Rumors coming in from various places around the web are reporting that Apple has decided to stop screen protectors from being sold in Apple stores. According to sources for MacWorld, “Apple will no longer sell such products, or any other products that adhere to Apple devices, in either the online Apple Store or Apple retail stores.” This apparently even includes the anti-glare film that is being sold to fit pretty much any Apple laptop. The reasoning behind this move is not exactly clear, as this has been one of the best selling iPhone and iPod accessories, but an educated guess would say that Apple doesn’t want to give off the impression that such protection is needed. This writer will, however, continue to keep on on his iPhone.

Although you will likely not find these at Apple stores, you can always still buy them online.

Thanks to a great new discovery by 9to5Mac, there is news of two new types of gestures that have popped up in the iPad SDK 3.2b4. As seen in the picture below, the devices will presumably now include an option for developers to use a “3 Tap” and a “Long Press”. The long press is currently used exclusively by the OS itself for the pop-up copy menu; The 3 tap is used to toggle the display on or off while using VoiceOver. Both of these however, will now be available for developers to include within their applications to perform other functions. Although there is no official word yet that these will be also available to developers for the iPod Touch and iPhone, it is probably safe to assume that they will be.

Apple briefly released – and then unreleased – the iPad SDK the other day, and much to the surprise of those who got their hands on it, there was camera support. Needless to say it is impossible to know if this was for a once toyed-with feature that was taken out or for the possibility of inclusion in future models, but the software development kid includes support for a front facing camera, camera flash, zoom and even video conferencing.

For those of you who consider the glass half full, this could mean the potential future inclusion of a camera, but the realists out there probably realize that this was a once included feature that was cut for one reason or another.

For those of you who are eagerly awaiting the Apple event tomorrow, here’s a roundup of what you might possibly be able to expect, if the plethora of rumors end up to be based in truth.

• What do I call it?
  There are plenty of names floating around for the rumored Tablet, but here are the likely possibilities: Apple Slate, iSlate, iPad, iTablet, MacTablet, or TabletMac. For some reason, MacSlate hasn’t been mentioned, although that seems to fit well with their laptop line.
• What will it do?
  If the hype is any indicator, this baby will be curing cancer and aids with a single use. In reality, however, it will likely have a multi-touch screen, offer high definition video for a better mobile movie and TV experience, be a fully-featured eReader, possibly allow iPhone/iPod Touch Apps, full web browsing, and likely much more. If the iPod Touch and MacBook were to mate, this would be their lovechild.
• How will it look?
  Rumor has it this tablet will be sporting a shiny new 10.1″ multi-touch screen, similar to that of the iPhone, but bigger. There have also been rumors of a smaller 7″ screened version, but that is about as likely as an iPhone Mini. Chances are, it will have the appearance of a large iPod Touch.
• When can I get my hands on one?
  Analyst Yair Reiner for Oppenheimer predicts that it will be ready to ship in late March or early April of this year, but other analysts have predicted as soon as February, although that seems less likely.
• How much will this set me back?
  Most guesstimates say the price will be somewhere around $1000, but different analysts have said as high as $1500 or even as low as $700. Thankfully, we don’t have much more to wait before we know.

That pretty much covers the important stuff, but by the end of the day tomorrow all will hopefully be clear.

As with pretty much every tablet rumor to date, this is pure speculation, but Apple has apparently recently acquired the domain name iSlate.com which has fueled the tablet rumor frenzy machine in to overdrive with name speculation. This seems like a perfectly logical name choice for Apple, but if the tablet rumors are true we’ll know quite soon.

The following record was what the whois info for islate.com used to show, although it now points to a domain registrations and trademark protections company named MarkMonitor, which Apple has used in the past.

The news on the Apple vine today comes from Yair Reiner, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co., who is making the prediction that Apple will begin ramping up production of a long-rumored Tablet in Februrary, to prepare for a March or April release. His report claims that the tablet will include a 10.1″ multi-touch LCD display using LTPS LCD technology, which is the same tech used on the iPhone.

Among the juiciest of the new rumors is his claim is that Apple has been contacting publishers to discuss a deal that would allow them to release their content through online stores, such as those for Amazon’s Kindle. According to Reiner, “Contacts in the U.S. tell us Apple is approaching book publishers with a very attractive proposal for distributing their content.” He claims that “Apple will split revenue 30/70 (Apple/publisher); give the same deal to all comers; and not request exclusivity. We believe the typical Kindle split is 50/50, rising to 30/70 if Kindle is given ebook exclusivity.”

As with any Apple rumor, nothing is written in stone and only Apple knows for sure what its plans are.

A few years ago, all of the Mac Tablet rumors began circulating when a third-party company named Axiotron began selling a heavily modified MacBook which they trademarked as the TabletMac. They’ve since changed the name to the Axiotron ModBook, but the end-result remains more or less the same. Recently, however, it was uncovered that the trademark “TabletMac” has been transferred to the control of Apple. Keep in mind that this in absolutely no way means that Apple plans to actually name a future product the “TabletMac”, but what’s interesting is that they’re interested in the term and want control over a tablet-related Mac product. Hopefully more news on the long-rumored Mac Tablet will be revealed by Apple soon.

No one outside of Apple themselves likely knows exactly what is in store for the Maps app on the iPhone, but a new job posting at Apple is looking for someone to help “take Maps to the next level, rethink how users use Maps and change the way people find things.” From the sounds of this, it isn’t going to be a small undertaking and will likely not be a small release, instead coming with a future version of the iPhone OS. As part of a split from their long-time cooperation with Google, Apple has even recently acquired a company called Placebase which offered mapping services much different from those offered by Google. The former Placebase CEO is now part of Apple’s “Geo Team”, which is likely where this new job posting will be working as well.

The word on the apple vine today comes courtesy of the Boy Genius Report. If the image below is accurate, you can look forward to 30% off all iPods (except the iPhone and iPod Shuffle), 25% off all Macs, and 15% off all Apple accessories, software, and other hardware. This is obviously still just categorized as speculation, so be patient and wait for the official word from Apple some time next week before getting your heart set on that new Apple product.

The rumors on the Apple vine circulating around the Internet this week come out of Taiwan, where sources in the parts supply chain reportedly say Apple is in development of a combined UMTS/CDMA iPhone which would be due for release in Q3 of 2010. The combination of these two technologies in a single handset would allow Apple to sell only a single model to virtually all carriers around the world, without having to worry about different models in different countries or with different carriers. Most specifically, Apple would be able to sell the iPhone to Verizon customers in the US and end the longer-than-expected exclusivity with AT&T. This may be great news for Verizon and other CDMA carriers around the world, but AT&T likely isn’t thrilled. That said, customers everywhere will likely benefit, as AT&T continues (and hopefully works even harder) to update and improve their 3G coverage and competition with other networks will inevitably lower plan costs across the board.