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We just heard that Apple plans to announce the next iPhone, iPod lineup, and iPad mini at an event on September 12th, and now more rumors have surfaced regarding Apple’s iPhone and iPad roadmap, including the iPad 4 and some new cases.

While Apple is expected to ship the iPad mini by November, it’s currently unclear if the smaller tablet will ship at the same time as the iPhone 5 or not. The next major version of the current iPad is rumored to be a more of an evolutionary upgrade to the third-gen iPad, and Apple is expected to implement the same smaller dock connector that will be in the new iPhone.

The Samsung vs. Apple legal brouhaha has been a pretty tedious story to cover up until now, but over the last week, those of who with a professional interest in paying attention to the bickering were finally rewarded when Apple started coughing up images of their early iPhone prototypes in the court filings.

On Saturday, though, in preparation for the start of today’s trial, Apple released a new filing with dozens of sketches, prototypes and 3D models of early iPhone prototypes. We’ve seen some of them before, but a lot of them are new, and one thing that is abundantly clear is that back in 2006, Apple has already thought out every possible shape an iPhone could be.

We’ve put together a gallery below of all of Apple’s iPhone prototypes, culling the images from a longer slideshow from All Things D. Check it out: not only will you see iPhones that never made it in there, you’ll see the iPhone 3G, the iPhone 4 and even a longer iPhone that could be the iPhone 5!

Apple has just announced that OS X Mountain Lion is the most successful launch of Mac OS X ever, with over three million copies sold in four days.

“Just a year after the incredibly successful introduction of Lion, customers have downloaded Mountain Lion over three million times in just four days, making it our most successful release ever,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

Last year, Apple sold over 1 million copies of OS X Lion in the first day of release. It looks like Apple managed to not just match that rate, but exceed it with Mountain Lion.

Apple’s press release is after the jump. Have you updated to Mountain Lion yet?

September 21, 2012 is looking increasingly likely as the release date for the next-gen iPhone and upcoming iPad mini, as a new report from a trusted site pegs the date.

Rumors surrounding Apple’s next-gen iPhone are started to pick up steam leading up to the device’s rumored release this fall. We know that the sixth iPhone will probably have a 4-inch display, slimmer design, smaller dock connector, and launch before November.

Leaked snapshots of purported next-gen iPhone parts have surfaced in recent months, but nothing as complete and authentic-looking as a series of images published over the weekend.

Apple announced its intention this week to buy AuthenTec for about $355 million.

If approved, the acquisition will bring several things to Apple, including the acceleration of its mobile wallet initiative; good technology for encrypting data and content, such as movies; and patent protection for several areas of mobile security.

The biggest thing Apple gets out of this is probably a strong play for using biometrics for identity in general — for online and brick-and-mortar purchases, for logging into web sites and even for digital signatures.

And it doesn’t hurt that taking AuthenTec out of the game as an independent company will be devastating to nearly all of Apple’s biggest competitors, including Google and its Android partners, and Microsoft and its OEM hardware partners. 

Tonight during the Olympics, Apple aired several new Mac focused ads. The spots are drastically different than the kind of style Apple has been using in its TV ads for products like Siri and the iPad.

One features a man on a plane receiving assistance from a Genius with iMovie on his Mac, and another features a conversation between the same Genius and a customer who has just been tricked into buying “basically a Mac.” The third ad shows a scene in which a frantic dad explores iPhoto with a Genius.

Our Mountain Lion Megasode is here, and on this minty-new CultCast, we’ll tell you what we like, what we love, and which hidden features we’ve discovered in Apple’s new big kitty.

Plus, should you upgrade or do a clean install of Mountain Lion? We ponder that very question, then tell you when a clean install makes more sense and how to do it the right way on this all-new megasode.

Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new episodes right on your iPhone or iPad with Apple’s newly updated and freshly debugged Podcasts App.

Show notes up next!

