for end-users.
• Additional Accessibility features: Those who are visually impaired will be able to increase font sizes in Mail, SMS, and system-wide Alert messages.
• Additional E-mail features: You will be able to change the image size in Mail messages as well as Rotate images embedded or to be sent-out. You will also be able to File and Delete Mail search results, and Edit from Outbox.
• Support for Additional hardware: The iPhone OS 4 will include additional support for Bluetooth keyboards and remote control hardware. The iPod-out functions for Docks will gain extra support and functionality, but was unspecified as to what those will be.
• Extra Apple App features: Support for Places in their Photo App, creation of Playlists and Nested Playlists in the iPod App, Rotation of images in Camera Roll, better Spellchecking while typing, Birthday Calendar support in iCal App, Top-hit and Web-search suggestions for Safari Searching, as well as retaining recent web search history.
• New Dock appearance: The iPhone/Touch dock will take on an appearance similar to the iPad 3.2.0 OS and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
• Safari Search Button: Like with the iPad OS 3.2.0, Safari in iPhone OS 4.0 will be renamed from ‘Google’ to ‘Search’. This either means Apple will be dropping Google searching as the main search engine branding, or adding extra search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, and so forth.
• Rate on Delete function removed: The controversial ‘Rate on Delete’ pop-up which was designed by Apple in iPhone OS 2.2 to encourage App users and buyers to submit reviews and scores, will be removed in iPhone OS 4.0. Developers have felt that only those bent on deleting an App would rate it, and hitherto provide a bad rating, skewing perception and rating of Apps, instead of providing satisfied clients to rate for Apps being kept.
• Web & Wikipedia Spotlight Search: Spotlight search, currently accessible in iPhone OS 3.0 when flicking left on the first page of Apps, will allow you to search content on the Web and within Wikipedia. Not only can you use Spotlight search for items on your iPhone OS device, but now the web and Wikipedia in the upcoming OS.

We will cover additional details regarding iPhone OS 4 and how it affects the iPad for this Fall’s OS launch as they become available.

It seems like there are millions of apps, but where do you start? Here are some of the best rated Apps by category:

Tweetdeck I’m sure Tweetie for iPad will blow this out of the water, but for now… This is a Twitter and Facebook client with style and ease of use. PRICE: FREE

Facebook for iPhone/iPad Even better than using Facebook’s website. PRICE: FREE

Foursquare Foursquare is the latest social media craze. It’s a rather literal way of following your friends. Try it out! PRICE: FREE

Flickr Your photos won’t look better on anything more than your iPad. Fantastic App. PRICE: FREE

Skype Wanna make calls on your iPad? – Download Skype. PRICE: FREE

Tumblr Beautifully made app for the novice blogger. PRICE: FREE

LinkedIn Social networking for professionals. *Had to include this: They just opened their new headquarters across the street! PRICE: FREE

WordPress You’re on WordPress right now! What better way is there to see SayiPad.com than on your iPad? PRICE: FREE

AIM Instant messaging from AOL. PRICE: FREE

iDailybooth Feel like you need to take a picture of yourself every day? – download iDailybooth and share yourself with the world. PRICE: $0.99

Huffington Post If you like opinion on the news from a liberal (EXTREMELY BIASED!) perspective, then this is the news app for you. PRICE: FREE

The Daily Beast Daily Beast is an extremely pretty news app to look at. All the best news and opinion are right there on it. PRICE: FREE

MSNBC Unusually put together news app. Selection of videos are second to none. PRICE: FREE

Politics Daily AVOID THE COMMENTS SECTION! (if you want to keep faith in humanity at all). PRICE: FREE

Business Week All the latest business and financial news. PRICE: FREE

Mashable Mashable is everything Social Media. It gives you technology news faster than anyone else, and the app is one of the nicest to navigate I have ever encountered. PRICE: FREE

The New York Times I’m not particularly fond of the NYT’s app so far. Everyone will download it though, so I will list it. If I were you, I’d go to their website. PRICE: FREE

Le Monde Le Monde is the best news source for Continental Europe. You should keep up with European news from a non-Anglophone country so I offer you Le Monde. PRICE: FREE

The Telegraph Britain’s highest quality paper on your iPad! No silly right/left wing opinions here: just the facts and the news from London on the world. PRICE: FREE

Digg Just released. This app has a few bugs but well worth your time. PRICE: FREE

Time Mobile Time has some of the best essays on current events that you will find. It’s an intuitive app and has an interesting interface. PRICE: FREE

