If you follow tech news very much, and Apple in particular, you know one thing is certain: even if you have the “latest thing” from Apple they will be releasing an even better one sooner or later. That’s never been more the case, and more the subject of scrutiny and speculation, than with the iPhone and iPad.

So, it should come as no surprise that pretty much everyone is in the “what will Apple release next” game, including the Wall Street Journal. This time around the Journal is reporting that Apple’s next generation iPad (aka iPad 3) will feature, among other things, 4G LTE wireless connectivity.

In addition, said iPad 3 will be sold at both AT&T and Verizon. That isn’t exactly earth-shattering news, though, as both wireless carriers have had 4G LTE for some time and have hardware that runs on it already.

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Even with a perfectly fine piece of software for reading Final Draft scripts on the iPad already available in the form of FDX Reader, some users were still waiting for an “official” solution from Final Draft themselves. Well, they need wait no longer — or at least won’t have to after February 16.

That’s right, the company is releasing its “official” app to read scripts written in Final Draft on your iPad. For some of you, this won’t seem like a big deal. For those of us who use Final Draft daily for work and have alwyas wanted a way to read scripts on our iPads with the same fonts, page numbering and formatting as on our computers, this is a great development.

Some of the apps features will include:

• Works with Final Draft version 8 FDX files – the Hollywood industry standard script file format
• Imports scripts using email, iTunes File Sharing, or Dropbox
• Perfectly paginates to US Letter and standard European (A4) page sizes
• Precisely displays production scripts, including colored production pages, locked pages, scene numbering, and more!
• Scripts accurately scale to actual draft size

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You have to hand it to Google. Even though it’s a fight between their Android OS and Apple’s iOS for dominance of the smartphone, they do come up with the better names for their software releases.

Apple pretty much sticks to numbers, with iOS 5 being the latest, while Google is now at Android 4.0 — which has the much cooler name of Ice Cream Sandwich. It is about that very delicious-sounding Android release we are talking today.

HTC has announced via their Facebook page that an Ice Cream Sandwich update will be available for some of its devices by the end of March. First in line to get the update will reportedly be the Sensation, Sensation 4G and Sensation XE. Then, a little later, the Sensation XL.

The Rezound, Vivid, Amaze 4G, EVO 3D, EVO Design 4G, Incredible S, Desire S and Desire HD will all be updated “later this year.”

So HTC users, how does this make you feel? Are you excited for some Ice Cream Sandwich action?

Back in the early days of non-linear video editing Avid was the king. Their software was used in pretty much every situation and they dominated the post-production landscape for film and TV.

Then, Apple came out with Final Cut Pro and things changed. Plus, Avid ended up having some issues of its own which hindered it further.

Now, with Apple having issues with Final Cut Pro X, Avid has released its first application to compete with Apple’s iMovie mobile. The app is called Avid Studio for the iPad and is currently available in the App Store for an introductory price of $4.99. After 30 days it will increase to $8.

With this app just being released, its too early to tell if it will knock Apple’s iMovie off its perch as the iOS editing app du jour. However, it does have some nice features and a few iMovie doesn’t have, so chances are people will at least give it a chance — especially at that low price point.

Big day for Apple and the education market today as our favorite fruit-flavored tech company revealed at an event in New York City that it will, as we discussed last week, be getting into the textbook publishing business in a big way. Apple’s VP of marketing Phil Schiller announced several new components of the initiative including iTunes U as a separate iOS app, which gives users of Apple’s new iBooks 2 iOS app access to textbooks from several top publishers to be read on the iPad.

The new textbooks are modern and interactive instead of plain old paper. They support multitouch gestures and also feature dictionary look-up integration and annotation. Students can even highlight text, take notes and create virtual note cards to reference later while studying. Wish this was around when I was in school.

At launch, high school-level textbooks are available in the iBookstore and priced at $14.99 or less. Expect more textbooks to come along in the near future. The first group of publishers with textbooks available for the iPad include Pearson, McGraw Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

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I find it funny that even with everything happening at CES in Las Vegas this week one announcement from Apple about an event next week and the entire tech news world shifts forces to them. Sorry CES, nobody seems to care all that much about you.

To what event am I referring? Well, as I mentioned last week, Apple was rumored to be planning an education-related event for sometime in January. As you can see from the pic above, they’ve now sent out invitations to said event and it’s definitely scheduled for the 19th of this month.

Now that we know the event is education-related does that mean Apple is announcing a new textbook initiative with major publishers to bring school books to the iPad? I think it might. I also think we might see a bit more during this event such as new publishers added to the magazines available in the Newsstand app as well as some new publishers added to iBooks.

