Almost two months after Apple unveiled its latest tablet, the new iPad continues to see shipping delays when ordered online. Availability of the device in the U.S. continues to improve, however, with the shipping quotes now whittled down to under a week for the first time since the slate launched in March. Orders through Apple’s online store are now expected to ship in 3 to 5 business days, although international customers will still be forced to wait between 1 and 2 weeks. If the wait is still too long, Best Buy and other retail outlets are said to have plenty of stock. The Cupertino-based company previously said demand for the new tablet was “off the charts.” In the first quarter of 2012, Apple sold 11.8 million tablets.

[Via SlashGear]

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Due to a string of acquisitions and other business distractions, Facebook’s multi-billion dollar initial public offering that was rumored to be set for May 17th may be delayed until early or mid-June, according to CNBC. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not been preparing for the IPO, but instead has been more focused on running the business and making acquisitions. As a result, the social networking giant’s IPO date will reportedly be pushed back so the company has time to make the appropriate preparations. Facebook filed with the SEC in February, and could raise as much as $10 billion at a $100 billion valuation when it goes public in the coming months. Facebook’s IPO is expected to top Google’s $1.9 billion offering by a wide margin, making it the largest Internet IPO in history. Facebook’s shares will be listed on the NASDAQ exchange under the “FB” ticker symbol.

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While we may finally have pricing and release dates for a majority of Samsung’s updated Galaxy line of music players and tablets, launch details for the Galaxy Note 10.1 that debuted at Mobile World Congress in February has remained a mystery. A company spokesperson told The Verge on Wednesday that Samsung has no release date to announce for the device yet, but the slate that was revealed in February may not match the final product that will will ship to end users. The “original” Galaxy Note 10.1 featured a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800-pixel display and was equipped with a dual-core Exynos processor clocked at 1.4GHz, 1GB of RAM and a 3-megapixel rear camera. Earlier rumors have suggested that Samsung may upgrade the slate to a quad-core Exynos 4412 processor clocked at 1.5GHz.

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The Google-branded Nexus tablet the search giant is rumored to be co-developing with ASUS may be pushed back until July. Earlier reports had the device slated for launch some time in June, with an unveiling possibly set for Google’s annual I/O conference on June 27th. Unnamed sources informed The Verge on Friday that Google pushed back its planned release so it could tweak the device, however. The 7-inch tablet is supposedly equipped with a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Wi-Fi connectivity. The device would reportedly cost $249 in its current state, but Google and ASUS are both looking to reduce the price. Earlier rumors indicted that the Mountain View-based company was attempting to offer the tablet for as little as $149. It has also been speculated that Google could be delaying the planned release in order to pre-load its tablet with the next version of Android — Jelly Bean. The Verge claims this scenario is unlikely though, as the current product is designed for Android 4.0.

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Samsung on Tuesday confirmed that its 7-inch and 10.1-inch Galaxy Tab 2 tablets have been delayed and will now start shipping to the U.K at the end of the month, ComputerWorld reports. When the Android 4.0 slates were announced at this year’s Mobile World Congress, the company said both devices would arrive in U.K. stores in March ahead of a global rollout. According to a Samsung spokesman, complications with Ice Cream Sandwich caused the delay is due to Ice Cream Sandwich, which both Samsung and Google need more time to work on. This isn’t the first time Samsung has run into problems with Android 4.0. Last month the manufacturer delayed its original upgrade plan for the Galaxy Note from the first three months of 2012 to some time in the second quarter. Samsung is currently rolling out an update to its Galaxy S II smartphone throughout Europe.

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Development of the Raspberry Pi single-board Linux computer has been rocky thus far. After a high demand once pre-sales were made available, the $35 computer has been plagued with manufacturing hiccups and more recently, two of its U.K. retail partners have refused to distribute the device without proper CE marking — a certification that ensures the manufacturer has complied with European regulations. The Raspberry Pi team did not seek approval because it believed the single-board computer was not a “finished end product” and did not require the certification.  The company said that the first 2,000 boards arrived in the U.K. on Monday, however, and are in the process of getting CE marked “as soon as is humanly possible, in parallel with bringing the remainder of our initial batch into the country.” The Raspberry Pi Foundation did not clarify exactly when it expects the device to receive certification and become available.

