Facebook today released a new standalone iPhone app dedicated to posting and sharing photos on the 900-million strong social network.

China Daily reports that Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn continues to expand its operations in support of Apple's strong growth in product sales, investing $210 million to build a new production line for unspecified components. The new production line is said to be set to come on line in October of this year and will be located in the Chinese city of Huai'an in the eastern province of Jiangsu

Bloomberg reports that Steve Jobs was intimately involved in the design work for the next-generation iPhone scheduled for release later this year, reiterating claims that the device will be a substantial change from previous designs in part because of a larger display. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, has placed orders from suppliers in Asia for screens that are bigger than the 3.5- inch size now on the smartphone, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had worked closely on the redesigned phone before his death in October, one person said

Speaking at Fast Company 's Innovation Uncensored conference earlier this week, J.

Verizon yesterday made headlines for comments from Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo revealing that the carrier is planning to discontinue its grandfathered unlimited data plans when the carrier rolls out new shared data plans this summer. Verizon dropped those unlimited data plans within months of introducing the iPhone early last year, but customers who had previously been on the unlimited plans have been allowed to keep them, even through handset upgrades. Tim Cook and Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead introduce the Verizon iPhone in January 2011 Verizon issued a clarification to The New York Times today, noting that the loss of grandfathered unlimited plans will be limited to those customers purchasing new subsidized devices for use on the carrier.

Bloomberg confirms a report from earlier today that Apple is preparing to release thinner MacBook Pro models with Retina displays.

Apple is continuing the process of preparing OS X Lion for Macs offering ultra high-resolution "HiDPI" screens, upgrading several application icons to higher resolutions in yesterday's public release of OS X 10.7.4. AppleInsider pointed to TextEdit as one example, with Apple having upgraded its icon's previous maximum size of 512x512 under OS X 10.7.3 to 1024x1024 in OS X 10.7.4. But the larger image 1024x1024 is also listed as measuring at 512x512 points, indicating that it is indeed being targeted for screens measuring at double the resolution of current displays in each dimension.