Apple’s sales momentum throughout the year is having a significant impact on revenues of its touch panel suppliers, with the Cupertino-based company submitting orders for sensors at nearly half the price in the past,Digitimes reports, citing industry sources. With Apple lowering its smartphone prices ahead of the launch of its next-generation iPhone, referred to by many as the ‘iPhone 5’, touch panel shipments have boosted orders but Apple’s low quotes have begun to affect the profitability of Taiwan’s component manufacturers....

Apple’s carrier partners have been seeded a ‘near-final’ build of the iOS 5 software destined for the iPhone 5 when it launches later this year,reports 9to5Mac. The new build has several additional features enabled including Facetime over 3G and the speech-to-text features that we have previously talked about. The carrier partners have been instructed to test Facetime over 3G extensively, raising hopes that iPhone users will soon be able to use Facetime anywhere they have a data connection....

It was a sunny but windy Tuesday morning in Brighton and the first day of Update Conference, an event that’s primary focus is mobile design and development, along with plenty of discussion. Attendees were sipping their free coffee, quietly discussing the sessions that they were most excited by and in the corner of the break area sat a man, easily the oldest person in the room, talking quietly with a local reporter....

Despite strong shipment growth of 55% in the next year, Apple’s iPad is expected to face increased competition in 2012 with non-Apple tablet shipments forecast to grow 134%, according to a report byDigitimes. Shipments of Android tablets are expected to more than double in 2012, helped by the launch of Google’s new Android operating system Ice Cream Sandwich. Android tablet shipments are expected to increase from around 20 million units in 2011 to 45 million units in 2012, while Apple’s iPad shipments are expected to rise from 35 million units to 55 million units in the next year....

Apple’s Covent Garden store was subjected to another attack by opportunist thieves early Monday morning after a gang of around 7 moped riders raided Apple’s new retail presence with the intention of plundering Mac laptops, iPads and iPhones. News outlets are reporting that two members of the gang have already been arrested, with Robert Shoesmith – famous for his iPhone 5 experiment, in which he camps outside of the store waiting for the release of the company’s next iPhone handset – just metres away from the incident when it happened....