Sadly, I would doubt Apple will also announces a new iPad next week. I think they will wait on that one for another month or two. Of course, whatever happens we will find it all out come January 19. Should be interesting.

As is the usual practice almost anywhere were column inches or post counts matter, writers such as myself take to their keyboards and make lists. I am no exception and, with a great deal of difficulty and toil, have managed to cobble together a list of what I think are some of the best things of 2011.

I don’t really want to bore you with a lot of explanations as to why I picked what I did. Suffice it to say these picks are mine and mine alone. Also, they are not in any particular order, mostly because I find it hard to rank them that closely. Or, I was just too lazy.

Either way, here you go.

Movies

Drive
The Artist
Attack the Block
X-Men: First Class
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
The Descendants
Thunder Soul
13 Assassins
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
Hugo

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It’s a funny thing the video game business (and most technology businesses for that matter). When a game first comes out it’s often the cutting edge of gaming design and graphics and, if popular, almost impossible to find. And then time passes and a new game rises to take its place with the old one left in a pile, all but forgotten.

That’s not the case these days, however, at least with some games. Some games, if they’re popular enough, go on to be ported to the iPad, iPhone and Android-powered devices. That’s exactly what happened with the PS2 hit game Grand Theft Auto 3, which is now available for Android and iOS devices.

Just like in the version we all new and loved ten years ago, in the game you take it to the streets of Liberty City to complete a variety of missions with a large cast of seedy characters. Rockstar Games says players can count on hours of gameplay, updated graphics, HD quality and gameplay that has been optimized for touchscreen devices.

We’ll be the judge of that. Right now. Grand Theft Auto 3 is available in the Android Market and in the iTunes App Store now for $4.99.

It didn’t do it as fast as the iTunes store did for IOS apps but still, this milestone is pretty impressive. What am I talking about? Well, according to Apple, its Mac App Store has has now served more than 100 million downloads to eager customers who appreciate not having to buy a boxed product.

”In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in a statement. “With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.”

See, pretty impressive. With numbers like these you have to wonder what exactly Apple has made from this? Like the iOS store, you can bet the company gets a percentage and, if rumors are to be believed, a pretty decent one.

Not bad Apple, not bad. At least we don’t have to worry about you going out of business like we used to back in the 90s. Let’s keep it that way, okay?

Click through for the full press release from Apple about this milestone.

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With the popularity of smartphones like the iPhone and myriad of Android-powered handsets, one of the things users love to do is take and share photos with friends and family. One of the best apps for doing this when using the iPhone is Instagram.

This app allows you to take a photo, manipulate it if you choose and then upload it to your photo stream for all to see. People can then subscribe to your photo stream and view your photos on their devices. Or, you can upload them to Twitter, Facebook or Flickr.

It’s extremely popular on the iPhone (many of us here use it, in fact) but so far, it’s only been available for iOS devices. Apparently, that’s not going to be the case much longer.

Speaking during the LeWeb conference in Paris this week, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed that an Android version of the company’s popular iOS application is coming soon. ”We have two people working on Android now,” Systrom said.

I know what you’re thinking. Two people doesn’t sound like very many. However, keep in mind that the whole company probably isn’t that much bigger and has been exclusively an iOS app since launch.

No launch date was forthcoming from Systrom but we expect to see the Android version of Instagram sometime early next year.

Let’s face it, there’s a lot of apps out there for the iPad and iPhone. Many of them are even useful and, on occasion, fun to use. You can add Flipboard to that list.

In case you haven’t tried it yet, Flipboard is a very popular magazine-style news application which, up until today, was available only for the iPad. Now, those of you who want the same experience on your iPhone or, for some reason, don’t have an iPad yet, can now enjoy Flipboard on your iPhone because it’s now available.

The app allows users to flip through a single feed of articles and photos that have been shared across various social networks. It can also display stories from a variety of news categories including technology, design, “Flipboard picks,” photography, business, sports, style, travel, food and more.

It’s a great app that really helps you digest a lot of information quickly and easily and does it inside a very user-friendly interface. It’s definitely worth checking out.

Flipboard for iPhone is free and available in the App Store now.

Apple on Thursday (or today if you’re reading this, well, on Thursday) released iOS 5.0.1 for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. This update reportedly fixes a number of issues with the operating system.

According to Apple, the update fixes bugs affecting battery life, adds Multitasking Gestures for the original iPad, resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud and improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation. Actually, I’m pretty happy about that last one as the Australian Siri really had a hard time understanding me.

iOS 5.0.1 is compatible with iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad, iPod touch (4th generation) and iPod touch (3rd generation). To install the update, launch the Settings app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, tap General, and then open Software Update.

You can also update the old fashioned way by syncing your device with iTunes. Let us know how it goes if you do update.