iPhone

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.

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 is due to secure its acquisition of a company specialising in fingerprint scanning next month, days after the latest iPhone goes on sale, suggesting the technology will be used to improve security in the world's bestselling phone.

The board of AuthenTec is expected to agree to a $365m (£228m) acquisition by Apple – one of the largest sums paid in a takeover by the California technology giant – when it votes on 4 October.

When it comes to smartphones, everyone uses their devices just a little bit differently. And when it comes to the iPhone in particular, people sometimes have very specific use cases for work, home, and social lives. Some users might feel like the iPhone's screen is too small for their spreadsheet editing on-the-go, while others might feel that the entire device is already too big to fit into a pocket while skydiving. A fingerprint scanner could be useful to those who work high-security jobs, while it might come off as a superfluous expense for a teacher.

So much for post-product-release teardowns. The iPhone 5 is being torn down piece by piece already.

Just after alleged photos of the iPhone 5's main circuit board appeared, we now have a video of not only the front plate but items as small as the "flex cable," replete with the sleep-wake button and volume switch, according to SmartPhone Medic, a smartphone repair service based in Columbia, SC.

These days, every Apple fan is hoping to get as many details as possible on the upcoming iPhone 5. Experts have found that cybercriminals are taking advantage of this to spread their malicious elements.

The emails – titled “iPhone 5 Battery Images Leak!!!” – contain an attachment that appears to be a harmless Office document. The message’s poorly written content reads:

Dear [recipient],

Buzz about the next-generation iPhone's release date has begun to concentrate on late September thanks to leaks coming from multiple sources. It's looking more and more likely that the big unveil will happen on September 12, as previously rumored, and the device may hit the US streets on September 21, with a larger wave of international rollouts taking place in early October.