USA Today Great news app – slightly East Coast tinged. PRICE: FREE

The Guardian The Telegraph on middle class acid. Great opinion and news from London. PRICE: $2.99

Fox News (contentious!) As a former journalism student: I don’t rank their news, their spin or their sources very highly, but if you want to get opinion on a conservative slant, this is your app. PRICE: FREE

CBS News Katie Couric makes this app part of my list. End of. PRICE: FREE

The Onion The Onion iPhone/iPad app is just released. It is a great, free way to peruse all your favourite fake news on the go. PRICE: FREE

Buzzfeed Buzzfeed.com is a site that finds all of the daily viral news off the internet and merges it into one place. Now they have nice little app. PRICE: FREE

Break Ever heard of Break.com? Break is basically YouTube without any seriousness. All you’ll find on this video app are prank wars, viral videos and ‘kittehs’, and that’s why we love this app. PRICE: FREE

TapTap Revenge Ridiculously addictive. Check out Lady Gaga Revenge and Kings of Leon Revenge for $3.99 each. PRICE: FREE

LINE UP 2 Like Tetris for the iPad. PRICE: FREE

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars The best, most entertaining game ever released on the App Store. *Not for minors!* PRICE: Fluctuates. I paid 5.99 EURO – safe to assume you won’t be charged above $10.

Waterslide 3-D waterslide game where you have to try your best not to fall off while collecting points. PRICE: FREE

Rotten Tomatoes The best movie reviewing site on the internet. PRICE: FREE

IMDB Bit of an ugly looking app, but has all the movie trivia you could ever want. PRICE: FREE

Loop Create music loops for free. Great fun. PRICE: FREE

Virtuoso Piano Mini piano for your iPad. Don’t bother with the paid version. PRICE: FREE

Tone Pad Create beautiful music with a few taps. PRICE: FREE

Smule Has to be seen to be believed. Try the lite version and then upgrade! PRICE: Around $0.99 for upgrades.

uStream: Viewer and Broadcaster These are two separate apps. You can view thousands of internet shows live from your iPad or create your own. PRICE: FREE

Daily Motion An early rival of YouTube that got obliterated. Still, some great content available. PRICE: FREE

SUBWAY MAP: FREE TUBE MAP: FREE TIMETABLE: FREE AROUND ME: FREE EVERNOTE: FREE DICTIONARY: FREE WIKIPANION: FREE PHOTOSHOP MOBILE: FREE SHAZAM: FREE

I know you can check the dimensions of the iPad on any website but these photos shows you how it measures up to common items so you get a sense for how portable it really is.

You can see why Apple didn’t include any ports!

When I got mine it felt thinner than what I expected. Its got a slight curvature on one side that gives it an illusion of thinness.

The weight was about what I expected. It’s got a solid weighty feel to it, but at the same time its much lighter than any laptop, and its definitely something I can see carrying around with me. I’ve been carrying it around everywhere since I bought it. It’s my new baby!

One of the first things I wanted to find out when I got my iPad was how well it does in the outside in the sun. Results were mixed…

The screen is not as bright and beautiful as it looks indoors, although I could still read the screen without squinting my eyes. (Note: the in the photos it looks a bit darker than how it looked in front of me)

Uhhh… Fingerprints look so ugly. I should have ordered the screen protector right away!

Compared to a laptop, its far superior outdoors. The laptop is barely legible, and I would never try to use it outdoors.

Moving the iPad closer to the face made it a lot easier on the eyes. As you can see reflections are an issue, but they seem to show up more in the photo than in real life and changing the angle of the ipad can reduce them significantly.

Moving into the shade helped out a lot. This photo shows the shadows falling on half the screen make it easier to view than the half without the shadows.

I will definitely be using my iPad outdoors but WITH sunglasses! I should be wearing sunglasses anyways if I’m going to be sitting in direct sun, duh.

Select press organizations on Monday April 5th received an invitation from Apple that they would be holding a special media event on the 8th of April. Apple typically taunts the press with a cryptic image related to the event, but this time, the shadow of a ’4′ can be seen with the words “Get a sneak peak into the iPhone OS”. Here’s a copy of what was sent out:

Little is known about what iPhone OS 4.0 will include, but a number of rumors and potential elements have surfaced from reliable and ‘other’ sources over the past few months. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs replied to an e-mail from a concerned user of the iPhone’s multiple in-box system for its Mail App, regarding whether the iPhone will have a primary Inbox for all e-mail addresses, much like  how Mail operates in Mac OS X 10.6.3 today. Steve replied with a ‘Yep’. So, that’s pretty much a certainty.

