Along with the pre-order page, Apple also expanded the features page for the iPad with some new details. Here’s what we’ve learned since Apple began accepting pre-orders.

• The switch on the side of the iPad, previously thought to be a silent mode switch, is now a screen rotation lock. I’ve been begging for a feature like this on the iPhone for a while now and I’m glad that Apple decided to give it it’s own hardware switch on the iPad.
• When using the 250MB plan on the iPad it will notify you as you get closer to your limit. You’ll get three alerts — at 20 percent, 10 percent, and zero. With each alert you’ll be given the option to add more data or ignore the warning.
• VoiceOver can read books to you, similar to the Kindle’s text to speech feature.
• The App Store will have a special section specifically for iPad apps.

If you were wondering how to replace the iPad’s battery, The Loop has found that Apple’s iPad battery replacement program will cost $99 plus $6.95 for shipping. Rather than Apple replacing the battery in the iPad, they will send you another one (likely a refurbished model).

And lastly, iLounge has discovered an FCC document that reveals the dimensions for the Wi-Fi + 3G iPad. This model will be 0.3mm taller and 0.1mm wider than the Wi-Fi-only model. Apple hasn’t put these specs on their own website, and I’m a little surprised to hear that the dimensions are different.

There has been some discussion about which version of the iPad is the best to purchase. Shortly after the pre-order page showed up on Apple’s website the question heard ’round the world was “which model did you get?”

I’m not here to persuade you to change your mind about what iPad to pre-order, instead I’d rather talk you through my decision making process.

I chose to pre-order the 64GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad. Why 64GB? In short it’s because of future proofing. I’ve bought a slew of gadgets and computers in my time and there is one thing that always needs upgrading before everything else, storage.

My first generation 8GB iPhone made it two years but not without having to make decisions about what apps, music, TV shows, and movies I wanted to take with me. Luckily the decision wasn’t too difficult but since I’ve upgraded to a 32GB iPhone 3GS my music library alone has nearly tripled in size. Just last year I was fine with 8GB of storage — I even made it up until about 6 months ago without breaking the 8GB barrier on my iPhone — but as of this writing I only have about 16GB of free storage on my iPhone.

My iPhone is the best comparison I have for what the storage situation is going to be like on the iPad, but clearly there are different use cases that I have to account for. I don’t watch a lot of TV shows and movies on my iPhone but I expect to watch quite a bit on the iPad. I can just see myself propping it up next to my iMac so I can watch the latest episode of Lost while I’m trying to get some work done. I also expect to keep more applications installed on my iPad at any given time. I only have 13 applications installed on my iPhone but that number will likely double on my iPad. And, all those apps designed specifically for the iPad will take up more space as well. More pixels means more megabytes, especially in games. 64GB is my best bet at keeping myself from feeling storage claustrophobia over the next few years.

So, why 3G? The odd part about this decision is that I’m not 100% certain that I’ll ever use the 3G data connection. A few times a year I travel to Pittsburgh to visit family and knowing that the iPads 3G connection is around will give me peace of mind. I already have my iPhone but the flexibility is what really drew me towards it. Yes, $100 more is a lot of money but I’d rather have it and never use it then not have it and realize in 6 months that I wish I had did. Remember, there’s no way to upgrade to 3G without buying a whole new iPad.

The 3G model is also the only model with GPS built in. Back when I was using my first generation iPhone I didn’t think I would really use GPS, but I’m surprised at how often it makes things easier for me. Google Maps on this thing is going to be amazing.

The most disappointing thing about pre-ordering the 3G model is the extra wait time. The Wi-Fi only version ships on April 3, but all of us who decided to get the 3G model are going to have to wait until “late April” to get theirs.

But, regardless of when my iPad ships, I’m truly excited and happy to be getting my hands on one. And, without a doubt, I’ll be on Twitter, Flickr, and all the popular Apple weblogs to see everyone’s reaction to the iPad when it ships on April 3. There has been rumors of an Apple tablet for years, and we’re just 22 days away from it actually shipping.

Greg Sandoval reporting for CNET:

[Apple's] representatives have recently spoken with some of the major film studios about enabling iTunes users to store their content on the company’s servers, two people familiar with the discussions told CNET. That’s in addition to streaming television shows and music.

I would love Apple to allow users to re-download previously purchased content at no cost, just as they do with apps. But, I would settle for being able to stream content from their servers, as long as I can delete content without worrying about whether or not I’m going to want to watch it again.

Bill Ray writing in The Register:

Wi-Fi detection is something of a niche: there were never more than a handful of such applications in iTunes. But now even those have vanished as Apple decided they were using a “private framework”, and has pulled them off the shelves without explanation or apology.

It’s not that complicated, these developers were knowingly using private frameworks to scan for Wi-Fi hotspots. This of course, is against Apple’s agreement with developers.

I’m amazed at the amount of writers that are actually upset about this. This is one of the few App Store removals that actually makes sense.

Last week Apple filed a lawsuit against HTC for patent infringement. Steve Jobs had this to say in Apple’s press release:

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. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.

It’s a little odd that Apple decided to sue HTC instead of Google or Palm. I didn’t expect Apple to sue anyone but if you were to ask me two weeks ago who they would sue first, HTC certainly wouldn’t be on the top of my list. But, it’s clear from the above statement that Apple (specifically Steve Jobs) is not at all happy with HTC.

