Technology giant Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 5 on Wednesday night.

The company is hosting a "special event" which usually involves Apple executives unveiling new products to a specially invited audience at their California base.

Invites including the line "it's almost here" have been sent out to UK journalists to watch the launch by videolink live at a central London location.

The invite also featured a figure 12 with a shadow that appears to be the number 5 - seemingly confirming the company will announce the arrival of the iPhone 5.

It comes a day after the UK's largest mobile network operator, Orange and T-Mobile owner Everything Everywhere, which was renamed today as EE, unveiled plans to launch the country's first superfast 4G products and services in time for Christmas.

It is around a year since Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S complete with voice recognition software and an A5 chip allowing it to use much faster graphics for gameplay and to download data twice as fast.