If you’re been waiting for an excuse to use that extra $499.00 you’ve got burning a hole in your wallet, Apple may have just given you one. Today, the company announced, via their website, that it will begin shipping its brand new tablet device, the iPad, on April 3rd and will begin taking pre-orders on March 12th.

This is great news for those of you who want to take your eBook reading to the next level and also for people who never jumped on the Kindle bandwagon. It’s also great news for those of you looking for a super-sized iPhone that will run all those cool apps without having to agree to a lengthy contract with AT&T. Although, if you do want to have such a contract (and 3G wireless), the iPad with 3G will be available later in April, complete with said AT&T contract.

Even though I’ve pointed out a few things I feel the iPad is missing (although some, like the camera, may actually be there after all) I still feel there’s some merit to the device. I would be even more excited if I didn’t already have a Kindle, which I feel, as a “single use” device, is actually better for reading books than the iPad will be.

Still, the iPad definitely has a lot of possibilities and I look forward to exploring those come April 3rd. Expect a full review of the iPad once I get my hands on one. Until then, if this device is truly for you, better start saving those pennies because April 3rd isn’t that far away.

It’s Tuesday so that must mean it’s a day for lawsuits, at least where Apple, Inc. is concerned. Case in point, our favorite fruit flavored technology company is suing hardware maker HTC for infringement of 20 patents concerning the iPhone user interface and its hardware and architecture. The lawsuit was filed with the U.S. International Trade Comission and in the U.S. District Court of Deleware.

Steve Jobs himself had this to say about the lawsuit: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Jobs. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.” Yeah, he seems a bit miffed about the whole thing.

Although the Google Nexus One is not mentioned specifically in the lawsuit and HTC does make several other Android handsets, some could argue the touchscreen models interface does look quite a bit like the iPhone’s. Still, “quite a bit” does not necessarily a lawsuit make. Could it just be a bit of posturing to warn others away from trying to steal Apple’s ideas or to slow down the progress Android is making in the marketplace? Maybe.

Apple has the right to defend it’s ideas and the cash to try and punish those it deems responsible for stealing said ideas. However, I was kinda hoping to get my hands on a Nexus One when it is released for Verizon. I hope this lawsuit doesn’t hold that up. Neither HTC nor Google has issued a statement yet concerning the lawsuit.

Even though Apple won’t be attending this year’s Macworld Expo at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, that isn’t stopping organizers IDG from having one. This year, in what they are calling ‘The Start of a new Era” the organizers have assembled a host of great speakers, panels and events for Apple and Mac enthusiasts everywhere.

Some of the highlights of the event include an evening with David Pogue, Q&A with writer/director Kevin Smith, the 20th anniversary of Photoshop event, Macworld Magizine’s “Best of Show” awards and a hands-on demo of Apple’s latest product, the iPad.

The Show Floor opens Thursday: 12:00pm to 6:00pm

Thursday’s Highlights:

Late Night with David Pogue – Join New York Times’ Columnis David Pogue for song parodies, surprise guests, jokes at Apple’s expense, and a lot of geeking out.
9:00am – 10:00am

See the Best New Products First

11:00am – 12:00pm
Q&A with Kevin Smith – filmmaker and director of Clerks, Chasing Amy, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. The conversation, sure to be lively, wry and irreverent, will give Macworld attendees a special opportunity to engage with Smith as he answers audience questions – nothing is off limits!
2:00pm – 3:00pm

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With the Academy Awards just around the corner, it’s always fun to make predictions as to who the winners might be. To help you in this, and promote its Oscar-related content, Vanity Fair magazine is launching a free iPhone app that will allow you to make your picks for all the awards and receive realtime results on the night of the show.

Of course, you can also invite friends to vote for the people you think have the best chance of winning, compare your selections to friends and the Vanity Fair editors, and chat via the app the app in Facebook. On Oscar night, the app will show you who is winning from your picks.

The app also offers access to Vanity Fair’s content including background information on nominees, stories, photos, profiles, trailers of nominated films, and slideshows. Hey, they gotta pay for the app somehow, right? With some much hype surrounding the Oscars, its nice to see an app that caters to the most important aspect of the night: who’s gonna take home the golden statue.

If you check out the app, tell us what you think in the comments. Also, after the break, we’ve included a little video that helps you understand Vanity Fair’s vision for this app and a little more on how to use it. So check that out too.

The Academy Awards take place on Sunday, March 7 at 8/5P on ABC.

