Next week, next iPhone? (Apple Talk Weekly)

Next week the rumors, the speculation, and the curiosity come to an end. Or at least that's the hope.

Apple on Tuesday is holding an event at its campus with the tag line "Let's talk iPhone." It's been more than a year since the last iPhone came out, and the event is expected to bring a full unveiling of its successor.

Along with the iPhone, next week's event should give us full details, if not the formal release, of iOS 5 as well as iCloud, the latter being the company's backup and synchronization service. Both got their debut in June during WWDC with the promise of a release this fall.

We'll be there to cover the news live, as it happens. Look for more details on how to view our live coverage in the coming days. Now, as usual, here's a wrap up of some of this week's big Apple news and rumors to get you all caught up.

News of the week

Apple sets Oct. 4 as date for iPhone event

As mentioned above, Apple sent out its invites to select press bright and early Tuesday morning, a week from when the event is being held. The invite features a cluster of four iOS icons and the tag line "Let's talk iPhone" (see above). The move is a departure to last year, when Apple took the wraps off a new iPhone at its annual developers conference in San Francisco. This time around, the event is being held at its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.

iPod click wheel games disappear from the iTunes Store 

You might remember that not too long before the App Store, Apple began selling games through iTunes for its click wheel iPods. Even since the popularity of Apple's touch-screen iPods and the iPhone and iPad, those games have remained. But as noted by AppleInsider, Apple quietly removed them from the iTunes Store earlier this week, prompting speculation that the click wheel sporting iPod Classic is well and truly on its way out.

Apple denied Multi-Touch Trademark

A filing picked up on this week by MacRumors shows that the United States Patent and Trademark Office denied Apple's application to trademark the term "Multi-Touch," the technology that registers multiple touches at once on touch-screen devices. The filing says the mark was denied for simply describing the feature and not backing up the application with proof that consumers associate the term with Apple. The application itself goes back to when Apple first introduced the iPhone in 2007, which made use of multi-touch in apps like viewing photos and navigating through maps.

New European countries get iTunes Stores

Apple's iTunes Store expanded into new territory this week. As noted by MacRumors on Wednesday, Apple's iTunes Music Store launched in a number of new countries, including Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.

Court sides with Apple in Mac clone case

An appeals court this week sided with Apple against Mac clone maker Psystar for infringing on its copyrights. You might remember that as the company that began offering custom-built PCs running Apple's Mac OS X. Apple filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Psystar for doing that in 2008, winning in a ruling a year later. Apple was also awarded a permanent injunction against Psystar, keeping the company from selling any hardware.

Rumors of the week

Next iPhone to sport 1GB RAM, voice assistant

A new rumor roundup of sorts from 9to5mac this week claimed Apple's next iPhone will sport 1GB of RAM as well as a substantially more complex voice-recognition control system that lets users navigate about the phone as well as launch apps with their voice. Apple has long been rumored to be working on such efforts given its pick-up of Siri and its voice-activated assistant application last year. Macrumors piled on, providing mock-ups of what the system is said to look like, as well as a video of how it works.

New iPhones, iPods in Apple's inventory system

Citing new information from "Mr. X," a frequent leaker of Apple product numbers, 9to5mac this week reported that two new iPhones have appeared in the company's inventory system alongside three new iPod Touch models. Before getting too excited, the blog suggests the iPods could just be white versions of existing models, with the iPhones being a low capacity model of the iPhone 4 aimed at budget-conscious buyers.

iPad shipments cut 25 percent? Not so fast

A report from a J.P. Morgan Chase analyst made waves at the beginning of the week, suggesting that Apple cut fourth-quarter iPad shipments by 25 percent, a signal sales of the device might be slowing. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster disputed the idea, suggesting any drop in Apple's iPad production in Asia could be due to a ramp up in iPad production in Brazil.

A lost Foxconn iPhone 5 prototype the cause for case designs?

What's up with that bevy of iPhone 5 cases that have popped up in the last few months? Well, according to a new report, you can blame that on a prototype of the device that went missing earlier this year. Blog M.I.C. Gadget said that while visiting Shenzhen, China, last week, it heard from an "iPhone accessories supplier" that a prototype of the device had gone missing from Foxconn's factory in that area. The tipster alleged that the device had then been sold to case makers who were eager to get a head start on production.

iPod Classic and Shuffle to be discontinued?

The non-touch based version of the iPod's taken a back seat to the iPhone for years now, but people are still snapping up millions of them each quarter. Nonetheless, that number's long been in decline. A new report from TUAW this week suggested Apple plans to trim some of the fat by shelving its two non-touch-screen based iPods: the Classic and the Shuffle. Following the quiet removal of iPod click wheel games from iTunes this week, this rumor certainly becomes a whole lot more interesting.

