Apple teased the latest features in the upcoming OS X Lion operating system at WWDC early this month, but when it comes to a release date, the company has left us hanging. Now a new report claims that Lion will launch on July 19th… and will drag new MacBook Airs out to customers immeditely in its wake.

Late on a Friday summer afternoon when everyone’s about to get early cocktails, Apple goes and releases the new iOS 5 beta we’ve been waiting all week for.

iOS 5 Beta 2 is now available to registered developers. The build is 9A5248d.

As usual, there’s skimpy release notes; but it looks like WiFi syncing has been turned on.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjg8tmGC3O8&feature=player_embedded

Since iOS 5 was released two weeks ago, jailbreak tweak developers have been hard at work creating third-party widgets that can be integrated into the new Notification Center. The latest is called WeeTranslate, and offers a quick and easy way to access Google Translate on your iPhone.

This post has been updated with a note from the author at the end.

Apple released the first beta of iOS 5 after WWDC two weeks ago, and I’ve been using it on my iPhone 4 and iPad 2 ever since.

Is iOS 5 Beta 1 stable enough to use full-time? A lot of people have asked us this, and after trying for a few weeks, I can respond pretty authoritatively: not by half. Here’s our list of at least nine things that Apple needs to fix before iOS 5 beta is usable full time.

Android’s marketshare is on the decline for the first time ever. Phones based on Google’s mobile operating system hit a snag in March… and it’s likely to continue in the U.S. when the iPhone 5 is released in September, says one analyst.

Apple has decreased its order of the iPhone 4 in anticipation of the fifth-generation device, strengthening those rumors that claim a new iPhone will launch before the end of this year.

It’s been a bad year for RIM so far. Their BlackBerry business has been harried on all sides by the iPhone, and their stock has delated largely thanks to the arterial spray of customers they are losing to Apple.

Worse, in response to the iPad, RIM released the much heralded BlackBerry Playbook, which might just go down in the books as one of the worst, least functional and woefully misguided pieces of consumer technology ever.

Finally, just last week, Apple totally eliminated RIM’s sole advantage over iOS by announcing iMessage, which Wall Street is already saying will kill BlackBerry’s remaining prospects in enterprise.

Anyone surprised that RIM”s now announcing layoffs after seeing their first quarter results? I thought not.

Apple users are embracing the App Economy with abandon. Indeed, by 2015, income from apps will exceed that of iTunes music downloads, one analyst projects.

Here’s the handsome new login screen in the update to OS X Lion Developer Preview 4, that Apple released on Wednesday afternoon.

It’s a dark linen motif, and it’s used in several places in the Lion and iOS 5. We got  sneak peek of this color scheme during Steve Jobs’ presentation at WWDC. Now it has been rolled out to developers, and soon to the public. Who’s excited?

Here’s screenshots of some other new stuff in the update (Build number 11A494A). Lion is shaping up nicely:

Last night, Apple released Airport Utility 5.5.3, a minor bug release update for both Apple’s AirPort Extreme base stations as well as Time Capsule. More interesting, though, is reference within the update to incoming updates to Apple’s two wireless routers. Are these the iOS-running, A5-equipped Time Capsules we’ve been waiting for?