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Attention all iPad app developers: if you'd like to have your application in the App Store in time for the iPad launch, submit your app by March 27th. According to an email sent to all developers, Apple is now accepting iPad apps into the App Store. From the email, "iPad will begin shipping soon and your opportunity to be part of the grand opening of the iPad App Store starts today. Submit your iPad app now for an initial review by the App Review Team and receive feedback on its readiness for the grand opening."

The full email follows below:

If you were irked about the fact that the iPad isn't in your hands at this very moment, there may be someone to blame. PerDigiTimes, local Taiwanese newspaper Liberty Times is claiming that Apple's touchscreen manufacturing partner Wintek is the source of issues that have slightly delayed the release of the iPad to April 3rd from Apple's originally planned window of late March and have reportedly resulted in lower launch quantities of the device than desired by Apple.

The report claimed that Wintek is facing a manufacturing bottleneck in its touch panel production, and its low yield rate for touch panels has hampered its shipments to Apple.

Since becoming available for pre-order last Friday, Apple claims that customers have purchased "hundreds of thousands of the device," per the Wall Street Journal. The number is comparable to the roughly 1.2 million iPhones Apple sold in the three months following the June 29th, 2007 launch of the handset.

The newspaper also claims that Apple is 'racing' to tie up a broad number of content licensing deals before the iPad officially hits the market on April 3rd. In particular, the company is trying to convince television networks to drop the price of TV shows that users would downloaded directly to the device.These efforts and others have reportedly seen the Cupertino-based company temporarily reduce its emphasis on working with newspaper, magazines and textbook publishers on new ways to display their digital content.

BusinessWeek is reporting that select developers have been provided access to the iPad ahead of its official April 3rd launch, allowing for chances to build and test their application directly on the device rather than having to rely on simulator tools built into the Software Development Kit offered by Apple as part of its developer program for the platform.

This level of access apparently comes at a steep price and developers are obligated to sign a 10-page confidentiality agreement requiring them to utilize a number of security measures to prevent unauthorized access to or removal of the iPad in their possession.

Per a recently published patent application, Apple has been exploring a new feature that could allow iPhone users to transmit data such as simple text messages to each other over voice channels, bypassing wireless carriers’ backend servers in a manner similar to Nextel's classic walkie-talkie feature.

Per AppleInsider, the concept is detailed in a company patent filing made this past November. As the filing explains, conventional text messaging systems require the use of what is referred to as a backend server that may be limited in the amount of information that can be handled at a particular time and is therefore capacity limited.

iPhone and iPod touch application developers will now have extended control over the prices they're able to set in the App Store via modifications to price change scheduling. Per Mac Observer, Apple has added the feature to iTunes Connect, allowing developers to automate single or multiple price changes.

"A great new feature in iTunes Connect now allows you to schedule changes to the price of your app, including In App Purchase items,” Apple said on its Developer web site. “This feature is designed so you can set a single price change or consecutive price changes all in advance."

This may just be loose talk but it could be something interesting. Per the Financial Times, Rene Obermann, the CEO of T-Mobile USA (and also the parent company of Deutsche Telekom), told the newspaper that T-Mobile USA hopes to start
selling the iPhone later this year or next year, but in the meantime
will focus on Android-powered smartphones.

T-Mobile was the first U.S.
carrier to offer an Android-powered phone, the HTC G1, and has since
expanded its Android lineup with several other models, including the
Google-branded, HTC-built Nexus One.

HTC Corporation today outlined its disagreement with Apple's suit against the company and reiterated its commitment to keep producing new devices.

"HTC disagrees with Apple's actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible," said Peter Chou, chief executive officer, HTC Corporation.

Today Apple released an updated version of the iPhone SDK 3.2 beta for iPad development on the iPhone Dev Center (developer account required). So far we haven't heard of any significant changes in beta 5, although previous releases generally provided bug fixes and minor improvements for developers.

Beta 4 was released earlier this month for developers to work on iPad applications ahead of the launch. Apple plans to begin shipping the iPad on April 3rd.

Per AppleInsider, Apple has announced shipping delays on some of its forthcoming iPad accessories with both the keyboard dock and 10W USB power adapter now being listed as having ship dates in May.

In addition, the $39 iPad soft case, which was originally scheduled to ship on April 3 when pre-orders began last Friday, has been delayed until mid-April. The $69 keyboard dock was originally scheduled to ship in mid-April, and the $29 USB power adapter in late April.