John Gruber wrote a fantastic piece regarding the lawsuit. I especially love this part:

I can think of only a few optimistic angles for this suit. One is that perhaps it’s a by-product of the suit Apple is engaged in against (and initiated by) Nokia. Apple’s counter-suit against Nokia involves some of the same patents at play here, and perhaps Apple’s lawyers have concluded that they need to enforce them against someone like HTC in order to use them in their counter-suit against Nokia. Or, perhaps one or more of the truly technical patents Apple has cited against HTC are genuine instances of intellectual property theft, the specific nature of which is unclear from the opaque language of the patent filings, and the rest of the cited patent violations were tacked on as part of a legal strategy along the lines of “If you’re going to punch them, punch them as hard as you can”. I.e. that they’ve filed suit as widely as they can, but have specific narrow violations in mind.

I’ve always seen Apple as the kind of company that would prefer to beat their competition in the market rather than in the courts. I hope that this is just a byproduct of Apple’s litigation with Nokia instead of Apple attempting to completely remove phones like the Nexus One from the market.

I admit that myself and many others often hold Apple up to a higher standard and therefore expect them to always do the right thing. But, I don’t think that this lawsuit is foolish simply because of my love of Apple products, instead I believe it’s foolish because it causes feelings of distrust and ill will from their best customers.

Valve has announced that they will be releasing Steam for Mac in April. Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available at launch.

Along with the announcement of Mac versions of the above games, they’ve also announced Steam Play, which will allow customers who purchase any or all of the above games for Windows or Mac to play on the other platform for no extra charge. So for example, if you’ve purchased Half-Life 2 for Windows you’ll be able to download and play it on your Mac at no charge. Mac and Windows players will also be able to play online multi-player with each other, sharing servers, lobbies, etc.

Valve says that Portal 2 will be the first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows and will be released this holiday season.

Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead:

Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step. We’re always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac.

I’m very excited for the release but even more excited about the future of Mac gaming. The ability for developers to check in code that produces PC and Mac builds automatically is a big deal.

Image credit to Joystiq.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball shines some light on the iPads missing apps. He also puts the kibosh on the whole dashboard widgets concept and quite honestly it was a pipe dream from the get-go.

But, speaking about why the apps are missing, Gruber simply explains that they just aren’t going to be there. Apple did have internal versions of the apps but scrapped them before announcement. I guess Steve Jobs just wasn’t happy with scaled up versions of the apps.

After looking at the list of missing applications again (Stocks, Weather, Voice Memos, Clock, Calculator, and Compass), the only app that I’ll actually miss is Calculator. The only other application in that list that I actually use is Clock and because I always have my iPhone close at hand I don’t think there will be much use for it on the iPad.

Whether Apple adds these apps in future firmware upgrades remains to be seen, but I don’t expect many people to miss them all that much.

Chris Ziegler reports on Engadget that Microsoft isn’t closing the door on Mac support for Windows Phone 7 Series.

Ziegler reveals that there are internal discussions at Microsoft about whether support for Windows Phone 7 Series will go beyond Windows.

I bought my first Mac in September 2006, it was a MacBook. One of the biggest reasons I purchased a Mac was because of my experience with my iPod. I received an iPod for Christmas the previous year and absolutely loved how simple and easy the iPod itself and iTunes was to use. Everything fit together seamlessly and I was incredibly curious to see how well the rest of Apple’s products worked. Needless to say, I was pleased.

If Microsoft wants to win back Windows users from the Mac, the best thing they could do is to announce support for Windows Phone 7 Series and the Zune HD on the Mac. I’ll openly admit that if the Zune desktop software was available for the Mac I would download and try it with an open mind.

Taylor Wimberly regarding Android device upgrade paths:

Some phones could be missing features of Android 2.1 (live wallpapers), but they will all have an Android 2.1 firmware. Now let me cut to the bad news. Select Android phones will require a wipe when they are upgraded to Android 2.1. I actually only know of phones that will require a wipe, so it could include all of them (minus the Droid which is already on Android 2.0.1).

There are a lot of things that I love about the iPhone platform but let me mention a few of them.

• Nearly every time I sync my iPhone or iPod touch with iTunes it gets backed up. So even if a firmware upgrade wipes my device, I can always get my data back.
• I’ve been able to update every single iPhone OS device I have, including my first generation iPhone and third generation iPod touch, to the latest version of iPhone OS.
• I have no doubt in my mind that when the next firmware update is released, I’ll be able to upgrade all of them.

Just the idea that the device your using might not be able to update is totally wild. Might I point out that Android is open source, being unsure about device updates shouldn’t happen when the code is free, and yet it does.

Leslie Katz reports on CNET’s Crave that the JooJoo tablet has been delayed due to display issues.

Leslie writes:

due to an issue that “centers on fine tuning the touch sensitivity of the capacitive screen,” according to the manufacturer, it’s now expected to be sent March 25. Preorder customers will get a free JooJoo accessory to compensate for the delay, Fusion Garage added.

The JooJoo tablet was supposed to ship at the end of last month but now won’t ship to customers until the end of this month. It’s a good thing that those that pre-ordered are going to get a freebie but how does Fusion Garage expect to make this device a success when the only thing it had going for it over the iPad was a much earlier ship date? At this point the ship dates are so close together that no one in their right mind would order the JooJoo tablet to recieve it less than two weeks before the iPad is released.

I’m willing to bet that anyone who hasn’t ordered a JooJoo already and were seriously considering it will end up with an iPad instead.