Apple could be planning an event to commemorate the 10th anniversary of its retail stores, after the company told its retail employees this week that they could not request vacation days in late May.

An AppleInsider report reveals an email was sent to Apple retail employees informing them that they could not request days off between May 20th and May 22nd. Store managers are apparently “very excited” about these dates, but it seems no further information is currently available.

Gary Allen of ifoAppleStore.com – a website dedicated to news and information about Apple’s retail stores – said that Apple may hold an event to “attract a crowd” for a few days as a way of celebrating the 10-year milestone.

It’s unlikely, however, that the event will see a new product launch. Though Apple is expected to update its iMac lineup to introduce the latest Sandy Bridge processors, this isn’t usually an occasion that would prevent retail employees from taking vacation.

The last time Apple enforced this rule was earlier this year for two major product launches: the Verizon iPhone 4 and the iPad 2. Don’t bother getting your hopes up for the iPhone 5, though – recent reports don’t expect that until at least September.

Update: MacRumors have since received some information that suggests this may well be due to internal training, rather than an event.

Not so long ago, Apple removed all images of the white iPhone 4 from its website and it seemed for a brief period that the device would never launch. While rumors turned to the iPhone 5, the white device seemed to have been disregarded. That period didn’t last very long, and speculation about the device is now very much in full flow once again.

Last week Apple confirmed that the white iPhone 4 would launch this spring, while a Bloomberg report claimed that it could launch before the end of April.

It now seems April 26th could be the special day. In an exclusive report, iPhoneItalia (Google translation) cites information they have received from a “reliable source,” who has confirmed the device will arrive on that date.

So, if you’re still waiting, you have another date to pencil into your calendar. However, we’d suggest that you don’t start camping out in front of stores just yet.

In a followup to Bloomberg’s story this morning, the Wall Street Journal says that Apple is positively confirming the release of the white iPhone 4 this spring. You know… again.

Other than that, there are no details, including whether or not Verizon, AT&T or both will get the device. There’s also no word as to whether Apple releasing the white iPhone 4 after a nine month delay means that the iPhone 5 will be delayed past June, although that’s certainly where the smart money is resting right now.

The white iPhone 4 was originally supposed to come out shortly after the black iPhone 4 debuted in June of last year, but it has been repeatedly delayed due to issues with light leaking through the glass plate and onto the camera sensor.

Imagine building a fast car and only being able to initially drive it on a crowded city street. That is sort of the position Apple is in with its iPad 2, according to one Wall Street expert. Demand (horsepower) far exceeds supply (the crowded street). Which is why Apple stock – despite being likely to meet the Street’s consensus – still has room to grow.

“The takeaway likely will be that iPad was supply-constrained and has an open growth opportunity in calendar 2011 and calendar 2012,” Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster told investors Thursday.

Although Apple’s quarterly earnings report won’t be out until next week, two analysts already predict the tech giant will announce “conservative guidance.” The tech giant, which usually tries to game the process by announcing low guidance in order to beat the Street’s expectations, may truly be hurt by the repercussions following the Japanese earthquake.

Goldman lowered its revenue for the June quarter to $22.66bn, down from $22.67bn. Barclays told investors Wednesday it sees the timing of the iPhone 5, iPad 2 availability and the ipact of Japan as “key factors” in the upcoming second-quarter report.

When’s the iPhone 5 arriving? How is the iPad selling? What about the iPod? These are all immaterial questions, one Wall Street expert argues Thursday. Forget about the products and keep your eye on the platform. “Products last maybe a year, ‘platforms’ last decades,” he tells investors.

“We believe the single biggest change in Apple over the past few years is that it has moved from being something of a ‘hit product’ movie studio dependent on each new release back to being a better-than-ever ‘platform’ company, where its iOS plus hardware plus apps ecosystem … are what truly matters and drive longevity,” writes Caris & Co. analyst Robert Cihra.

Could another flash memory crunch be on the horizon? The growing introduction of cloud-based services and talk of a high-capacity iPhone 5 later this year will catch NAND memory makers flat-footed if an iPad 3 is unveiled in the next six months. That’s the concern of one analyst who watches the memory sector.

Although memory manufacturing facilities were built with an eye toward greater use in cell phones, there was no “accounting for any potential detrimental impact from streaming services,” according to Matthew Bryson of Avian Securities. Both Apple and Google will join the push, with the Cupertino, Calif. company “leading the hardware/OS/cloud charge with a completely integrated product built around post-PC devices like the iPhone5 and iPad3,” he tells investors Wednesday.

According to a source speaking to 9to5Mac, when the Apple Store went down this morning, there was only one major change in the database when it came back online… the total elimination of the white iPhone 4 from Apple’s database.

Not only is the SKU gone from Apple’s system, but images that were once for the white iPhone 4 have now been tweaked to feature the black iPhone 4 instead.

It can be expensive to upgrade your iPhone before your 2 year contract is up. You’re largely paying off your iPhone through a two year subsidy, after all, which means that if you want the iPhone 5 after you just got the iPhone 4, AT&T — while delighted to extend your contract — needs some dosh to not come out behind in the deal.

No one debates that. What people do debate, though, is how much money it should cost an end user to upgrade their iPhones early. Currently, it can cost up to $499 to upgrade to a 32GB iPhone 4 before the end of your two year contract… even if you’re in your last months of the existing contract.

Well, guess what? It’s about to get worse. Starting yesterday, new pricing for iPhone Early Upgrade Pricing went into effect, bumping the price of an early upgrade another $50 across the spectrum of AT&T iPhone models.

It’s hard to recall now, but the number-one complaint about the iPhone when it first came out was the on-screen keyboard.

Engadget’s Ryan Block asked: “Will the iPhone be undone by its keyboard?” People talked about how on-screen typing would destroy the iPhone in the same way that the hand-writing recognition system helped kill the Newton.

Even more incredibly, one of the main iPad criticisms when it first came out was the visibility of finger smudges on the screen when you turn the power off.

These concerns seem quaint now, textbook examples of the limited human-ape mind trying to grapple with novelty. It’s like people complaining about their new “motor car” a hundred years ago by saying the infernal contraption fails to slow down when they say, “whoa, Nellie!” and won’t speed up when they whip the fender with a riding crop. “It’ll never catch on!”

Many annoying tech pundits (including and especially Yours Truly) bitched and moaned about Apple’s global ban on the sale of third-party physical keyboard and refusal to create one of their own.

I believe Apple deliberately used its red-hot iPhone product to force the world to accept and learn to appreciate on-screen keyboards, and break them of their physical keyboard habit. When Apple released the iPad a year ago, it was usable with two Apple keyboards (the standard Bluetooth keyboard and a new cradle keyboard). But no matter. The on-screen keyboard idea had already been accepted by a critical mass of users.

Despite widespread acceptance, people are still divided on whether on-screen keyboards are good or bad, and most still prefer a physical keyboard. But let’s look at the big picture.