Butterscotch news

In anticipation of today's public launch of iOS 5, Apple has already made the new Find My Friends and Airport Utility apps available on the App Store.

The fact that iPhone and Android smartphones have gone head to head over a multibillion dollar market for the past couple of years shouldn't be news to anyone reading this blog. Nor should the fact that their respective mobile operating systems have challenged each other to develop and grow come as a surprise to anyone.

From humble beginnings in the family garage, Steve Jobs built an empire. He worked with partners to develop one of the first lines of personal computers and co-founded Apple, a company that has produced so many generation-shaping gadgets that to use the word "iconic" would be an understatement.

While the Mango update continues to roll out to Windows Phone customers it seems that the new Windows Phone 7.5 not only adds new features but also fixes an unwanted bug. The location information sharing issue that was discovered in the Camera application is now fixed. Yet like a game of Whack-a-Mole, the little bugger seems to have popped up elsewhere.

Were you hoping for an all-new iPhone 5 today? Unfortunately, it's not gonna happen. Apple execs just wrapped up their Let's Talk iPhone event where, as expected, only a refreshed iPhone 4 branded the "iPhone 4S" was unveiled.

Microsoft and Nokia are going to be going through an interesting phase of their relationship, for a number of reasons. This is primarily due to the fact that Windows Phone Mango edition has started to roll out to customers as of this week. It's also because Nokia devices running Mango will begin to hit the market soon. But it's really because many people are only now starting to hear about Meltemi, Nokia's proprietary mobile platform, which will henceforth be referred to as "the other woman."

SanDisk has just released an interesting new app (in beta) that backs up the contents of your SD card to the cloud, and it's free.

It has taken far longer than Microsoft expected (indeed, far longer than early adopters expected) but the Windows Phone update that was meant to bring WP up to competitive form against rivals Android and iOS is finally here. Earlier today Microsoft officially announced that Mango was being released to carriers and that users would soon be receiving the long-awaited update.

Apple has just made the rumored October 4th date for the next-gen iPhone announcement official by sending out invites to the event slated to kick off at 10 a.m. PT on Apple's own Cupertino campus in California.

In another scoop, TechCrunch is reporting that Amazon's long-rumored tablet will be unveiled on Wednesday morning... And the name of the Amazon tablet will be the Kindle Fire. Yes, it's an odd name, but then again so was iPad.

Late last week Microsoft secured several patents relating to swappable hardware modules for mobile devices. These modules could serve mobile phones as hardware keyboards, remote controls, controller pads for gaming, extra batteries or pretty much anything else, and could easily be swapped out depending on the need.

It looks like the decision to not play nice with Apple's App Store guidelines might not be hurting the Financial Times in the long run. In fact, according to a recent announcement from the publication, their new web app seems to be outperforming their iOS app.

If you have been following the rumors surrounding Apple's upcoming but yet to be announced next-gen iPhone(s), you would know the latest reports have Apple's big unveiling slated for October 4. It hasn't been until today, however, that we've had any type of confirmation on the potential branding for the next-gen device.

Microsoft has stunned mobile industry followers and fans of its own mobile OS, Windows Phone, by finally announcing a solid date for the release of its much-anticipated update, Mango. Through the Windows Phone blog Eric Hautala, General Manager for Customer Experience Engineering, confirmed that Mango would be arriving in one week... or two. Either way, that's less than or equal to 14 days from yesterday's post date, so that means it's really on its way.

Activities and Fragments. Get used to that vocabulary, Android developers. The Android Developers Blog has released a post suggesting that Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), the next version of the Android OS, is coming soon.

Instagram is by far one of our favorite photo manipulation/sharing apps on the iPhone. While the experience of applying one the app's many vintage or moody filters has always been a cinch, it's even more enjoyable with the many enhancements included in version 2.0.

The students of Zeeland, Michigan, have had an interesting start to the year. That's because those students who are in high school -- close to 2,000 residents of the small city -- have been given access to iPads to aid in their studies as the whole school board makes changes to adapt.

From the Australian Business Traveller comes word that Boeing has chosen Android for its in-flight entertainment system. Well, at least for its 787 Dreamliner aircraft that's in production.

After technology insider Robert Scoble posted a small note about Google "working on a Flipboard competitor" for both Android and iOS, AllThingsD found out the name of the project is Google Propeller and it's supposed to be "mind-blowing good."

After purchasing 1,030 patents from IBM in July, and 17,000 patents from Motorola last month, Google has purchased a further 1,022 patents from IBM.