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Got an iPhone or an iPod Touch? If so, it’s time to connect them to iTunes to get the latest version of Apple’s operating system for these devices. This latest version, dubbed 3.1.3, addresses a number of issues including the following:

CoreAudio
Playing a maliciously crafted mp4 audio file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

ImageIO
Viewing a maliciously crafted TIFF image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

Recovery Mode
A person with physical access to a locked device may be able to access the user’s data

WebKit
Accessing a maliciously crafted FTP server could result in an unexpected application termination, information disclosure, or arbitrary code execution

WebKit
When WebKit encounters an HTML 5 Media Element pointing to an external resource, it does not issue a resource load callback to determine if the resource should be loaded. This may result in
undesired requests to remote servers. As an example, the sender of an HTML-formatted email message could use this to determine that the message was read.

The update also offers the requisite “stability and usability enhancements.” Confused? Don’t worry, just update and things will be fine. Although, if you’re worried, you could wait a couple days to see if this latest update breaks something else, which sometimes happens. For more on this update, visit Apple’s Security Update site.

Seriously, who doesn’t like frees stuff? And when that stuff happens to be a game where you can blow the crap out of Nazi Zombies, the gift is all that much sweeter. If you love free stuff and killing Zombie Nazis then you’re in luck because starting now you can do that for free on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Interested? Of course you are. To find out more, take a look at this handly press release provided by our friends at Activision.

Zombies have overrun App Store as Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) and developer Treyarch have launched a free version of Call of Duty: World at War: ZOMBIES. The Call of Duty: World at War: ZOMBIES Lite App allows iPhone and iPod touch players to experience three rounds of the “Nacht der Untoten” (Night of the Undead) map in single player, explore the map and access a multitude of weapons from the Mystery Box. Multiplayer fans will be able to play for two rounds via Wi-Fi, locally or across the Internet with four players or two players over Bluetooth.

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If you’re one of the many, many people currently using Apple’s iPhone 3G or 3GS, you’re in for a treat very soon because your beloved devices are getting another OS update to version 4.0. According to an article over at Boy Genius Report, details are now coming out about just what enhancements and features iPhone OS 4.0 will have.

Obviously, there is some speculation here but the OS is reported to include the following:

• There will be multi-touch gestures OS-wide. (Would make sense for that as the rumored OS for the iTablet is close if not the same as the iPhone)

• “A few new ways” to run applications in the background — multitasking.

• Many graphical and UI changes to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient.

• The update will supposedly be available for only the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but will “put them ahead in the smartphone market because it will make them more like full-fledged computers” more than any other phone to date.

• Some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications.

So there you have it. Who says you need a Google Nexus One?

Things are starting to get a bit heated between everyone’s favorite fruit-flavored technology company, Apple, and what is pretty much acknowledged as the best wireless network, Verizon. Recently, Apple filed a lawsuit against rival Verizon for, among other things, its use of the “There’s an app for that” slogan during its commercials.

In response, Verizon dropped a few new holiday-themed ads poking fun at Apple’s iPhone and sending it to the classic “Island of Misfit Toys” where unwanted presents go do die. With all the back-and-forth, I certainly hope this doesn’t stop the iPhone from coming to Verizon’s network sometime while I’m still young enough to read the screen.

With rumors circulating that this blessed event may happen sometime in 2010, I guess there’s still a bit of time for Apple and Verizon to get all this snark out of their systems. At least I hope so. Check out the very amusing commercial after the break.

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Today, French telecom giant Nokia filed suit in U.S. District Court against Apple alleging copyright infringement on 10 of its technology patents. The company says the patents “relate to technologies fundamental to making devices,” that are compatible with GSM, UMTS, or 3G WCDMA, and wireless LAN technologies.

The claims involve wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption technologies. Nokia says Apple has been in violation of these patents since the iPhone launched in 2007. Additionally, Nokia says it has invested more than $60 Billion in research and development, but says Apple has not agreed to appropriate licensing terms for these technologies.

Nokia, which recently posted a loss of $836 Million, parhaps sees Apple as a worthy target, especially in light of Apple’s recently reported 7% increase in iPhone sales. I’m not saying that Nokia is suing Apple simply for economic reasons, but seeing as one company is going down while another is going up, the timing sure is interesting.

No matter what the relative merits of Nokia’s suit are, sit back and settle in for many long years of litigation. Apple is not a company that goes quietly and if they expect to get a dime out of Cupertino, Nokia had better be prepared to fight.

Late yesterday Apple released an update for the software on its flagship iPhone products. This update, dubbed OS 3.1.2, contains several fixes and enhancements to prevent things such as wake from sleep issues, cellular network problems and video streaming crashes. All in all, its probably a good idea to fire up iTunes, connect your iPhone and do the update.

This update is available for the original iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, and the iPod touch. In addition to this update, there’s also a carrier settings update, which doesn’t seem to do anything special. There’s also an update to the iPhone SDK on the iPhone Dev Center, for all you iPhone developers out there.