In another chapter of what seems to be the never ending saga of the Apple tablet, our sources tell us that Apple is close to giving the green light to their manufacturing partners to start the initial production run in February, with Apple being ready to start selling the 10.1” version of the tablet in mid to late March.

According to our sources, the retail price for the 10.1” version of the Apple tablet PC will be coming in at around $1,000 USD retail when it hits the streets. Because of all of the hype of the tablet product Apple is said to be going to great lengths to make sure that they can minimize the possibility of shortages by getting ahead of the curve and having a good amount of product before the actual street date.

The estimated numbers for the Apple tablet product are a bit staggering, with those in the know telling us that they hear that Apple is looking to be able to move as many as 1.5 million units in the first quarter after release. We continue to hear that Apple is talking to some high profile developers in an effort to make sure that at launch they have some good software to show that is unique to the tablet platform.

As with all things Apple, we will have to wait and see, but it does seem that prior to mid-2010 you can expect to see Apple launch a new tablet product, despite what they may be saying to the outside world at this time.