A 9to5Mac reader from the Czech Republic sent them a screenshot from the localized Apple website touting an April 25 launch for iPad 2, which is later than Apple’s previously announced March 25 date. Since April 25 is a Monday as opposed to March 25, which is a Friday, it could just be a misprint. Unless we hear otherwise from Apple, that’s what we’ll assume it is. Even if accurate, there could be special circumstances unique to Czech that have caused the delay, or Apple might be further splitting up its international launch, or if more countries will be postponed are all unknowns at this point.

With the first international launch date rapidly approaching — this Friday in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK — we’ll hopefully hear one way or another from Apple early this week.

Typo or delay, what do you think? Let us know!

[9to5Mac]

Czech Republic iPad 2 site says launch happening on April 25? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

iPad Live hits the air tonight at 9pm ET, 6pm PT, (1am GMT we think?!). We’ll be talking iPad 2 one week later and of course the bombshell that is AT&T buying T-Mobile. Come join us. Bring a friend. Frak, bring an enemy! Just bring people!

Place: http://www.tipb.com/live/

If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to discuss, just leave them in the comments then come be part of the show!

(And yes, you can watch from iPhone via Ustream Viewer app (here’s how) and iPad (we recommend Duet Browser.)

Chat with you soon!

iPad Live tonight 9pm ET! AT&T-Mo, iPad 2, more! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

AT&T will be buying T-Mobile USA from parent company Deutsch Telekom for $39 billion in stock and cash.

"This transaction represents a major commitment to strengthen and expand critical infrastructure for our nation's future," said Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO. "It will improve network quality, and it will bring advanced LTE capabilities to more than 294 million people. Mobile broadband networks drive economic opportunity everywhere, and they enable the expanding high-tech ecosystem that includes device makers, cloud and content providers, app developers, customers, and more. During the past few years, America's high-tech industry has delivered innovation at unprecedented speed, and this combination will accelerate its continued growth."

Stephenson continued, "This transaction delivers significant customer, shareowner and public benefits that are available at this level only from the combination of these two companies with complementary network technologies, spectrum positions and operations. We are confident in our ability to execute a seamless integration, and with additional spectrum and network capabilities, we can better meet our customers' current demands, build for the future and help achieve the President's goals for a high-speed, wirelessly connected America."

Deutsche Telekom Chairman and CEO René Obermann said, "After evaluating strategic options for T-Mobile USA, I am confident that AT&T is the best partner for our customers, shareholders and the mobile broadband ecosystem. Our common network technology makes this a logical combination and provides an efficient path to gaining the spectrum and network assets needed to provide T-Mobile customers with 4G LTE and the best devices. Also, the transaction returns significant value to Deutsche Telekom shareholders and allows us to retain exposure to the U.S. market."

The deal could take a year to finalize and still faces regulatory approval, but it would make AT&T the largest carrier in the US by a healthy margin with almost 140 million subscribers.

AT&T was the exclusive US carrier for iPhone from 2007 through 2010 and remains the only GSM/HSPA carrier in the US to offer iPhone. While also a GSM/HSPA carrier, T-Mobile 3G operates at a different frequency than AT&T and is currently not supported by the iPhone.

How and if that will change, and whether or not Apple will support T-Mobile’s 3G band in future software or hardware update remains unknown. By the time the deal closes in 2012, however, iPhone 5 will already be on the market.

In terms of consumer choice and pricing pressure, there’s still only one iPhone model so selection won’t be the issue. Voice prices. Data prices. Tethering prices. T-Mobile was competing with better plans at better prices. The new, combined AT&T-Mo won’t do that. Likewise, Apple sells unlocked iPhones directly in Canada and many other countries. Would they do the same in the US once there’s no more GSM/HSPA competition? That will depend on their contracts, no doubt.

Again, it will take a year or so for the deal to come together, and there’s a lot that could still happen in the meantime. What are your thoughts? Eager to get more spectrum and better potential support for 4G, or upset at the decrease in competition and the unification of GSM/HSPA service in the US?

UPDATE: T-Mobile has put up a new release and it includes the following bullet point about iPhone. (And that iPhone gets its own bullet point shouldn’t go without notice.)

Is T-Mobile USA getting the iPhone?

T-Mobile USA remains an independent company. The acquisition is expected to be completed in approximately 12 months. We do not offer the iPhone. We offer cutting edge devices like the Samsung Galaxy S 4G and coming soon our new Sidekick 4G.

[Business Wire, T-Mobile]

UPDATED: AT&T acquiring T-Mobile US, what does it mean for iPhone? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Every week a few of us from team TiPb will bring you our current favorite, most fun and useful App Store apps, WebApps, jailbreak apps, even the occasional accessory, web site, or desktop app if the mood strikes us. As long as they're iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch related, they're fair game.

To see what we picked, and to tell us your pick, follow on after the break!

Pimp Your Screen – @GeorgiaTiPb

I really enjoy being able to customize my iPhone background as much as possible, Pimp Your Screen allows you to do just that. I had so much fun selecting among the various wallpapers in order to get that perfect look. There is a vast amount of beautiful backgrounds that will appeal to men and women. Take this application for a spin and let me know which wallpaper you choose.

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

Memorable Meals – @alli_flowers

My friends love to tease me because every time we go out to eat, I take pictures of the food. Sometimes when a dish is brought out, it’s like a delicious piece of art, and I want to remember it. So when I saw the app Memorable Meals, I thought it might help with this budding hobby of mine.

