If you're eager to get your hands on one of the first iPads, then you better set your alarms. Apple will begin taking preorders for the iPad starting tomorrow, March 12, at 5:30 AM PST / 8:30 AM EST. 

However, this is ONLY for the Wi-fi iPad. Those that are wanting the 3G model will need to wait.

Remember, prices for the Wi-fi iPad start at $499 for the 16GB, $599 for the 32GB, and $699 for the 64GB. The 3G models carry a $130 premium on top of these stated prices.

The Wi-fi iPad models will be released on April 3, missing the 60 day mark from the original Jan 27 announcement by a few days.

Visit http://www.apple.com/ipad/ for preorders or learn more about the iPad.

In the latest version of the iPhone 3.2 SDK, references to Wikipedia have been found that point in a possible default search option in Safari for all iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPads in the future.

The Wikipedia references is found alongside the two previous options for searching, which are currently Google and Yahoo. Google is set as the default, however, users can easily change that default to Yahoo if they so desire. 

However, Google and Yahoo both give users links to various sites to get their answers, while Wikipedia simply contains publicly-editable articles, some of which may not even be credible. This would be a rather weird move for Apple, when there are other actual search engines available such as Bing.com. Maybe this is just the beginning of more search options being implemented into the iPhone OS Safari.

This can also be a result of the ever-growing tense relationship between Apple and Google as of late.

via iPodnn

Preorders start March 12 for both models, less than a week from now. And the actual launch date of the Wifi models is April 3, with the 3G models expected around the end of April. These are the U.S launch dates. All models of the iPad will be released in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK sometime late April.

So if you're planning on buying one, now would be a good time. Especially considering that there may only be a limited number produced every month.

Developers may have noticed that the Apple Developer Site has been down for the last couple of hours but has just been brought back up. There have been some changes as well.

On the iPhone side, there is nothing groundbreaking, besides just forcing users to update their profiles and taking a survey.

But on the Mac OS X side of things, there is a brand new, major change. Apple has now replaced the Select and Premiere memberships with a single-tiered, low-priced Mac Developer Program. On the site, they say:

We recently introduced a new Mac Developer Program that replaces ADC Premier, Select, and Student Memberships. If you are a current ADC member, you can continue to access your resources and benefits through the end of your membership year.

via TUAW

UPDATE: Some devs appear to have lost their dev abilities with the update.

Wi-Fi scanner apps have now been removed by Apple for providing ‘minimal functionality’. The development studio, Three Jacks Software, had an app called “WiFi-Where” that has now been removed from the App Store. Along with this app are several other Wi-Fi scanners, including WifiTrak, WiFiFoFum, yFy Network Finder, WiFi Get, eWifi, and WiFi Analyzer.

The developer is not pleased with this absurd decision by Apple. He finds it ironic that Apple would remove these useful apps while there are so many other gimmick apps that have been and continue to pollute the Store. 

Three Jacks Software will be rereleasing their app for jailbroken iPhone users on the Cydia store. Earlier this week, Apple removed an app that simply made the iPhone quack like a duck. The reason for removal was ‘minimal functionality’.

It seems that Apple is continuing the purge the App Store, which began with removing more than 5,000 apps that contained “overtly sexual content’. An innocent app where it allowed users to purchase swimwear was a casualty in this purge, but was later corrected by Apple.

 It’s about time that Apple is cracking down on the crap in the App Store, but perhaps they’re cracking down too much?

If you are not aware of the excitement, the good folks over at MacHeist have unveiled the new nanoBundle 2 this afternoon. This bundle features 5 apps with 2 to be unlocked. The included apps are:

• MacJournal
• RipIt
• Flow
• CoverScout
• Clips

With the unlocks being:

• Tales of Monkey Island
• RapidWeaver

So what are you waiting for? Mosey on over to http://macheist.com and order your bundle! You can choose what charity your money goes towards or you can decide to split it with them all.

Check it out!

It seems that internationally, the OTA download of apps on 3G has been doubled from 10MB to 20MB. This update seems to have been updated earlier in the week. The iTunes OTA limit of 12MB has also been updated to 20MB.

I managed to live tweet the event, and here's a link to those tweets that I have saved in my Favorites for easy access.

http://twitter.com/christyxcore/favorites

Today they rolled it out for iPhone apps. Copying a link from the iTunes store and pasting it into a web browser will get you a page that looks like the screenshot above. 

You can view the icon, description of the app (clicking More... will expand the description), price, ratings, developer info, customer reviews, screenshots, and what other customers also bought at the bottom. However, clicking 'View more by this developer' will take you to iTunes.

Pretty functional web-based preview for iPhone apps, and this has been much needed, since people may be shopping for iPhone apps on a computer that does not have iTunes installed.