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If, like me, you were hoping to keep up with Apple’s announcements today via a live video stream straight out of Cupertino, then we have bad news for you: Tim Cook will not be gracing the airwaves for an instant live-stream.

Case company Hard Candy is busy manufacturing 50,000 cases for a mystery Apple device.

The device probably looks like the mockup above. It might be the iPhone 5 or a new, bigger iPod touch. It has a 4.44-inch diagonal screen, which is much larger than most observers are expecting for a new iPhone.

Whatever it is, Hard Candy expects Apple CEO Tim Cook to unveil the device at today’s press event. And the company is busy churning out a range of different cases that will be on store shelves when the device ships.

After months and months of speculation, Apple will finally unveil its fifth-generation iPhone later today, but when will you be able to get your hands on it? According to one report, the iPhone 4S will launch in ten days, on October 14, and will start at around $99 for a 16GB model.

Sony Ericsson CEO Bert Nordberg recently sat down with the The Wall Street Journal to talk about the future of Sony Ericsson as a company and player in the smartphone market.

Nordberg was quoted as saying that the company “should have taken the iPhone more seriously when it arrived in 2007.”  You think, Nordberg?

Just like their older system, Zeo’s new Sleep Manager Mobile tracks your sleep patterns using a transmitter worn on the forehead while sleeping that relays your sleep state to a receiver. Only Zeo’s new gadget transmits the data directly to the iPhone.

Six weeks before it officially goes on sale, Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire is shaping up to be the biggest tablet launch ever… and Cult of Android has the numbers to prove it.

A verified source within the Seattle based online retail giant has provided Cult of Android with exclusive screenshots of Amazon’s internal inventory management system Alaska (Availability Lookup and SKU Aggregator).

These leaked shoots show that orders for Amazon’s Android-based tablet are racking up at an average rate of over 2,000 units per hour, or over 50,000 per day.

In the five days since Amazon put the Kindle Fire up on their official site, over 250,000 tablets have been preordered. If this level of consumer demand for the Kindle Fire continues, Amazon will have 2.5 million preorders for the device before it officially goes on sale on November 15th.

Those numbers make the Kindle Fire’s launch likely to be the biggest tablet launch in history, beating both the iPad and iPad 2 in first month sales.

Read the rest of this post at Cult Of Android

Today has been quite the day for rumors. Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” event is tomorrow, so everyone is getting in last minute speculation about what we’ll see Cook and co. unveil onstage.

Something from well-known blogger Robert Scoble has been largely overlooked: the claim that Apple is working on a new iPad app to compete with the likes of DirecTV and other cable/dish providers.

When President Barack Obama isn’t flying around the world in Air Force One or wining and dining with the media and Silicon valley elites, he’s on his iPad.

Not only that, but the President apparently has some high profile connections at Apple. And by “high profile,” we mean Steve Jobs.

So the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sprint was so desperate to get the iPhone now that AT&T’s exclusivity deal is up, they actually bet the future of their company on it: they’ve placed an order for over $20 billion in iPhone sales over the next four years. Sprint won’t break even on the deal until 2014, and if the iPhone suddenly becomes less popular (yeah, right), the deal could sink the company.

That’s a big story. It seems almost unbelievable, in fact, that Sprint would bet the future of its company on just one device, but that’s exactly what they appear to have done.

Want to know something even more unbelievable, though? According to a follow up report… Sprint’s ballsy deal secured them exclusive rights to the iPhone 5.

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Okay, so tomorrow, Apple’s going to announce iOS 5’s new feature, Assistant, which allows you to control your iPhone 4S using just your voice. Big deal, you might be thinking, somewhat sarcastically. But it is a big deal.

In fact, one of the co-founders of the company behind Apple’s Assistant technology says it’s no less than a “world-changing event.”

Analysts foreseeing Apple introduce two iPhones at Tuesday’s event should get their eyes fixed. That’s the message from a Wall Street expert predicting the tech giant will unveil one new handset, but reduce prices on the iPhone 4 to $99 and the iPhone 3GS to free with carrier contract.

Contradicting an earlier news report that Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs is expected to attend Tuesday’s iPhone event, a technology blogger claims Jobs is “just not feeling well enough” to publicly appear.

Apple continues to out-muscle Android online, according to a new report of devices using the Internet. Despite fewer mobile devices, iOS-powered products in September collectively accounted for 54.65 percent of the mobile market, versus 16.25 percent for Android.

Well, this is certainly unexpected. Apple may have kept secret a big change to the App Store that they’ll announce at the “Let’s Talk iPhone” event tomorrow: app rentals.