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Shipments of the long-awaited Raspberry Pi single-board Linux computer may be delayed due to a “manufacturing hiccup.” The company on Thursday said that during the manufacturing process, the computers were equipped with non-magnetic jacks, which would result in a lack of network connectivity. The Raspberry Pi Foundation claims, however, that there is no need to fret because this is “a very minor problem to fix, and the factory is nearly done working on replacing them on the first set of boards.” The first shipments should still go out to customers in line with the firm’s previously announced time frame, although there might be a “slight delay.” Pre-orders of the $35 dollar computer sold out in less than a day when it went on sale last month. The single-board computer is equipped with a 700MHz processor, 256MB of RAM, SD card support, two USB ports, an Ethernet jack and both HDMI and RCA outputs.

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Intel recently notified partners of its plans to postpone mass shipments of the company’s Ivy Bridge processors, reports DigiTimes. The company still plans to announce new products that will ship in small volume in April according to the report, although mass shipments are not expect to occur until after June. The supposed delay comes as a number of notebook vendors are seeing weakening sales from the diminishing global economy and other factors. Both vendors and Intel are said to have large inventories of Sandy Bridge processors, so the delay could be seen as a way to minimize the impact of leftover CPUs.

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Apple has been widely rumored to be readying a Siri-enabled television for release this year, but a new report claims component availability issues will prevent the highly anticipated “iTV” from launching in the first half. Citing unnamed sources within Apple’s supply chain, DigiTimes on Friday reports that Sharp, rumored to have been contracted to supply display panels for Apple’s debut HDTV, is not yet ready to ship the indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) panels Apple will use in its iTV. According to the site’s sources, upcoming HDTV models from Samsung and LG will occupy much of the OLED panel capacity during the first half, so Apple has chosen to instead utilize IGZO panels. Sharp is reportedly not yet ready to mass produce its latest IGZO panels, however, and Apple’s iTV launch may have been pushed to the second half as a result. Apple’s iOS-powered iTV will reportedly support apps and feature voice controls powered by Siri as well as access to on-demand content through iTunes.

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RIM has responded to an exclusive BGR report published on Thursday in which our source claimed BlackBerry 10 was delayed not because the vendor was waiting for a new LTE chip, but because RIM’s developers have not yet been able to resolve many of the issues plaguing the new OS. “RIM made a strategic decision to launch BlackBerry 10 devices with a new, LTE-based dual core chip set architecture,” RIM told AllThingsD. “As explained on our earnings call, the broad engineering impact of this decision and certain other factors significantly influenced the anticipated timing for the BlackBerry 10 devices. The anonymous claim suggesting otherwise is inaccurate and uninformed. As RIM has previously explained, and as Mike Lazaridis reiterated on the earnings call, we will not launch BlackBerry 10 devices until we know they are ready and we believe this new chip set architecture is required to deliver the world class user experience that our customers will expect. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply false.” Contrary to RIM’s statement, our source indicated that the company has not yet been able to get core features like email and BlackBerry Messenger working as desired on BlackBerry 10 smartphones, and that it is “pushing this out as long as they can for one reason, they don’t have a working product yet.”

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Research In Motion confirmed part of an exclusive BGR report Thursday night when its co-CEOs announced during an earnings call that its first BlackBerry 10 smartphone would not launch until the “latter part of 2012.” Despite RIM’s earlier statement that a QNX-powered smartphone would launch in the first half next year, we reported in November that RIM’s first next-generation smartphone would not launch until the third quarter. RIM co-Chief Mike Lazaridis blamed the delay on new dual-core processors that were not yet ready to be manufactured in bulk, but the fact remains that by the time RIM’s first QNX-based smartphone launches it will be competing against Apple’s sixth-generation iPhone, a horde of new Android phones with next-generation features and specs, a variety of Windows Phones from Nokia, and more. According to one analyst, BlackBerry 10 may be “too little, too late.” Read on for more.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky went out on a limb and continued to see a potential upside for RIM long after other analysts were jumping ship. It now appears as though the Waterloo, Ontario-based vendor failed to capitalize on what little opportunity Abramsky had identified. The analyst recently began dropping his price target on RIM stock and on Friday, he cut it further to $16 from $20, troubled by RIM’s weak fourth-quarter guidance and the BlackBerry 10 delays.

“BlackBerry 10 is now pushed out to 2H/CY12 (from 1H/CY12), making RIM significantly late to the high-end smartphone market, risking further share losses and competitive developer momentum,” Abramsky wrote in a note to clients on Friday. He continued, “As visibility continues to decline with BB10 delayed, we see few catalysts over the next six months (valuation volatility may occur on newsflow) and recommend investors remain on the sidelines.”

