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

Studies of "brand value" are always difficult to compare, as widely differing methodologies used by those measuring such data yield markedly different results. But tracking year-to-year movements using a consistent methodology can offer some interesting perspectives, and so Millward's Brown's latest BrandZ study ( via The Next Web ) makes for a good look at trends in marketing and branding

In line with today's claims of taller iPhone prototypes with 3.95-inch displays, one of our sources has provided us with images of what are claimed to be new next-generation iOS device parts being carried by a supplier. The most significant of these parts is a claimed front panel from the next-generation iPod touch, with the supplier claiming that the display would be taller than the current model and that the opening in the front panel measures 4.1 inches diagonally.

As noted by 9to5Mac , the latest developer build of OS X Mountain Lion released last week sets the stage for bringing iOS-like automatic app downloads to Mac App Store purchases. Like on the iPhone and iPad, when you buy and install an app on one of your Macs, all of your other Macs logged into the same App Store account will automatically install the app too

Following last month's announcement that Apple and Samsung had agreed to high-level talks involving the two companies' CEOs in an attempt to resolve ongoing patent litigation, Reuters provides a preview of the session set to begin today in San Francisco. The talks, which will be mediated by a federal judge, are scheduled to take place over the next two days

Aaron Sorkin, the creative genius behind The Social Network , The West Wing , and upcoming HBO show The Newsroom was recently confirmed as the screenwriter for Sony's upcoming movie based on Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs -- though, Sorkin himself says he has a lot of work to do.

TUAW reports that Apple will be scaling back on systemwide "hotkey" apps, which allow users to call up other apps and functions, in the Mac App Store as of June 1, the same date the company's sandboxing requirements are scheduled to go into effect. Apparently, Apple will allow hotkey apps that are already in the Mac App Store before June to offer only bug fixes after that. New sandboxed apps and any apps that add features (i.e.

Apple today pushed out another update to its OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion developer preview program, moving to build 12A206j. The update comes on top of build 12A193i, which was released on May 1

Bloomberg briefly reports that Apple and Disney are in talks to bring sports network ESPN's WatchESPN application [ App Store ] to the Apple TV set-top box. ESPN subscribers with AppleTV would gain access to the network’s Internet service on their TV sets.

Apple is planning on implementing a new, smaller dock connector, according to a report by iMore . The site has been reliable in the past and correctly predicted the release of an LTE equipped iPad. iMore also reported that Apple is still in the prototyping phase for the next iPhone and that the design is not yet set in stone