Alexander Vaughn

With preorders for the iPhone 4S launching today, and new multi-carrier availability including Sprint, AT&T and Verizon, you might be wondering which carrier is offering the best deal when it comes to plans.

In Steve's honor, a lot of apps have gone free today. Here are some of the most interesting ones.

We are deeply saddened to announce to you today the death of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple at the age of 56.

Another tidbit from yesterday's iPhone 4S announcement is that the next generation iPhone comes with the new and improved Bluetooth 4.0 standard. You might not care much about Bluetooth right now, but it's bigger than you think if used properly.

As you know, one of the key new features of the iPhone 4S is its incredible camera. Indeed, it's not only faster, but packs an 8MP sensor, a larger 2.4 aperture, and an amazing IR filter that will make colors look better than ever. Many of you have been asking to see how it performs, and Apple complied by posting some unedited first shots.

This week's shot of AppAdvice Podcast goodness comes right on the heels of Apple's special event. In today's episode, Mahmoud Hafez and me go over everything that Apple announced, what we think about it, and some other interesting anecdotes about iOS and the iPhone.

If you enjoyed Infinity Blade on the iPhone and iPad, you'll be thrilled to hear that Epic announced, at Apple's presentation earlier today, that a new sequel will be released soon.

Today, Apple is unveiling the next iPhone and as usual, it's going to be a wild, wild day. Since many of you have been asking us, we'd like clarify a bit what will be happening here today, and where to follow what.

Tomorrow at 10 a.m. PDT, Tim Cook will be taking the stage for the first time as Apple's CEO. Not only will he be filling Steve Jobs' extremely large shoes, but he's due to announce the newest version of the most highly expected, hyped and popular mobile phone in the industry; the iPhone 5. This device will be replacing the previous model, the iPhone 4, which has been the most popular iPhone Apple has ever made, and it hasn't been updated in 15 months.

Bad news for those of you who were hoping to watch tomorrow's iPhone event online as if you were there. According to 9to5Mac, who claims to have it from Apple's PR directly, Apple won't be streaming tomorrow's event live on the Web as it did last year.

We have bad news, folks. It seems like the many rumors suggesting that Apple will be unveiling a slightly improved iPhone 4S comes Tuesday, rather than a brand new shiny iPhone 5, might actually be correct.

We know how much you love, or will love, the AppAdvice podcast and we can't blame you. In this week's third beta edition, we discuss many great things, from Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet, to the unbelievable expectations we have for Apple's iPhone event next week.

The folks from Swissinfo, the neutral Swiss broadcasting corporation have launched a new universal version of their app today, to promote Swiss TV and radio content across the iPhone and iPad, as well as Android.

Confirming earlier rumors, Apple announced this morning that they will be holding a special media event next Tuesday, October 4 at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California.

Remember the amazing secret Facebook app for the iPad we told you about, and showed you this summer? Well, you might never see it.

It has been a couple of months since 9to5Mac began teasing us with information on an unreleased "Assistant" feature for iOS that Apple is keeping warm for the launch of the iPhone 5. Born from Apple's acquisition of Siri, the personal assistant app, and an alliance with Nuance, the new Assistant feature is rumored to be very similar, but built right into iOS and with more options. Today, in a well-timed post, 9to5Mac details what they claim is everything they know about it.

Following CableVision and Time Warner, it's now Comcast's turn to work on a live TV offering for your iPad.

If you've been one of the lucky few to beta test Apple's upcoming iCloud music matching and distribution service, "iTunes Match," you're going to have to go through the whole installation process come Monday, as Apple is preparing to reset it.

More big news in social networking today: as promised earlier this week, Google has updated the Google+ iPhone app and finally gave it the ability to access hangouts, Google's amazing 10 way video conference feature for your iDevice.

While Apple still hasn't even announced the iPhone 5 yet (very likely featuring a dual-core A5 processor), it seems they are already well on their way to preparing for the following generation.

Being a Gmail power user has always been a bit of a challenge in iOS. Because of the many shortcomings of the native iOS mail app in its ability to deal with Gmail, and all its labeling goodness, the Gmail Web app has always been a promising alternative. Today, this becomes even more of a reality thanks to some great new features that Google has added to the app.

An interesting tidbit was picked up by 9to5Mac, from today's Senate Judiciary hearing, when former Google official Suzanne Michel testified.

There might not be much to it, as we're all expecting Apple to announce one or more iPhones come October 4, but we now have information from someone who might just know a bit more about it than we do; Apple board member, Al Gore.

Ever since the WWDC, Apple has been very discreet about Newsstand and what it really will be like. This week, Apple finally released, to some developers, a special FAQ document detailing how the feature will work and affect them. We have received a copy of these details, here they are.