RBC lowered its estimates for fiscal 2012 to $18.9 billion in revenue with earnings of $4.55 per share, down from earlier estimates of $19.3 billion and $4.40. Abramsky cut fiscal 2013 estimates as well in light of BlackBerry 10 launch delays; he now sees revenue totaling $18.1 billion and EPS coming in at $3.00, down from $20.0 billion and earnings of $4.30 per share.

Judge Ellen Huvelle approved a joint request by AT&T and the Department of Justice to delay a lawsuit regarding AT&T’s planned purchase of T-Mobile USA. AT&T requested a stay in the suit on Monday and said it was working with Deutsche Telekom to prepare the best defense possible. “We are actively considering whether and how to revise our current transaction to achieve the necessary regulatory approvals so that we can deliver the capacity enhancements and improved customer service that can only be derived from combining our two companies’ wireless assets,” AT&T said in a statement on Monday. The Department of Justice has also sought a delay, or an entire dismissal of the suit, since it believes a ruling is unnecessary now that AT&T has withdrawn its FCC application to purchase T-Mobile USA. “It’s not a real transaction until they file with the FCC,” Justice Department lead attorney Joseph Wayland said recently. The pretrial proceedings for the Department of Justice’s suit against the merger will begin on January 18th, 2012.

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ASUS has reportedly delayed the launch of its highly anticipated Transformer Prime convertible tablet. ASUS’s new tablet was expected to launch this week but Wi-Fi issues have seemingly set things back. ”The WiFi range on the TF201 did not meet our quality standards,” a spokesperson from ASUS Canada reportedly told Engadget in a statement. The spokesperson continued, saying that ASUS will not launch the slate until the wireless performance issues are fixed. The Transformer Prime will be among the first quad-core tablets to reach market when it finally hits store shelves, though ASUS did not indicate how long its solution for these wireless issues would take to implement. Pre-orders are still being taken for the Transformer Prime, which starts at $499.99.

UPDATE: ASUS has stated that the Transformer Prime is on schedule for release next week.

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AT&T said Monday that it, along with Deutsche Telekom, has asked Judge Ellen Huvelle to delay any further court hearings regarding AT&T’s planned $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA until January 18th, 2012. AT&T said the delay will “allow the two companies time to evaluate all options” and that the U.S. Justice Department also joined in on the filing. AT&T recently withdrew its merger application from the FCC to instead focus on the lawsuit that was brought against the merger by the Department of Justice. “AT&T is committed to working with Deutsche Telekom to find a solution that is in the best interests of our respective customers, shareholders and employees,” AT&T said in a statement. “We are actively considering whether and how to revise our current transaction to achieve the necessary regulatory approvals so that we can deliver the capacity enhancements and improved customer service that can only be derived from combining our two companies’ wireless assets.” The delay makes a lot of sense, since the Department of Justice doesn’t have much of a reason to sue AT&T unless it has a merger application filed with the FCC. ”It’s not a real transaction until they file with the FCC,” Justice Department lead attorney Joseph Wayland said last week. AT&T’s full press release follows after the break. 

AT&T UPDATES STATUS OF T-MOBILE USA MERGER

DALLAS, December, 12, 2011 – AT&T today issued the following statement regarding the status of its merger with T-Mobile USA:

“AT&T and Deutsche Telekom advised Judge Huvelle this morning that they wish to stay any further Court proceedings until January 18, 2012, to allow the two companies time to evaluate all options.  The U.S. Department of Justice joined in the filing.

“AT&T is committed to working with Deutsche Telekom to find a solution that is in the best interests of our respective customers, shareholders and employees.  We are actively considering whether and how to revise our current transaction to achieve the necessary regulatory approvals so that we can deliver the capacity enhancements and improved customer service that can only be derived from combining our two companies’ wireless assets.”

The Justice Department intends to file a motion next week to delay or dismiss its lawsuit against AT&T’s planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA. The DOJ originally sued AT&T to block the deal in August, and AT&T soon after decided to pull its merger application from the FCC to instead focus on the suit. In light of the withdrawal of AT&T’s merger application, however, the DOJ seemingly no longer has cause to sue. ”It’s not a real transaction until they file with the FCC,” Wayland told Judge Ellen Huvelle according to Reuters. With that, it looks we’re now watching at a giant game of cat and mouse. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson recently said that U.S. regulators don’t understand the wireless industry enough to see the benefits of its proposed T-Mobile USA purchase. Earlier Friday he said in an interview that ”regulators can’t keep up with the changes in the industry” and that blocking the merger will increase wireless prices for U.S. consumers.

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