The last week has been filled with iPhone 5 news items that seem to be important markers on the way to the device’s highly-anticipated release this fall. 

First, we got confirmation from Reuters of the new, smaller Dock Connector that had been rumored for some time.  A pain for owners with many Dock Connector accessories, this update will nonetheless be a welcome one for fans of smaller cables.  USB 3.0?

Next, there was a series of photos, including the one above,  which iLab Factory purports to be of a fully assembled, ready to roll iPhone 5 production unit.  These photos aren’t fuzzy, sneaked shots of a prototype in a darkened closet, but full-on, high-res images of what looks to be a handset that matches every rumor and leak we’ve seen over the last few weeks.

And finally, iMore.com is reporting that Apple will announce the iPhone 5 – and perhaps the new “iPad mini” and next-gen iPod nano as well – on September 12, with new products shipping the following Friday, September 21 – the first day (though not full day) of fall.  This is the least reliable of the recent news regarding the 6th Generation iPhone, but it sounds right to us.  If true, there are just 44 days until we get our first official look at the hardware and are told how the design team at Apple started from scratch again to build the best phone ever.

Months after its announcement, Mac OS X Mountain Lion, aka v10.8, is now available for purchase in the Mac App Store.  Officially, we’re now supposed to call it OS X, not Mac OS X, but Apple’s naming scheme hasn’t exactly been tops in 2012…

It’s a $19 upgrade, which is great, and has a range of iOS inspired features including new Reminders and Notes apps, Messages for seamless conversation integration with Messages on the iPad and iPhone, a new Notification Center, speech-to-text dictation, and Game Center (yawn). There’s also easier file sharing, improved AirPlay and iCloud functionality, Power Nap which grabs new messages, photos, documents, software updates, etc., while your Mac sleeps, new Gatekeeper app security, Safari 6, and other tweaks and improvements. 

You can find a complete list of all 10.8 features here.

Not all Macs support this new OS X version.  Here’s a brief rundown of compatibility:

2007 or newer iMacs and MacBook Pros; 2008 Unibody MacBooks; 2008 or newer MacBook Airs and Mac Pros; 2009 or later Mac minis.

If you purchased a new Mac after June 10, 2012, you likely qualify for a free upgrade to Mountain Lion. Head to this page on the Apple site to see if you qualify.  Unfortunately, it’s not an automatic process; you have to submit a “claim” and wait for validation.  Not exactly Apple-smooth, but we’ll take it.

Yes, it’s taken far, far too long -  years, in fact – but we finally have a page on Facebook. We hope to build this into a fantastic tool for for our readers to submit questions and suggestions, share what they like in the world of iOS, Android and Windows Phone, and even comment on what’s going on at Pocket PC Central in general.

Our Facebook page is a little sparse at the moment, but we’ll be working in the coming days and weeks – hopefully with your help – to make it a much more useful destination.

You can find us here: http://facebook.com/PPCCentral