The 2012 Olympic Games are set to kick off in less than 2 hours, so we wanted to make sure you had some apps and links to ensure you don’t miss a single lap, dive, punch, or round-off. You’ll find a list of the top apps and a few websites to keep you on track and in the game. Feel free to check them out, or if you have any other suggestions, throw them up in the comments. Now let the games begin!

If you’ve ever searched for a wallpaper in the Google Play Store, chances are you were met by a never ending list of results. That’s because the word “Wallpaper” just happens to be the number one most frequent word in an Android app title. In fact, 26,900 Android app titles contain the word “Wallpaper” according to a list compiled by app discovery site App Brain. App Brain decided to create the list after a similar one consisting of the top most frequent words used in iOS app titles was released by Appsfire.

Whenever Apple moves to purchase a company, you know they’ve got something up their sleeves, and it’s not hard to imagine the possibilities of their latest acquisition: maker of fingerprint sensor chips, AuthenTec.

In the picture above you can see two iPhone prototypes that Apple was working on way back in 2006. They provide an amazing glimpse of just how long the prototyping phases of iPhones can last, because the original iPhone didn’t come out till June 2007, and then the iPhone 4 wasn’t seen till 2010.

The prototype images come from court filings in the Samsung vs Apple legal proceedings where Samsung plans to argue that Apple ripped off Sony’s design as inspiration for the iPhone. In fact, a few of the renders for the iPhone 4 like device have the Sony logo on them as you can see below:

After months of construction work on the old Banco Espanol de Credito building on Passeig de Gracia, Apple has today taken the wraps off of its new flagship retail store in Barcelona, Spain. Cult of Mac has exclusive first pics from the scene.

It’s hard to believe that it was just a little more than a year ago that Apple released OS X Lion. Only twelve months later, and we’re now staring right down the maw of Apple’s ninth major release of Mac OS X: Mountain Lion.

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion signifies a new approach on Apple’s part towards OS X updates: instead of going years between major releases, Cupertino is trying to take the rapid release approach that has worked so well for them with iOS and apply it to the Mac.

Mountain Lion, then, feels in many ways less like OS X 10.8 than OS X 10.7.5: a smaller, more tightly focused update continuing what OS X Lion started, taking iOS’s best ideas and bringing them to Mac.

Thanks to major breakthrough features like iCloud syncing, Notification Center, Sharing, AirPlay Mirroring and more, there’s less of a distinction in Mountain Lion between the Mac and iOS than ever. But is that a good thing, and how will it change the way you use your Mac?

Earlier this month, I wrote an opinion piece that put forward a number of reasons why Microsoft’s new Surface tablet may have a surprising impact on the iPad. That was based on the assumption that the Surface would be priced competitively — like Microsoft said it would be.

But according to one European retailer, the entry-level slate running Windows RT — not full Windows 8 — will be priced from 6990 kr (Swedish Krona), which is approximately $1,013. If this is correct, Microsoft is wasting its time on releasing the Surface, and Apple needn’t worry about it stealing any of the iPad’s market share.

The year is 2012, and the March of the Big Cats continues. Apple is about to release Mountain Lion, the latest iteration of (Mac) OS X, and citizens of the Appleverse are eager to explore what this new feline has to offer. How far we’ve come in just over a decade.

Back in 2001 Apple introduced their new, long awaited replacement to the Classic Macintosh System Software: Mac OS X. As Mountain Lion goes on the prowl, Cult of Mac reviews the Evolution of OS X and once again presents our look back at Apple’s Big Cats over the years – from Cheetah and Puma through to Apple’s current Felidae offerings.

Mountain Lions are magnificent beasts. Sure, they’re not as huge as a real lion, or as exotic as tigers with their fancy stripes, but that doesn’t mean they’re not as cool. In fact, Mountain Lions are vicious killing machines and cuddly at the same time. Plus, they jump like really high. We love these big cute cats, so to celebrate the launch of OS X Mountain Lion, here are 15 reasons why mountain lions are awesome:

Apple only sells OS X Mountain Lion as a digital download in the Mac App Store. The installer weighs in at a hefty 4.05GB, but the good news is that you can install your copy of Mountain Lion on all of your Macs for no extra charge. Technically, the Mountain Lion installer can be used on an infinite number of Macs once you have it; you just need to make a bootable disk or drive.

