I find it funny that even with everything happening at CES in Las Vegas this week one announcement from Apple about an event next week and the entire tech news world shifts forces to them. Sorry CES, nobody seems to care all that much about you.

To what event am I referring? Well, as I mentioned last week, Apple was rumored to be planning an education-related event for sometime in January. As you can see from the pic above, they’ve now sent out invitations to said event and it’s definitely scheduled for the 19th of this month.

Now that we know the event is education-related does that mean Apple is announcing a new textbook initiative with major publishers to bring school books to the iPad? I think it might. I also think we might see a bit more during this event such as new publishers added to the magazines available in the Newsstand app as well as some new publishers added to iBooks.

Sadly, I would doubt Apple will also announces a new iPad next week. I think they will wait on that one for another month or two. Of course, whatever happens we will find it all out come January 19. Should be interesting.

It’s only the first real work day back from the New Year’s holiday (aka January 3rd) and already speculation about Apple and its upcoming products is well underway. This time around that speculation is directed at a media event insider sources are saying will take place in New York at the end of this month.

According to AllThingsD, the event won’t be centered around an iPad 3 announcement or have anything to do with a the television Apple is supposedly developing. In fact, as the event will reportedly be hosted by Apple’s Senior VP of Internet Software Eddy Cue, it’s much more likely it will concern publishing or advertising.

That’s probably a pretty good bet considering New York is still regarded as the advertising and publishing capital of these United States. Let’s assume, based on this info, the event will center on publishing and advertising.

That means we might expect an announcement about new magazines joining Apple’s Newsstand initiative or maybe we can look forward to an updated app that combines iBooks and Newsstand into one, much like Amazon does with its Kindle app for iOS. That would be nice.

Whatever ends up being announced, you can be sure some people will be happy and others will lament that the event wasn’t all about a brand new iPad 3. Rest assured people, Apple will release an iPad 3. It’s just a matter of time.

Until then, try to enjoy your iPad 2 and remember there are people much less fortunate than you are out there. I’m talking about, of couse, those people still using the original iPad.

Poor bastards.

At an event held this morning at Apple’s Cupertino campus, newly minted Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled what many were expecting: a brand new iPhone. Dubbed the iPhone 4S, the device is cosmetically very similar to the current iPhone 4 but features a host of internal improvements which may appease fans eagerly awaiting an iPhone refresh.

In addition, Cook announced the release data for iOS 5, the software that powers Apple’s lineup of devices including the iPhone and iPad, as well as updated iPods with price cuts and an intelligent assistant, dubbed Siri, which enables user to verbally interact with their iOS devices.

Here’s the highlights of today’s event:

• Apple made the iPhone 4S official. It features the same Retina Display but features Apple’s dual-core A5 processor and a dual-core graphics chip.

• The iPhone 4S battery can provide 8 hours of 3G talk time, 6 hours of browsing time on 3G and 9 on Wi-Fi, 10 hours of video playback or 40 hours of music playback.

• Apple has redesigned the iPhone 4S antenna to switch between two antenna to send and receive. Hopefully how you hold the device won’t matter now.

• The iPhone 4S features HSPA+ 14.4 support, though Apple isn’t branding it as “4G.” It’s also a world phone, so one device will support CDMA and GSM/WCDMA networks around the globe. That means it will work on AT&T, Verizon and Sprint networks in the U.S.

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One of the worst kept secrets of the last few months has now been officially confirmed. That’s right Apple fans, your favorite fruit-flavored tech company has started sending out invites for its big iPhone 5 shindig taking place next month.

As we told you previously, the magic day is October 4th and the event will take place at Apple’s campus in Cupertino, CA. It will begin at 10AM Pacific and by 11AM we should know if we’re getting an iPhone 5 any time soon, and if so, what that may entail specs and features-wise.

In the interest of participating in the often amusing speculation game I would guess we will see a few announcements at least. The first will be a firm release date for IOS 5. Next, we’ll probably get an announcement that the iPhone is coming to Sprint.

Finally, the big one. Apple will announce the iPhone 5 (or whatever they end up calling it) and the world, as we know it, will remain largely the same. It is just a phone, after all. Sure, it’s pretty much the best phone available (unless you have AT&T service) with the best apps out there but still, at the end of the day, just a phone.

In fact, I’ll be interested to see if the iPhone 5 will have 4G on Verizon’s network. If not, I might have to wait for the iPhone 6. I do like me some 4G and my iPhone 4 works quite well at the moment, thank you very much.

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait too long to find out what’s going to happen. October 4th is right around the corner.

We’ll give you three guesses what will be announced at this event Apple will be holding on October 20th and the first two don’t count. That’s right, if you can’t tell from the obvious animal peeking out from behind the Apple logo what the company’s got up its sleeve, you need to turn in your amateur detective decoder ring.

Having a bit of trouble? Okay, we’ll give you some hints. That animal, it’s a lion. So, that means the next version of OSX will probably be called Lion because, in case you re not aware, Steve Jobs likes cats and all of the version were named after some sort of cat. The most recent, of course, being Snow Leopard.

So, it follows that the next one, aka OS X 10.7,  will be called by a cat name as well. Oh, we can also assume this event will focus quite a bit on the Mac itself, at least judging from the tag line “Back to the Mac.”

Whatever happens, we’ll bring you all the news. In the meantime, let the predictions begin. . .