The term “planned obsolescence” has achieved negative connotations, but it originally referred to a long-standing tradition of changing designs to sell more products.

It was coined by the car industry in the 1930s to refer to annual model updates. Over the years, however, the term has taken on a darker meaning. But planned obsolescence is a good thing. It’s the driving force behind much innovation.

This morning, New York Times reporter Catherine Rampell accused Apple of breaking her old iPhone 4 with the iOS7 update, which made it unbearably slow. “It seemed like Apple was sending me a not-so-subtle message to upgrade,” she wrote in a piece entitled, Why Apple Wants to Bust Your iPhone.

According to Rampell, Apple is feeling the heat from Samsung, HTC and others, and is resorting to sabotaging older iPhones with a software update and force users to upgrade their hardware.

This is bullshit from every angle. The iOS7 upgrade isn’t obligatory, it’s voluntary, and pissing off customers isn’t a good way to keep them as customers. There’s no mention that Apple sold a record-smashing 33.8 million iPhones last quarter.

Truth is, Apple’s products are so far ahead of the curve, it’s a constant criticism leveled at the company: that it is a willing practitioner of planned obsolescence.

Although Apple is still (very) profitably plugging along with the iPhone, there’s a new king of smartphones, and it’s Samsung. The Korean gadget maker continued to dominate smartphone sales in the third quarter, shipping over 88 million smartphones this quarter compared to just 33.8 million iPhones shipped. And it gets worse for Apple.

Apple just announced its earning for the final fiscal quarter of 2014 and compared to the year-ago quarter the results are pretty good. The company reports that it made $36 billion in revenue with $8.2 billion the net profit. Along with the 9 million iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c units it sold during launch weekend, Apple says it sold 33.8 million iPhones, along with 14.1 million iPads – both an improvement from the same quarter last year.

Tim Cook and Peter Oppenheimer will hold an earnings call with investors at 5PM EST to discuss its results, until then dive right into the full press release below:

The redesign of Apple’s iWork and iLife apps received all the attention at today’s keynote, but Apple isn’t totally neglecting some of its lesser-used apps. Apple released an update for Find My iPhone this afternoon that brings a redesigned interface to the security app to bring it inline with iOS 7’s UI.

Find My iPhone allows users who misplace their iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Mac to use another iOS data to find the lost device and protect your data. The redesign seems to be purely aesthetic as all of the core feature remain relatively unchanged. Users can still remotely lock devices, wipe data, view battery charge, and even get driving directions to a lost device.

The free update is available in the App Store now.

Update: Looks like Podcasts and Movie Trailers have also been updated with new iOS 7 UIs.

Source: iTunes

To compliment the new iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display, Apple has released not only updated Smart Covers, but a new Smart Case accessory. “We have a lot more to cover” was the tagline for today’s event, and it turned out to be true in more ways than one.

Samsung looks to be preparing its own extended warranty plans that will provide additional coverage for its smartphones, tablets, and other consumer electronics, according to a new trademark registered with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

Called “Protection Plus,” the service is expected to offer the same kind of protection that is available to iPhone, iPad, and iPod users with AppleCare+.

The iPhone 5s has been in limited supply, and according to many accounts, the iPhone 5c is in limited demand. But September has still been a huge month for Apple. How huge? According to one study, Apple’s share of the U.S. smartphone market has doubled in September.

Aside from some print ads, Apple’s advertising for the iPhone 5s has been quite scare compared to the iPhone 5c. Multiple iPhone 5c ads have aired on TV already, but the 5s hasn’t gotten any TV attention. Today the first ad dedicated to the iPhone 5s was finally released. The title is “Metal Mastered.”

As you can imagine, it’s all about the gold model, and the song is even by an artist named Goldfrapp. How appropriate. Liquid gold slowly forms into an iPhone like a Terminator, and the gold Touch ID ring around the home button is placed last as the finishing act.

And now you know. That’s right, it is being reported that Apple employees internally nicknamed the gold iPhone 5s “The Kardashian Phone” during production.

New York Times reporter Nick Bilton first tweeted the revelation, saying he heard it from a source at Apple. TechCrunch then followed up with its own sources and added, “apparently this was not a serious ‘code name’ or anything, just an internal joke.”

After selling a record-breaking number of iPhones during the recent launch weekend, Apple is now ready to pummel magazines with it’s trademark brand of clever yet simple ads extolling the iPhone’s virtues.

The first print ad for the iPhone 5s hit newsstands today in The New Yorker with a full-ad on the back page touting Touch ID. The ad features a huge closeup of the still-oh-so-hard-to-find Gold iPhone 5s, with the tagline “Your finger is the password at the bottom.

Here’s a closer look: