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Apple released Mac OS X 10.6.8 yesterday in preparation for its Lion release. There are several things to like about the new update, including changes to Final Cut Pro X as well as enhancements to the Mac App Store ahead of the release of Lion.

Overlooked in the update is the fact that Apple has included a fair amount of security updates in the software. When it comes to Apple, people always want to talk about what is cool and sleek and fun to use. Yet, as the fake anti-virus malware Mac Defender has shown us, Apple is becoming more of a target for malicious hacks. Apple releases security updates with each version of Mac OS X. Let's take a look at what is significant in version 10.6.8.

I very rarely review a single mobile app these days - we prefer to do mobile app round-ups here on ReadWriteWeb - but I'm going to make an exception this time for Photogram. This new iPhone application, launched just yesterday, is deserving of a mention, if only for catching my attention among a sea of mobile photo app startups.

From the description, the app seems somewhat basic, maybe even a little boring: share photos via Facebook, Twitter or email. But it does so with a simplicity, elegance and ease that I've often found lacking elsewhere.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once said, when asked when we would finally see an iPad app for the social networking service, "iPad isn't mobile. It's a computer, sorry." The implication was that there would never be a Facebook app for Apple's tablet computer, because, frankly, it didn't need one.

Now, according to a new report, things may have changed. An official iPad app for Facebook could be only be weeks away.

Today, Yahoo introduced two new search tools, one a new online search engine for finding new mobile applications, and the other a mobile app called AppSpot (iPhone, Android), which does the same. According to a Yahoo blog post, the goal of these new services is to help you better sort through the some 425,000 mobile applications on the iTunes App Store and the 200,000 apps on Google's Android Market so you can find the app you need.

But will Yahoo's efforts prove better than any of the existing services that already do the same?

Can Facebook unseat Apple at its own game, within its own ecosystem? There are reports that the social giant is working on an HTML5 version of its platform that would become a distribution mechanism for Web applications through Apple's mobile Safari browser.

In many ways, this is what people have been predicting for a while -- HTML5 will kill the native mobile application. There are few better companies than Facebook to take up the mantle of HTML5 to foster an environment of Web applications. Facebook has the user and developer base, the social reach and deep pockets to make a big splash in the mobile ecosystem.

Apple is now selling an unlocked version of the iPhone 4 in its online store, confirming earlier rumors which hinted this would be the case. The new iPhone 4 is the GSM model, which means here in the U.S., AT&T or T-Mobile only. The phone works outside the U.S. on any other supported GSM network offering micro-SIM cards for the iPhone 4.

Most importantly, the unlocked iPhone 4 is available contract-free.

In Apple's next mobile operating system iOS 5, there are now integrated widgets for core apps like stocks and weather available in the operating system's new Notifications Center. This Android-like drop-down list of updates, accessible by swiping down from the top of the screen, alerts you to things like new emails, missed calls, voicemails and other updates from your installed apps.

But developers hoping to include their own widget-like notifications in the center were disappointed to find out that their only option was for text-based updates. However, thanks to a hack from developer Will Homer, there is now a way for jailbroken phones to run third-party widgets within the Notifications Center. Some of the first examples of these widgets are already out, and are ready for testing.

Social media monitoring firm SocialNuggets was tuned into Apple's developer conference (WWDC) this week, and specifically the news revealed during CEO Steve Jobs' keynote address. The firm's goal was to see what Internet users had to say about all of Apple's new products and services.

To reach its conclusions, SocialNuggets monitored over 12,000 social media mentions, blog posts, forum postings and other online mentions. The results are not surprising. For the most part, the reaction to nearly all of Apple's announcements, from iOS 5 to iCloud and beyond, was overwhelmingly positive.

Just because Microsoft has its own mobile operating system called Windows Phone 7, that doesn't mean it's above using the popularity of Apple's iPhone to attract new users to its up-and-coming Bing search engine. For example, this week, the company highlighted a recently added Bing feature called "auto app discovery" by way of a company blog post that describes how the Microsoft search engine is a great tool for finding new iPhone applications.

With this week's introduction of iOS 5, Apple's next-generation mobile operating system, owners of older iPhones are curious as to whether or not their device will support all the new features. iOS 5 brings a number of exciting additions, including a revamped notification system, deep Twitter integration, an updated version of Safari with support for tabbed browsing and reading lists, a more advanced camera system, a Newsstand app for managing newspaper and magazine subscriptions, a free messaging service for iOS users similar to BlackBerry's BBM, and more. In total, Apple has added over 200 new features to the operating system, the company says.

But will your phone run them?