Apple

For the last half a decade now, the mobile industry has largely arranged itself around the announcements of Apple’s iPhones. These devices set the standard for what a phone could and should be. At the same time, Android, webOS, and Windows Phone struggled to get off the ground, with widely varying levels of success. The freshly launched iPhone 5 is undeniably the best iPhone yet (as Apple likes to say), but in many ways it feels like Apple is spinning its wheels at the worst possible time.

Apple's unveiling of its new, overhauled iTunes has been touted by the company as its way of "going back to our roots with an incredibly clean design," but underneath the shiny veneer there are also a number of security vulnerabilities that have been patched — 163 of them.

As the good and the bad gets hashed out over blogs and on news sources in the aftermath of Apple's highly-anticipated debut of the iPhone 5 today, it's interesting to take a look and see what was the public's reaction on social media when the device was released.

The hodgepodge of different LTE frequency bands used by various carriers globally has necessitated three versions of iPhone 5, with the potential for additional new models as Apple signs on other carriers.

Apple built a single, global model of the iPhone up until the beginning of 2011, when it introduced a CDMA-only iPhone 4 version compatible with Verizon. When it introduced iPhone 4S a year ago, Apple incorporated support for both GSM and CDMA networks, resulting in a "world phone," albeit still locked by specific carriers.

 Apple announced its 6th generation iPhone, the iPhone 5, at a special event in San Francisco this morning. The iPhone 5 brings a huge list of improvements. Apple unexpectedly used the iPhone 5 to introduce its next-generation SoC: the A6.

Apple's newly unveiled iPhone 5 is the thinnest smartphone on the market and the lightest iPhone yet, all while packing in a taller 4-inch Retina display and high-speed 4G LTE connectivity.

All of the native applications in iOS have been updated to take advantage of the new, larger display. Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller showed off how Calendar shows off a full five-day workweek, and how the iWork suite has been updated to use the expanded real estate.

Today in San Francisco, at 18:00 our time (01:00 MYT / 13th Sept), Apple will unveil the most anticipated device of the year, the iPhone 5.

Apple has seeded a new version of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 to registered developers in the Mac Dev Center. This marks the fourth beta update of 10.8.2 to be released in less than a month, indicating that a public release is imminent.

Unlike the last couple minor version of the 10.8.2 beta, today’s 12C50 update packs several new additions and improvements. Namely, Facebook integration has been fully baked into OS X itself, meaning that everyone should have access to Facebook in Mountain Lion when 10.8.2 drops.

On the eve of the unveiling of the iPhone 5, the Shanghai Evening Post published an insider report of what it's like to work at Foxconn's Tai Yuan factory assembling the device. And while it could be worse, the conditions aren't pretty.

The story is told by a Shanghai Evening Post reporter who went undercover, got a job at the plant, and then kept a diary of his life while working there for 10 days. His article was translated and summarized in English by MIC Gadget.

Apple is poised to unveil its next-generation iPhone and iPod Touch devices during its 12 September media event, but those may not be the only products showcased. The tech world fully expects iOS 6 – Apple's updated mobile operating system that was first unveiled during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June – to launch at the event tomorrow, or shortly afterwards.