On Friday Apple started preparing the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, California for the long-awaited iPhone 5 event that will be taking place this Wednesday. Journalists will pile into the venue to watch Tim Cook and company unveil the next iPhone and other surprises. Per tradition, Apple has begun putting up larger banners outside of Yerba Buena the weekend before the event.

We stopped by Yerba Buena to get a look at the signage Apple is putting up. Check out more on-location shots from Yerba Buena in our gallery below.

Following this morning’s enigmatic shots of the inside of the lobby, news shots of what is happening outside the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts ahead of September 12th’s iPhone 5 event have emerged, showing the first stages of what will become the public-facing banners of what will undoubtedly prove to be Apple’s biggest event yet.

The banners are going up right now, but we’ve got our own photographer heading down, hopefully to capture more. In the past, the banners that hang outside of the Yerba Buena Center Of The Arts have tended to make some reference to an unannounced new product or service, so hopefully, we’ll soon have an inkling of what Apple’s set to announce.

More images at MacStories below.

Source: MacStories

Over the past few years we’ve seen hundreds of fake iPhone mockups, some have been bizarre, while others looked so good we wished they were real. What’s been most surprising is that some of the weirdest looking concepts are actually fairly similar to prototypes Apple was working on in their labs.

Thanks to the evidence in the Apple vs Samsung trial, we got to see the different iPhone prototypes Apple was working on, so we’ve gone back and found 7 artists mockups that look a lot like prototypes Apple was working on. 

Audience, the company behind the EarSmart technology used to power Siri in the iPhone 4S, has issued a statement insisting it is “unlikely” Apple will use its technology in the iPhone 5. It helped Apple develop part of the A5 chip that enables the iPhone to filter out background noise while you’re using Siri, but it seems Apple no longer needs its help.

Apple has begun prepping the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco for the iPhone 5’s grand unveiling on September 12. Now that the Cupertino company has sent out invitations for the much-anticipated event, it has started decorating the venue with its logo, while exterior banners are expected to go up later today.

Apple cut its order for memory chips slated to go into the upcoming iPhone 5, according to a report at Reuters this evening. Citing a “source with direct knowledge of the matter,” the report says that while the South Korean chip manufacturer is still on the list as an initial supplier of memory chips for the new iPhone model, but that Apple continues to decrease its reliance on Samsung as a chip supplier.

Apple will be holding its highly anticipated iPhone 5 event this coming Wednesday, and the new iPhone is expected to go one sale Friday, September 21st. According to a new rumor, Apple will finally drop the iPhone 3GS and make the iPhone 4 its cheaper, entry-level model.

The 3GS was introduced back in 2009, and the phone is still offered 3 years later for free with a two-year carrier contract. With the introduction of iOS 6, the 3GS will be so outdated that it only makes sense for Apple to give it the boot.

Have you ever broken your iPhone 4 or 4S’s glass? Felt that it was Steve Jobs’s fault for sucking you into his reality distortion field and convincing you that the iPhone 4’s glass was thirty times harder than plastic? Angry enough to want to try to sue?

Tough. A San Jose federal judge has just thrown out a class action lawsuit over the strength of the glass in the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

Apple devices currently account for over half of all mobile web traffic in the U.S. and Canada, according to Chitika. During August 2012, Apple’s share of web traffic on mobile devices grew from 63.75% to 65.03%. Samsung trails behind at a distant second place with a 12.47% share.

“With the iPhone and iPad, Apple dominates the mobile market when it comes to web usage,” reports Chitika. “The company had another stellar month, and now its devices generate over 65% of all mobile traffic.”

When Apple switches over to a smaller 9-pin Dock Connecter for the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, all your existing cables, chargers and accessories won’t work without an adapter. According to a new report, you won’t just be able to pick up that adapter anywhere: only Apple will sell them, in packs of one or three.