Memorable Meals allows you to track meals that are, well, memorable. You note what meal it is – lunch, dinner, breakfast, or if it’s an appetizer. Remember where you had it and what the occasion was. Lots of room for notes, and even voice annotation. My only complaint is that you can only attach one photo per entry.

One of the nice features is the search function. Let’s say you’re trying to remember what you had that was especially delicious at a particular restaurant, or what someone made at a dinner party – you can easily find it.

And I discovered when using Memorable Meals tonight, that by entering the photos in an app, my friends no longer make fun of the activity. Go figure.

[$0.99 - iTunes link]

Consume – @andrewwray

Bjango has a lot of great apps in the App Store, but I think my favorite has to be Consume. Consume is a sort of all-in-one tracking app that lets you keep tabs on your mobile phone usage (minutes, texts, data etc), broadband use, track packages or club memberships and a number of other cool things. Recently AT&T started cracking down on unauthorized MyWi users who tether their iPhone connection to different devices without an official tethering plan. Some speculate that they’re only targeting heavy data users, so I’ve been using Consume a lot over the past couple of days to closely monitor data transfers when I tether so I can stay under the radar.

Rene was able to talk to Marc Edwards of Bjango last year about how Consume works and some of the other cool things you can do with it, and they’ve done a great job of keeping the app up-to-date and functional. If you’re looking for an app with awesome design and great functionality then go ahead and give Consume a try for free!

[Free - iTunes link]

Instapaper 3 – @reneritchie

Instapaper 3 is a big update to an already great app. Oddly, I don’t find I care at all about many of the new features, which focus on social sharing. I may be old school but I use Instapaper to “save” articles I want to read later, typically articles I come across while working that I just don’t have time to read now on my Mac but hope to be able to at some point when I’m waiting with my iPhone or curled up with my iPad. And for that it excels.

There are some oddities — I love the tilt-to-scroll feature on the iPhone version’s toolbar but it’s absent on the iPad versions. It’s gimmicky but cool and I’d like it on both. Likewise I love the pagination option on iPad and would like it on iPhone as well, along with the page-turning animation we’ve gotten used to in iBooks, Kindle, and other reading apps. The reason I’m bringing this up is that the developer, Marco Armant, appears to put so much thought into interface and usability. If you try to page and the feature isn’t toggled on, it asks you if you want to turn it on. If you tap the top bar it takes you to the top as you’d expect but asks you if you meant to tap it and offers you the option to return to where you were in case you tapped it by accident.

There’s so much thoughtfulness in the app that even though, again, I personally won’t be using all the new social features I think a lot of users will, and they’re going to enjoy the way they’re implemented because Instapaper is as much a blueprint for how to design a great app as it is a reading client.

[$4.99 - iTunes link]

FX Photo Studio – @iMuggle

FX Photo Studio is available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. If you’ve used Instagram, you’ll love this app. Just like apps like Instagram, it lets you overlay effects onto your photos. But FX Photo studio also allows you to layer effects. I spent tons of time recently experimenting with different effects and settings. It also lets you do other things like cropping, flipping, and other basic photo editing functions. If you find an effects mix that you like, you can save it to your presets tab as well for easy access later.

It’s definitely a great app to have handy for anyone who edits and shares a lot of pictures online. Check it out and let us know what you think!

[$1.99 - iTunes Link]

Cooking Mana – @skeetobite

I have selected Cooking Mama as my pick of the week. Not so much for myself, but instead for my daughter who plays it ALL the time. For those unfamiliar with the game, Cooking Mama is a cooking game, where you try to prepare recipes according to the instructions. The iPhone version of the game makes full use of the iPhone features – using the accelerometer to “pour” items into a pan, using multiouch to stir, using the gyroscope to move a pan back and forth on the stove. It is actually a very interactive game. As you play, you unlock other recipes and the game gets more and more complex. There are also in app purchases for other recipes.

I will admit, I have tried it and see it as “ok”. However, my daughter (7 years old) loves it, and plays it all the time on her iPod touch. So if you have a young child at home, or if you fancy yourself young at heart, you might want to give the game a try…of course, you might never get your iPhone/iPod back again!

[$6.99 - iTunes link]

Instagallery – @llofte

Since joining the Instagram crowd, I have wished it was a universal app so that I could browse the photos on my iPad. Instagallery lets me do just that. With Instagallery, I am able to view photos, like them, and leave comments. It’s awesome.

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

iLockScreen Maker – @RobT43 (Reader’s Choice)

iLockScreen Maker is really great because it allows you take any photo on your iPhone and format it to fit your lockscreen. It’s not nearly ads powerful as something like Lockinfo, but it does allow you to add some flair to your lockscreen without having to jailbreak.

You can format pictures to fit, add lots of different frames in many colors, and add calendar bars to the lockscreen.

It’s quick and easy to use, and comes in a free version and a paid version (paid option has more frames and backgrounds).

[$1.99 - iTunes link]

Your pick?

You're part of the team as well, so we will be choosing one reader to make a submission each week! Just look for my tweet each weekend for a chance to be picked! In the meantime, jump into the comments and let us know your pick of the week!

TiPb Picks of the Week is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

What earphones do you use with your iPhone or iPod touch? Yesterday I confessed that I hated my Apple earbuds. Many of you agreed. The TiPb store has a bunch of cool iPhone headset alternatives. Some of you also told me what you like to use and recommended others. I want more. I want to see what are the most popular earphones among our readers, and if it varies for travel, home listening, gaming or other activities?

So what earphones do you use?

TiPb Asks: What earphones do you use with your iPhone? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog