Today Apple announced that the iPad will ship in April, writing that the device will “be available in the US on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models. In addition, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.” Consumers will be able to pre-order their units starting March 12th, with pick-up at Apple retail stores. Read more…

When Apple formally introduced its touchscreen tablet as the iPad Wednesday, it was not the first tech product to carry that moniker — Fujitsu released its own mobile, touchscreen ‘iPAD’ in 2002.

Speaking with The New York Times, Masahiro Yamane, director of public relations for Fujitsu, said it is the company’s understanding that they still own the name ‘iPad.’ Fujitsu is currently consulting with its lawyers over the next steps it may take.

It could become a similar situation to 2007, when Apple formally introduced the iPhone, only to be sued days later by Cisco, which owned the rights to the name. The Linksys iPhone was released just three weeks before the Apple iPhone was introduced at the Macworld San Francisco keynote in early January 2007. Read more…

New evidence suggests that Apple may in fact name its tablet, the iPad.

Recently, MacRumors discovered that Apple had acquired iSlate.com. TechCrunch then dug deeper and found that iSlate is a registered trademark of what is likely a dummy corporation used by Apple. Until now the name iSlate seemed the most likely candidate for Apple’s new device.

However, recent findings reveal that another name, iPad, may be the name of Apple’s imminent tablet.

A search in the Canadian trademark database reveals that Apple’s dummy corporation Slate Computing, LLC also applied for a trademark for “iPad” under the categories of handheld mobile digital electronic devices with a broad range of applications. This application was filed in July 2009 — much more recently than the original iSlate trademarks which date back to 2006-2007. Slate Computing, LLC did not apply for a similar trademark in the U.S. due to the fact that Fujitsu appears to control the U.S. trademark as it relates to handheld computing. Read more…

iKee Worm, iPhone/Privacy.A and now iBotnet.A yet another malware for iPhone is identified. The first one was iKee, such malware changed wallpaper on iPhones. The second one iPhone/Privacy.A aims to  harvest personal data from iPhones. This new malware, that Intego calls iBotnet.A, is by far the most sophisticated iPhone malware yet. Read more…

For the last few days, some jailbroken iPhone users have found their home screen background a little different than they remembered. A hacker, going by the name “ikee,” created a worm that changes the home screen background on jailbroken iPhones whose owners failed to change the default password after installing SSH. Simply jailbreaking your iPhone will not make you vulnerable to this sort of hack. The iPhone OS, in general, is also immune to this hack. Still confused? Let’s back up a bit.
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As the number of applications available on the App Store grows, the range of tasks that can be accomplished with a piece of software will likewise expand. One app has been made with this in mind, and allows users to perform over a dozen tasks in one single program.

AppBox Pro is like the Swiss-army knife of apps. It contains information on your iPhone or iPod Touch’s battery life, indicating how much talk time you have left on either the 3G or 2G network, along with time left for web surfing and audio playback.

It also contains Read more…

Live in Australia? Have an iPhone? Do you use the iPhone’s built-in Maps app, Navigon, or TomTom [iTunes links] to navigate? If you answered yes to all three of those questions, then I have some bad news for you: under the Australian Road Rule 8th Amendment, all use of the iPhone in your car is soon to be banned unless you buy a cradle for it, including using it as a GPS navigator.

An article from the Sydney Morning Herald initially makes it sound as though you won’t be able to use such apps at all, especially after reading this quote from a spokesperson for VicRoads, the traffic authority for the Australian state of Victoria: “A phone will only be allowed to be used for its primary purpose. If it’s a phone, it’s a phone.” But once you read farther down the article states, “Drivers will only be able to use mobile phones if they are placed Read more…