Earlier today, Molleindustria’s new app, Phone Story, briefly hit the App Store. By all accounts, it was a Game Dev Story like simulation of Foxconn’s own iPhone manufacturing facilities… and a politically damning one at that.

Guess what happened next? That’s right: Apple yanked the sweatshop sim faster than a plummeting factory assembly line worker.

There have been a lot of dates floated around for when Apple will release iOS 5, but if this report is accurate, the date you should be circling on your calendars is October 10th. Why? Because Apple expects to start getting a lot of tech support issues on that day.

France is the latest stop in the magical mystery tour of European courtrooms for Apple and Samsung. Samsung is now the aggressor, filing a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple, charging the iPhone 3G, 3GS, iPhone 4 and 3G iPad violate the South Korean company’s patents.

Are you a Sprint customer salivating over the thought of getting your hands on the iPhone 5 this October? Don’t hold your breath. A new report says that while Sprint will get an iPhone in October, it’ll be an iPhone 4, not an iPhone 5.

Despite expectation Amazon’s tablet could challenge the iPad, analysts aren’t setting the bar too high for immediate sales. Indeed, the internet retailer will sell just 2 million of its 7-inch devices for the remainder of this year, one Wall Street expert suggests.

If you’ve been hanging around in Apple’s developer center since iTunes 5 beta 8 dropped last week, impatiently awaiting the release of iOS 5 beta 8, you might want to give yourself a break. According to a “trusted source,” the eighth beta of Apple’s next major iOS firmware will not drop until this Friday, with the Gold Master release scheduled for September 23.

Are you still annoyed that your favorite MobileMe feature won’t be transferring over to iCloud? What will you do with all those files you have stored on your iDisk? How will you sync System Preferences between your Macs? Well, if you ask Apple nicely (and you get all your friends and family to ask, too), you might just get those features back.

All of the chatter surrounding the iPhone 5 has created ‘unprecedented’ demand, one analyst announced Tuesday. More than 30 percent of consumers surveyed indicate they are either “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to purchase Apple’s latest smartphone, expected in October.

Apple wants courts to pause lawsuits with Motorola Mobility, claiming the Schaumberg, Il. company transferred ownership of contentious patents to Google. The legal wrangling cannot be settled until the Android maker’s acquisition of Motorola is finalized, the Cupertino, Calif. company charges.

This component, currently for sale through a Chinese parts store, is purportedly the flex cable for the iPhone 5’s home button. But we’re hoping that’s complete rubbish.

Why? Because if this really is the iPhone 5’s home button, it seems to rule out that capacitive touch home button that we’ve all been dreaming about.

Mac OS X Lion now allows you to use Quick Look while viewing files in a stack here’s how. This is something new that earlier versions of Mac OS X didn’t support.

Apple’s current AirPort Express portable base station has been continued, according to a new report — making way for a second-generation device which is expected to appear imminently. The current model (MB321LL/A) can no longer be purchased from a number of third-party resellers.

Smule’s MadPad is a crazy finger-tapping box of fun for your iThing, guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Once your kids get their hands on it, it will soon drive you insane, but never mind: it’s worth it.

Still sulking into your keyboard after you dropped $45 on Duke Nukem Forever for your Mac? Well, we did warn you. Fortunately, Feral Interactive is going to cheer you up with one of this year’s most anticipated games: Deus Ex: Human Revolution will be hitting the Mac this winter.

Hands up if you love iCal in Lion.

Anybody? Any hands up there at the back? No? Oh.

If you recall, we told you earlier about HTC president Martin Fichter’s comment on the iPhone’s ‘cool’ factor. According to Fichter, “iPhones are not that cool anymore.”

In a follow-up comment, Fitcher has stressed that HTC is not out to “kill” Apple’s iPhone. According to HTC, the two smartphone makers serve different customers, and HTC is apparently cool with that.

I tend to travel a fair bit, and when I’m not flopping down on friends’ couches (which happens more than I should probably admit — thanks guys), I often turn to Bill Shatner’s pugnacious figure and punch it, firing up the Priceline app to find a killer deal. And now that it’s a universal app, it’s even better on the iPad.

Presumably for those without an iPhone and its wealth of app-based fitness options, iHome has partnered with New Balance to offer a set of earphones packed with workout features, including a pedometer and a heart-rate monitor.

Police in Florida are looking for three men who took $60,000 in iPads from a Best Buy early Monday morning.

From the surveillance video, it took the trio dressed in dark clothing and gloves just a minute to “complete the theft,” the police report says.

Christian Louboutin, whose signature red-soled stilettos shod Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City, is a big fan of an iPhone-controlled toy.*

Apparently, HTC thinks that iPhones aren’t ‘cool’ anymore because parents use them. HTC US president Martin Fichter said in an interview today at the Mobile Future Forward conference in Seattle that kids and teenagers don’t want iPhones anymore because ‘dads’ have them.

Now that Samsung has denied that they are eying webOS as a potential platform for its mobile devices, HTC could end up being the one to purchase Palm’s former OS to compete against Apple’s iOS.

Not only would HTC buying webOS make sense financially, but it would also position HTC in a unique position to combat the growth of iOS in the mobile market.

Although all of Apple’s devices lately have been heaving with robust English numbers — the iPhone 4, the iPad 2 — Apple’s has never been afraid to pluck another language’s numerals if it sounded good. Who can forget Cupertino’s dabbling in Latin with the Apple II?

So who’s to say the iPhone 5 will be the iPhone Five? Such must have been the thinking behind Scoopertino’s latest gag, a press release announcing the iPhone Cinco, Apple’s latest and greatest device with a revolutionary snooze button and an incredible new Find My Sombrero app.

If you’ve got one of the 2011 MacBook Airs and have been waiting to umbilical it by Thunderbolt to one of Apple’s massive new 27-inch Cinema Displays, Apple’s just pushed live the software that will tell your notebook just how to do so.

A little heads up on the state of the official Steve Jobs biography: MacRumors has confirmed that the book is getting longer — 208 pages longer to be exact.

Since the former Apple CEO’s resignation, there’s obviously more material that belongs in an official biography. The bio, by Walter Isaacson, is still slated for a release on November 21st. Publisher Simon & Shuster’s has already made the book available for preorder on Amazon.