2012 is going to be an exciting year for Apple. Already, unnamed sources and analysts no one has heard of before are coming out with tall tales of what Apple products are going to be released and what market Apple is going to take over. Yet, who better to peer into the misty and unknown future than the writers at Appletell who have been following Apple for years?

Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” event is currently going on, and they’ve just announced that iOS 5 will be available as a free update October 12th. The new OS features tabbed browsing in Safari, syncing between all iOS devices (save once, read anywhere), Game Center updates (photos of your friends, achievement points, etc.), camera enhancements such as a lock screen shortcut and volume button shutter release, and plenty more.

Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” media event is just around the corner—finally—and as always, Appletell will be live blogging the event right here. After months of speculation regarding what’s next for the iPhone and when we’ll be seeing iOS 5, we’ll all finally know where this month’s paycheck will be going. To the iPhone 5? An iPhone 4S? Find out right here October 4th at 10:00 a.m. PT, 1:00 p.m. ET.

Rumors surrounding tomorrow’s Apple media event for the iPhone have been fairly mundane this time around. There has been little of substance, and what we have seen has been largely unimaginative. Will there be an iPhone 5, or just an upgraded iPhone 4S? Is iOS 5 here, or are we still a couple months away? We’ll find out tomorrow, but in the meantime you can you catch up on all the speculation right here.

Looks like the next-generation iPhone(s) announcement is right around the corner, as Apple has started officially sending out invitations to an iPhone media event on October 4th at 10 a.m. PST, exactly one week from today. The tagline on the invitations is “Let’s talk iPhone.” Simple, yet effectively affirming this event will heavily focus on the iPhone.

Rumors of an iPhone 5 Apple event have been circulating for a while, but we haven’t had any concrete evidence of when will Apple will be holding the event…until now. According to AllThingsD.com, Apple will unveil it’s new iPhone by October 4th, and it will be made available for purchase a few weeks after the announcement.

BGR says that according to their trusted sources, iOS 5 beta 8 will be released this Friday, September 16th, followed by the gold master on September 23rd. We are just about due for a new beta, so this theory seems on target with other rumors swirling around the blogosphere for an iPhone october launch date. This announcement is the next best thing to getting an actual release date for iOS 5, since a “golden master,” in software terms, is essentially the finished product.

With all of the rumors surrounding the next-generation iPhone(s), the ones regarding an iPhone code-named “N94″ are seemingly confirmed. This iPhone has gained a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ID of BCG-E2430A. The N94 iPhone is expected to be an “iPhone 4S,” so to speak, rather than a completely revamped iPhone 5. The two are rumored to be released simultaneously, marking the first time Apple has done so.

Three new software updates for developers released by Apple yesterday include another OS X 10.7.2 build (now at build 11C43), iCloud for Lion beta 9, and iPhoto 9.2 beta 3. It is quite surprising to see another build of OS X 10.7.2, as quite a few of them have already been released. The new OS X 10.7.2 build lists no known issues and asks for developers to focus their testing strictly on Time Machine, the Mac App Store, Mail, Spotlight, Airport, GraphicsDrivers, AppKit, iCal, and iChat.

The recent release of iOS 5 beta 3 has brought an exciting new feature to the mobile OS, known as AirPlay mirroring. This new feature allows users to wirelessly mirror things like FaceTime chats from an iDevice to a larger screen on an AirPlay-enabled device such as an HDTV. Although the AirPlay mirroring feature doesn’t seem perfect yet as the video quality is nowhere near great (iOS 5 is still in beta, so this is justified), it’s likely that improvements will be made before iOS 5 makes its way to the public this fall.