Updates

Vodafone now has a teaser page up on their site for what we'd imagine is the iPhone 5. They're advertising it as "this year's biggest smartphone release" so we can only assume it's a placeholder for whatever iPhone Apple is rumored to announce on October 4th.

The page also gives subscribers the option to sign up for e-mail updates on the mystery phone. Hopefully we are only a few days away from hearing about an announcement and a few weeks away from an actual announcement. How many of you still think we'll see a new iPhone available before the end of October?

With rumors that Apple might be exploring over-the-air (OTA) updates for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch in iOS 5, we're going to take the opportunity to go over how OTA updates work, what the advantages and disadvantages are (there's always a mix of both), and why they should matter to you.

For the answer, follow on after the break.

Today Apple released both iOS 4.3.2 and iOS 4.2.7. The first was for almost all iOS devices except the Verizon iPhone. The second was for the Verizon iPhone. Like iPad last year, which shipped with iOS 3.2 and didn't unify with the rest of the iOS family until iOS 4.2, the Verizon iPhone shipped with iOS 4.2.5/4.2.6 and won't unify with the rest of the iOS family until some future update, perhaps not until iOS 5/5.x.

Yet despite this fragmentation -- or more properly bifurcation -- of the iOS software, Apple still delivered both updates at the same time, across the world, and across both major US carriers, AT&T and Verizon.

We're shifting our focus from iOS 4 compatibility updates to any iPhone or iPad app or game, new or updated, that seems especially awesome.   So if you guys see anything you think deserves some special attention, let us know in the comments and we'll look at including it in a future roundup!  Continue on to see what we found this time!