Now that questions over when the iPhone 5 will appear seems to be settled, new speculation has shifted to whether former CEO and Apple stage-master Steve Jobs will show up on what was supposed to be new CEO Tim Cook’s day.

Verizon Wireless has reportedly offered staff at its call centers ‘unlimited overtime’ this Tuesday — the day Apple is set to announce its fifth-generation iPhone. Although recent reports claim the device will launch a week or two after the event, Verizon is “expecting something big to drop THAT DAY.”

There is a bombastic upstate New York car dealer who loves to say his auto sales are “huge.” However, the first day of iPhone 5 sales expected to start this week, could redefine the definition. The enormous “pent up demand” for the new iPhone will “shatter” Apple’s previous one-day sales record of 1.7 million handsets, according to a Wall Street analyst.

While many of the details about Apple’s upcoming iPhone may remain a mystery until its unveiling on Tuesday, one thing we can pretty much be certain of is that the device will pack the company’s latest dual-core A5 processor. And thanks to that chip, the fifth-generation iPhone will boast significantly faster graphics performance.

Apple’s upcoming ‘iPhone 4S‘ seems to have appeared all over the place over the past few days. Firstly the Cupertino company itself leaked the device within an iTunes beta, then Cincinnati Bell listed it — along with the iPhone 5 — on its website. Vodafone Germany is the latest to claim its share of the free publicity, listing the device on its website with 16GB, 32GB and 64GB of storage.

I wish I never sold my original iPhone. Being seen around town using an iPhone with a brushed aluminum back would make others jealous of my uniqueness. The iPhone 4? Dude, that was so 2010. My original iPhone can’t even create folders or multitask, but no one else has one so it makes me like fifty times more awesome than anyone using an iPhone 3GS.

You’re probably snickering at this ridiculous idea that a unique design completely trumps functionality. I don’t blame you. However, a lot of Apple fans are falling into the trap of this same ideology that claims the looks of the new iPhone are more important than the functionality it will bring with it. Many claim that if Apple “only” releases an iPhone 4S it will be a huge disappointment to fans. “We’ve waited 16 months for a new iPhone and all they’re giving us is a minor spec bump? This is crap!”

What some Apple fanboys don’t understand is the iPhone 4S isn’t “just a spec bump.” The new iPhone, regardless of its physical appearance, will be a significant improvement to the greatest phone ever made.

Of course no one wants to be stuck with an ugly phone that looks five years behind the curve, but before rising up in revolt against the iPhone 4S, let’s consider the current state of technology and where the iPhone 4 currently ranks.

If retail stores are good enough for Apple, they’re good enough for Google.

It’s getting close! With Apple set to hold its next media event on Tuesday, the folks in Cupertino have already put up a “Let’s Talk iPhone” banner outside of the Apple campus auditorium. The icons on the banner match the invites that were sent out to the press last week.

As you can see, the venue resides at 4 Infinite Loop. Apple’s auditorium only holds between 200-250 people, so expect Tuesday’s keynote to be an intimate affair.

(via 9to5Mac)

Apple and Facebook are two tech titans that have been known to butt heads every now and then. When Apple introduced the Ping social network in iTunes, Facebook denied Apple access to integrate the two networks. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Ping is just one example — there have been multiple talks behind closed doors that have resulted in the two companies almost parting ways for good.

Over the weekend, Mashable posted inside information on the convoluted history of Apple and Facebook. Stories include the Facebook integration in iOS 4 that never saw the light of day, Steve Jobs paying Mark Zuckerberg a visit about an iPad app, and how Facebook and Apple nearly fell out because of HP.

Gizmodo’s been locked out of Apple events indefinitely since they bought a stolen iPhone 4 prototype, but that doesn’t mean they are without resources to get scoops: they sent a spy into Foxconn’s new factory in Brazil, and walked out with proof that Apple will unveil a cheaper iPhone 4 sometime soon with the model N90A.

Pictures after the jump!

Apple has seeded iWork beta 4 to developers with added support for iCloud services in iOS 5. Developers can test the iCloud “Documents and Data” service to sync content wirelessly between iWork apps.

iOS 5 and iCloud should be unveiled to the public this Tuesday alongside the next iPhone. When iWork is officially updated with iCloud support, users will be able to create a document on one device and have it synced wirelessly across other devices and iCloud.com.

iBooks has also received a minor update to version 1.3.1 in the App Store. The update includes “important stability and performance improvements” that are most likely related to iOS 5.