See also my colleague Donald Bell's take on why it might not be a bad time to kill off the product that helped turn Apple into a consumer tech giant.

Patent of the week

A 2010 application published this week points to some interesting video stabilization technology Apple is seeking to patent.

The filing, picked up by Patently Apple, is for "accelerometer/gyro-facilitated video stabilization." In short, it details a system for making use of the accelerometer and/or gyroscope to track when shaking is happening during video recordings. The patent then describes a system for selectively running that data stream through any stabilization process to smooth out just the bits that register with lots of shakes.

Apple already offers stabilization in its video editing software, including both iMovie and Final Cut Pro X. The first Apple portable hardware to ship with both an accelerometer and a gyro was last year's iPhone 4, though the patent suggests the system could be used in other portable devices like handheld video cameras and portable computers.

iPhone 5 to launch in early September, report says

Hang on to your hats, because there's another rumored release date for Apple's next-generation iPhone.

The latest comes from the China Times (translation), which says that Apple plans to produce 4 million units of the device following a production run of 400,000 test units. That's all to ready the device for a release in the

second week of September.

Other tidbits from the report, which was picked up this morning by Macrumors, include Apple purportedly working to ready another version of the iPad to bring to market "before Thanksgiving." That would give Apple a late-year product launch that--as the last two iPad launches have proven--would make for a tough-to-get gadget during the frenzied holiday shopping season.

The China Times report has some weight in terms of timing. Apple has made a habit of holding its annual iPod-focused music event in September, usually during that first or second week of the month. Apple has also promised to release iOS 5 in "the fall," which officially begins a few weeks later.

Turning to CNET's lovingly updated iPhone 5 rumor roundup, this is the latest in a series of September mentions, the earliest being a Reuters report saying that the new device would be ready to go by then. In early May, Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek weighed in, saying something akin to an iPhone 3GS-like update would be hitting store shelves in September. That was followed just a few days later by a Digitimes report, echoing the same timeline and noting that it would be an incremental update.

In late June, a Bloomberg report said that a new iPhone would be hitting in September to coincide with iOS 5's debut. Digitimes followed, saying Apple had actually placed an order for 15 million of the devices in time for a September release, well above what China Times is now reporting. All this was topped off with a U.K. job posting earlier this month looking to staff up iPhone sales specialists for Apple's retail stores to work from mid-August through the end of October for "an exciting project." Two separate reports from Macrumors and Boy Genius Report later noted that Apple and AT&T were readying employees for something big right around that same time.

As for an iPad 2 follow-up this year, this is not the first such murmur. A report from Digitimes at the start of this month said Apple was pulling together materials to start work on an iPad follow-up, in time for an October release. Days later, blog This is my next chimed in, claiming Apple was planning to launch an HD model of the iPad aimed at the high-end market, sporting a display with double the resolution that could run pro-level photo and video applications. That model was said to be launching in the fall, alongside a new iPhone.

Got all that?

Apple has released a new iPhone every year since unleashing the original model on June 29, 2007. The latest, the iPhone 4, is now more than a year old. The company reported sales of 20.34 million iPhones in its most recent fiscal quarter, which was up from 18.65 million units the quarter before. While Apple doesn't break out those sales in terms of the differing models, it did say that it's now up to 220 million iOS devices total.

Apple to add build-to-order Mac options to 'Apple Store' iOS app - rumor

A new report claims that Apple plans to update its "Apple Store" retail app on iOS to include support for build-to-order Mac purchases during its retail overhaul this weekend.

MacRumors notes that, according to sources, Apple plans to revamp its Apple Store application for iOS devices alongside other planned upgrades to its online and brick-and-mortar retail operations. Sources indicated that the updated app will debut on Sunday "with full support for customizing build-to-order Macs" identical to the range of options available through the Apple online store.

The current Apple Store app supports only stock configurations and a few options such as AppleCare and

One to One. After the upgrade, customers will reportedly be able to customized processor, memory, hard drive and other hardware options for each model, as well as select software titles for reinstallation.

Apple has planned a series of major updates to both online and in-store procedures that are set to take place this Sunday, May 22. On Friday, the Mac maker took the order status feature on its website offline until Sunday in order to update its systems.

On Wednesday, AppleInsider reported that Apple has begun amassing iPads that will run an updated version of the company's in-house RetailMe software and will be distributed to retail employees. According to numerous reports, Apple retail stores will hold both early morning and evening mandatory meetings to implement the changes on Sunday.

Apple first released a retail store application for iOS last June, allowing customers to browse and purchase Apple products and accessories, stay up to date with in-store events and make appointments for Genius Bar and One to One.

Last fall, Apple updated the Apple Store app to allow customers to check-in for appointments while at the company's retail locations. The company has also reportedly developed an internal Concierge application for iOS that allows retail employees to manage queues and appointments.