After the release of the Orange tarrifs last week it’s no surprise that they are all very similar, although looking at that image above it seems that Orange is the only plan that allows unlimited wifi browsing at BT Openzone hotspots, which is a shame as I ordered an O2 microsim with my iPad pre-order. When you are pre-ordering your iPad Apple are looking for 20p for the microsim, we are yet to discover if you get the microsim from the operators themselves if they will charge you for one.

*EDIT*
O2 and Orange appear to be offering unlimited wifi with their tarrifs, I can’t find mention of any on the Vodafone one

The iPad pre-order page has now gone live for the next wave of iPad mania to sweep the world. So if your for pre-ordering head on over to the Apple online store to secure your choice of iPad for the 28th of May.

• iPad will be sold at all UK retail Apple stores, Authorised resellers and online
• Launch date will be Friday 28th May in the UK and some areas of Europe
• Orange have released pricey iPad 3G tariffs

Apple iPad will be launched May 28th

First of all, the price!

• £429, £499, £599 (inc. VAT) for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi iPad
• £529, £599, £699 (inc. VAT) for 16GB, 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad

The price comes as no surprise as we reported earlier in April these were our approximations, it includes the Apple UK premium that we face for most of their technologies however I think overall the prices are reasonable and not as bad as they could have been. Orange have released their prices which range from PAYG per MB to £7.50 a week. There is also a £15 and £25 a month plan which will offer 3GB and 10GB respectively. Vodafone and O2 will provide further support however they are yet to release their monthly tariffs however based on their iPhone tariffs they shall probably not be too different. We will report more details as we receive them.

Expensive? Slightly. Worth it? Probably. Nevertheless, see you in line

There have been early reports of the pricing that may have slipped through Apples net which has been rather frequent in the past few weeks. One report stated that the iPad will range from £599 through to £749, this seems unusually high and it would mean an approximate £200 premium for those of us in the UK. Another report suggest that whatever the US price is in dollars, take that price and take away £70 which may give you the price in sterling.

Several reports have also put a launch date towards Saturday May 29th, almost exactly a month after our american counterparts, we are also unsure if this will include the 3G models or if this will be delayed further.

We are looking forward to information between now and May 10th

I have discussed one of these lacking features before but still no official Apple solution. I personally have jailbroken my iPhone on occasion for the ability to customise the iPhone’s lock screen. I would love to see Apple’s take on some of the programs out there such as intelliscreen, or lockinfo.

The below video shows just what is capable using lockinfo to customise your lockscreen:

Steve Jobs promises even more 'extraordinary' products.

Steve Jobs commented on Apples success, “We’re thrilled to report our best non-holiday quarter ever, with revenues up 49 percent and profits up 90 percent, we’ve launched our revolutionary new iPad and users are loving it, and we have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year.”

The big news is that the iPhone continues to be a huge draw for Apple with sales of the iPhone doubling this quarter. Another interesting note is that Apples international sales account for 58% of the quarters revenue with a huge surge in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe.

Congratulations to Steve and the gang, we look forward to you using this money to create our new gadgets to drool over!

Now all we have to go on is a late May time frame with pre-orders and hopefully pricing details set to go live on the 10th of May.

A wait of one more month won’t hurt us right?

A simple twitter search of “Steam Mac” shows that users have started receiving emails from Steam allowing them access to the closed beta.

I have heard rumours of an NDA not allowing the users of the beta to post images, but it seems a twitter user by the name of za7ch has posted pictures to twitpic. A few can be seen below:

I’m still eagerly awaiting my invite, but it’s looking less likely this will arrive in my inbox.

*UPDATE* za7ch’s TwitPic where the images had been uploaded to now have now disappeared from his feed, I guess someone didn’t read the NDA!

To see a gallery of images from Gizmodo head on over here.

Gizmodo have also provided a handy YouTube video for us to embed.

I’m loving the new design, not entirely sure about the apparent random lines in the sides of the case though but I will be looking forward to Jobs’ reveal in June!