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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 … Read more

People are downright salivating for a new iPhone, and it looks like the wait is very nearly over.

A buzzy report from All Things Digital this week pointed to October 4 --which is now less than a week and a half away--as the day Apple plans to take the wraps off the next version of the device, with a release to follow a few weeks later.

There's one hiccup with that plan, however, which is that both the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Moscone Center (which are Apple's usual places for product launches outside of … Read more

Welcome to the second edition of Apple Talk Weekly, a look back at the week's top Apple news and rumors, along with answers to your Apple questions.

The big news this week--besides Apple successfully nabbing a legal injunction that keeps Samsung from selling its Galaxy tablet in the European Union--was Apple pushing past Exxon Mobil to become the most valuable company by market capitalization. That happened on Tuesday, with the two companies swapping places several times. Exxon eventually closed the day back on top, only to have Apple take back the crown the very next day. Since then, the … Read more

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Apple Talk Weekly, where we take a step back and bring together some of the big news, along with rumors big and small from the past week.

This week was a busy one on the road to Apple's big cloud revamp, and if you weren't paying close attention it was easy to miss. Ahead of the official launch of iCloud, Apple's new Web site for it went live, but only to developers. The company also unearthed how much it would be charging for extra iCloud storage.

And with the rumor mill … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer e-mailed questions from our readers. This week we have questions on replacing the proper backup to use before upgrading OS X, how to determine the bitness of your processor, options for resizing Finder columns, and managing permissions for centralized iTunes libraries. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present a few answers here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Proper backup before upgrading OS X MacFixIt reader "Marija" asks:

Keeping items organized within a Finder window is obviously useful and is a reason why Apple has made the Finder simple and straightforward with options to show items in lists, columns, and snapped to a grid in icon views. While these various views should keep items so you can quickly access them, sometimes items may jump around and change locations.

When this happens, it usually is because of a combination of view settings. If you show items in any view, you have the option to arrange or sort them by various file attributes. The default is to use the file … Read more

Swift Publisher is a low-cost desktop publishing program that's perfect for graphic-design neophytes who need to produce simple documents such as posters, letterhead, cards, and fliers.

Fitting for a beginner-friendly app, Swift Publisher launches with an assistant that gives you access to more than 100 different templates, in categories that include brochures, catalogs, and newsletters, with handy thumbnail previews that let you browse through your options. Once you're into a new document, Swift Publisher gives you plenty of easy editing options, from altering text to changing backgrounds and inserting photos (either your own, or using a built-in library … Read more

Savage Love is the companion app to the popular syndicated sex-advice column of the same name, providing easy access to Dan Savage's columns, podcasts (aka Lovecasts), video clips, and a regularly updated Question of the Day.

The app has a clean, easy-to-read interface, opening on the current Question of the Day ("QotD") above separate tabs for previous QotDs, a search tool (letting you search through hundreds of old Savage Love columns), a list of Lovecasts (with every Lovecast ever), and a big set of browsable tags--everything from Boobs and Bonobos to Sexual Compatibility and Snowballing. You can … Read more

I recently finished working on a project that generated a dozen separate reports published together in a single booklet. Each report was from three to eight pages long, and most of them included at least one table or chart.

When we were done, several of my co-workers commented on how nicely the reports were laid out. All I had done was create a Word template with a simple two-column layout for long text sections.

To create this template, open a new document, type a dummy document title on the first line, choose a font type and size (I used 12-point … Read more