Always ahead of the curve, even 20 years ago Apple envisioned computers as a source of personal entertainment—a mobile device that could capture images, play music, and serve as a platform for viewing catalogs and magazines. In a recent Fast Company article, Smart Design co-founder Tom Dair takes a look back to 1989 when Apple challenged his company and a couple others to develop concepts for a tablet device.

With only 30 days to complete the project, the Smart Design team got busy imagining various uses for the tablet. The prototype included features such as a high-quality lens for directly capturing and working with images, a guitar chord touch screen that allowed users to strum along with music played on built-in speakers, as well as a bevy of solutions for carrying and protecting the rectangular aluminum machine.

Possibilities for the tablet seemed limitless—Smart even imagined taking it to the moon. Now working on how publications will be viewed on the new iPad, the renowned design studio continues to experiment with the future of technology.

And, they're off! With less than a week to go before the scheduled iPad launch, Apple has already started shipping out the first models of the highly-anticipated tablet.

The formal launch of the iPad is still April 3rd, another five days off, but users who pre-ordered their iPads have begun receiving tracking numbers for their shipments on Apple's order status pages. Just because your iPad is already on its way doesn't mean that you'll end up with it in advance of launch day, as UPS will likely sit on the packages until their specified delivery date.

If you're holding out for a retail purchase, you'll have more options than simply Apple stores to consider on Saturday, as Best Buy will also be stocking the tablets. An internal Best Buy memo notifies staff of the product launch, which will only be available in certain Best Buy locations at first. It looks like the store is planning to increase its stocks over the next week, with a great nationwide push for iPad sales starting the second week of April. Between Best Buy and Apple stores, you should be able to find the iPad for sale somewhere nearby.

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If having some issue with AT&T; - maybe a bad experience, maybe poor reception in your area - has been keeping you from picking up an iPhone, you might be interested to hear about a new sales policy for the smartphone, no longer forcing commitment to an AT&T; contract as a contingency to the phone's purchase.

That's not to say that Apple is selling wide-open, free-to-use-where-you-please iPhones either; it's more of a compromise that will still force potential buyers to do a little footwork to get their phones up and running. First off, you're going to be stuck paying full price for the handset, which starts at $500 for the 8GB iPhone 3G (3GS models are $600 and up). Even with no contract set up at the time of purchase, the iPhone will still be AT&T-locked;, so you're going to have to go all hacker and unlock your phone before signing up with a different carrier. That alone could turn off plenty of potential buyers, even with automated unlocking tools available.

Once you drop the cash and get your hack on, your brand-new fully-unlocked iPhone would still be limited by its technology, only compatible with AT&T; and T-Mobile in the US. Works out if you're a huge T-Mobile fan, but the lack of CDMA support really limits carrier options. Travelers might have some better luck, as the iPhone's GSM connection is widely supported around world. Check out your local Apple store if interested.

Apple hasn't been too willing in letting app developers create programs that directly compete with functions already provided by Apple, but Opera is testing the waters to see if the company may have loosened up in its stance with this application.

Unlike proper browsers that retrieve and display web pages all on their own, Opera Mini has the help of Opera's servers, which re-compress web content for optimal viewing and transfer times to mobile devices. While you might not be interested in a service that degrades image quality, for instance, on a desktop PC, the idea makes a lot of sense for smartphones. Why waste your bandwidth downloading a large JPEG when you phone's only going to have to scale it down to a fraction of its size for display a moment later? Opera claims that its processing increases browsing speed up to six times.

Opera is counting the seconds since it made its application to the App Store, calling Apple out to face a challenger for best iPhone browser. There's no word on how long a decision will take, nor what Opera will charge for Opera Mini, would it to be approved.

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No one would ever accuse Apple of being a one-trick-pony, considering how the company has its hands in everything from computers to telecommunications to home video. While the world went a bit tunnel-vision over the iPad, the company has been chugging away at work on other products, including the upgraded Cinema Display and Mac Pro we heard about today.

Displays really do follow the "bigger is better" rule, and Apple is set to take the next step from its 24-inch Cinema Display, with a 2560 x 1440, 27-inch, LED model all but ready to ship out. Those familiar with the new monitor claim that Apple is holding back on releasing the 27-inch screen until manufacturing costs will allow it to be sold without you needing to take out a second mortgage.

Also on the upper end of Apple's most expensive gear, a new Mac Pro with twelve-core processing capabilities is on the horizon. Apple would use six-core Intel Xeon chips, with an option of up to two per Mac Pro. At nearly $1000 per chip once Intel begins shipping them out, that's going to lead to one very expensive, if not ridiculously powerful, system. The CPUs will be out in the next two months, so look for an announcement on new Mac Pros sometime following them.

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Apple iPad pre-orders are now open, accepting reservations for the tablet's April 3 launch date.

Anticipating the demand and trying to avoid some of the hoarding that can cause new products like this to show up for a quick flip on eBay, Apple is limiting pre-orders to two per person. The prices match those we've heard before, and Apple promises free shipping (even with the tablets set to release on a Saturday).

The pre-order also gives us a look at some of the official iPad accessories, including a $70 keyboard dock and a $30 keyboard-less option. For $30 you can order a VGA adapter to connect your iPad to an external monitor, which is a bit of a shame because an HDMI-out adapter would be much more useful for many users.

If you're still looking to pick up an iPad but haven't placed your pre-order yet, head on over to the Apple Store site and snag one before they're gone.

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The next iteration of Apple's iPhone OS is set to finally take a big step towards making the smartphone more of a serious portable computing device, enabling users to switch between multiple apps running in tandem.

The lack of multitasking has been a long-time thorn in the side of Apple's most popular product, forcing you to shut each app down anytime you need to run another, even if just for a few seconds. It's not that the iPhone can't multitask - parts of the OS do this already - but that Apple won't let the apps you download do it. There are plenty of reasons for such a restriction: memory concerns, lack of a convenient app-switching mechanic, battery consumption, preventing spyware.

It's not yet clear just how Apple plans on addressing all those issues when it enable full-on multitasking in iPhone OS 4.0, but the news that it has is sure to be well overdue for the growing number of mobile users who have eschewed their laptops for smartphones.

Apple isn't breaking with its secretive reputation, so there's no estimate at the moment of when we can expect the software to be released. Reports of its still having a lot of work to be completed indicate "later" rather than "sooner". Hopefully we'll hear some whispers of the anticipated date as it approaches.

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