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The tenth anniversary of Apple's retail stores is on Thursday the 19th, and employees have been told nobody can take time off between the 20th and 22nd. In fact, all Apple stores have scheduled employees to work overnight between Saturday and Sunday, with mysterious packages and locked training files arriving at locations. What does Apple have up its sleeve to celebrate the 10th anniversary?

BGR reports a new product launch could be underway, or even the installation of NFC wireless payment terminals. Even though the latter would make sense, it's not clear what near-field communication technology Apple would adopt, especially since no iOS devices currently have NFC capabilities installed. Current information from analysts indicates that Apple is likely to wait until the iPhone 6 to integrate NFC into their mobile phones.

Industry checks by analysts have concluded that the fifth generation Apple iPhone will be a souped-up version of the iPhone 4, with improved hardware in a similar form factor. Sprint is also rumored to be the next major carrier to receive the device, as Apple has posted a job opening for a carrier engineer.

The job posting was originally listed with a location of Kansas City, Missouri which is only 20 miles from Sprint headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas. Since the post was first revealed by Stop it, AT&T the job location has been changed to Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California. Sprint's network operates with CDMA, similar to Verizon Wireless which received the iPhone 4 earlier this year.

Apple could have a variety of cloud-based services up its sleeve for iPhone owners. The company is expected to announce a complete revamp of its current MobileMe service, possibly at the 2011 WWDC in San Francisco this June. With the recent launches of Google's and Amazon's own streaming media services, the time is ripe for Apple to jump in the game.

Rumors have coalesced around the completion of a giant Apple data center in North Carolina as well as a purported email from Steve Jobs claiming that MobileMe is headed for changes. Not only this, but developers have discovered a cloud-based service (codenamed Castle) in the latest developer preview of Lion, Mac OS X 10.7. Apple reportedly even purchased the domain iCloud.com for $4.5 million from a company that has changed its name to CloudMe.

The best way to start this review is with a disclaimer: if you're looking for an audiophile review of Audyssey's South of Market Audio Dock, this is definitely not it. This stems directly from the fact that I am definitely not an audiophile. I can't espouse the virtues of silk dome tweeters or tell you what I think of the 4-inch long-throw woofers the dock offers, simply because I don't know what those things are. What I can do is tell you how I, someone who has seen and heard countless iPhone docks, was struck by the Audyssey South of Market Audio Dock.

Most of the time when you hear about Apple and Google battling each other for smartphone sales the iPhone 4 gets compared to the latest and greatest Android device. Some forget that Apple continues to sell the previous model iPhone 3GS on AT&T Mobility at a cut-rate price of only $49 with contract. Turns out that consumers continue to snatch up the iPhone 3GS.

Let's face it, the iPhone 4 is nice for many reasons, but if you're new to smartphones, Apple products in general, or you're upgrading from an even older iPhone, the 3GS covers many bases. Video recording, Voice Control and the latest Apple mobile operating system are all included. Did we mention the 3GS costs only $49 with a two-year contract?