Up next, most sites out there and users alike are clamoring for a true multi-tasking OS for iPhone OS devices (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad). With that said, we’re also aware that Windows Phone 7, due for a Fall 2010 launch, will not initially have Multi-tasking either. Top that off with a media event scheduled by Microsoft on April 12th, most likely for their ‘Pink Phone’ product, and Apple is dutifully expected to beat MS to the punch with an OS X Expose-like system for the iPhone OS. So, I think this feature is a given as well.

Lastly, it is expected that Apple will include some user interface improvements, likely to leverage both the enhanced screen real-estate of the iPad and to better deal with the hundreds of free and paid Apps that most users have on their iPhone OS devices.

As is typical with these Media Events, this will likely be an announcement, with a vague ‘ship date’. The iPhone is due for a refresh in June or July of 2010, and the iPod touch sees a refresh usually around September of each year. Screenshots in the iPad code has revealed that Apple has five new products with internal product numbers, so I think it’s safe to say we’ll see an entirely refreshed iPod and iPhone line-up before this Fall.

Maybe that will include a redesigned iPod Nano with a pared down iPhone OS 4 interface? Full-screen Nano with no touch-wheel? Now that would be something!

We will be covering the April 8th Apple Event with all the nitty gritty.

Although the day was filled with some first look and first impressions with low-resolution iPhone-style or blurry macro-photography pictures, I wanted to wait until now to post some of the better and higher-quality reviews. So, here’s a summary of the better iPad reviews out there:

Engadget’s iPad review

An exhaustive review of the iPad 64GB WiFi-edition with beautiful hardware and software photography. Engadget dives into first-day iPad launch Apps as well, and offers some good hands-on insight on look and feel.

Engadget’s iPad Apple accessories review

The folks also take some good quality shots of the Apple gear and even provide a video of a staffer typing on the Apple Wireless bluetooth keyboard.

AppleInsider’s First Look

Although a first-look article, AI makes some very interesting comments when comparing it to other Apple wireless and mobility devices, and covers connectivity to an Airport Extreme router and throughput compared to other devices.

Gizmodo App Marathon

This site offers some full-screen shots and insight into some of the better Apps for the iPad. It’s a monster review that covers only the Apps from third-party vendors, but will certainly whet your appetite when it comes time to shop on you iPad AppStore.

iLounge iPad image gallery

Not a review per say, but an extensive library of images of the iPad hardware and Apple accessories in slide-show format thanks to Flickr. This is the direct link, or head to iLounge for more coverage of the iPad launch.

We’ll update this list as more reviews and galleries surface.

Warning, the following link shows iFixit.com performing an iPad tear-down. If you’re prone to gut-wrenching pangs of anxiety when viewing the mangling of expensive electronic equipment, do not click on this link. You have been dutifully warned!

The lads at iFixit provide a step-by-step breakdown of the iPad, and plenty of insightful info on the visible bits and pieces. They also provide warnings that without patience and the proper tools, you will mangle the iPad if you try it at home. As of this posting, the tear-down is on Step-22 and not yet complete, but some interesting info has already surfaced. Check them out!

Today is the big day for Americans who pre-ordered their iPads. Those who don’t live in remote areas should be receiving their units in short order. For the rest of us in neighboring Canada or overseas, we have to wait until late April or May, if Apple decides to take a Pre-order approach as well. To bide the time, or drive you just a little more nuts and envious, Apple put up a whack of content relating to the iPad and some of the best Apps to be available at launch time.

The featured Apps are all quite stellar, but what totally astounded me was the Scrabble game which allows you to use the iPad as the game board, and an iPhone 3G for each player as their private tile-tray. When it’s your turn to go, the image on the ‘game board’ (iPad) changes automatically to re-orient for your vantage point! Apple also features two racing games, a cooking application, a Formula 1 pole position application, Marvel’s comic viewer (which may attract me to read comics once again!), and the gorgeous Elements App for showing the Periodic Table of Elements. All of the featured Apps come with an embedded video showcasing hands-on use.

Lastly, Apple updated their ‘iPad Ready’ section with four more websites that are HTML5, Javascripted, and CSS3 enabled for best viewing on the Apple iPad. This brings their showcase to 20 total sites that have adopted non-Flash usage technologies and open standards.

We’ll be updating and covering US Launch day news through-out the day.