See, the Mountain Lion installer is set to self-destruct once it’s used. When your Mac reboots running Mountain Lion, the installer will be gone and you’ll have to re-download it if you want to use it again. Another reason to create a bootable copy of Mountain Lion is if you want to do a clean install. Apple’s installer will keep your files and personal setup intact while installing Mountain Lion, but a bootable disk will allow you to erase your Mac and start completely anew.

The good news is that creating a bootable disk or USB drive of Mountain Lion is pretty simple.

Now that Apple has released OS X Mountain Lion into the wild, millions of Mac users have a shiny new operating system to play with. If you haven’t been closely following our Mountain Lion coverage over the past several months, you may not know some of the marquee features Apple has added in its latest Mac OS.

But you’re in luck! Whether you just need a Mountain Lion refresher or you’re getting a glimpse of it for the first time, we’ve got 10 killer features for you to check out first.

Apple’s latest jungle cat is called Mountain Lion, and the new version of OS X is available as a $20 purchase in the Mac App Store. If you’ve updated to a new version of OS X before, you know that getting everything in order isn’t always as easy as Apple makes it out to be. In this how-to guide, Cult of Mac will show you how to get your Mac ready to install OS X Mountain Lion the right way.

Apple has updated its iWork suite (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) with Retina graphics for the new MacBook Pro and iCloud documents for OS X Mountain Lion. Documents in the Cloud allows you to access and manage synced documents across the iOS and OS X versions of the iWork apps. The functionality is baked into TextEdit and Preview in Mountain Lion, and Apple lets developers build iCloud document support into third-party apps as well.

Another Mountain Lion feature, Dictation, is also available when using the iWork suite. Like Siri on iOS, you can speak into your Mac’s mic and have your voice transcribed automatically.

The new versions of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers don’t appear to be live in the Mac App Store yet, but we’ll update this post when they are available. [Update: They’re out!] Sadly, iWork hasn’t received a major upgrade since 2009.

Apple has released OS X Mountain Lion for $19.99 in the Mac App Store. The OS comes with over 200 new features, including added iCloud integration, Messages, Reminders, Notes, Notification Center, Power Nap, Dictation, Sharing sheets, Twitter integration, AirPlay Mirroring, Game Center, Gatekeeper, Safari improvements, and more.

Apple revealed its ninth desktop operating system to the world on February 16, 2012, and Mountain Lion has been in developer beta since. The final GM version of the Mountain Lion beta was seeded to developers on July 9th.

Cult of Mac’s full review of Mountain Lion will be published in the next couple of hours, but for now, stay tuned to Cult of Mac for breaking coverage of Mountain Lion all day.

You can purchase and download OS X Mountain Lion now in the Mac App Store.

Beyond the numbers, there were some tantalizing tidbits about Apple and the company’s future plans during today’s quarterly financial call. While nothing quite lived up to Tim Cook comparing Windows 8 to someone trying to converge a toaster and a refrigerator into a single device during the last call, there were several choice comments.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer presented the results of the company’s spring 2012 quarter. The quarter included extensive growth for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac product lines though iPod sales declined 10% from the same quarter a year ago.

Here are the financial numbers delivered during the call.

As part of Apple’s Q3 earnings press release today, CEO TIm Cook has announced that OS X Mountain Lion will be launching tomorrow, available only in the Mac App Store.

We’re thrilled with record sales of 17 million iPads in the June quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we’ve got in the pipeline.

OS X Mountain Lion is set to cost $19.99, down from the previous $29.99 for OS X Lion and Snow Leopard.

Source: Apple