There are plenty of news and rumor floating about concerning Apple’s iPhone 5 — both the product itself and the infamous missing handset.

San Francisco Police have formally confirmed that they did assist Apple security staff in visiting the home of a suspect in this year’s case of the stolen iPhone. The force said it had previously been unable to confirm the visit without further details from Apple.

Those of you who believe the theft is a publicity-seeking conspiracy will be amused to know that while Apple is officially not confirming what the missing item was, the San Francisco Police press release came in with an attached document named “iphone5.doc”.

Apple is now advertising for a manager of new product security who will be “responsible for overseeing the protection of, and managing risks to, Apple’s unreleased products and related intellectual property.” The job will involve “Accurately assessing physical and logical security implementations,” presumably meaning measures such as “don’t take prototypes into tequila bars.”

The phone itself is reported to be in production in China, with some speculation that there are already completed handsets in stock until the manufacturers get a copy of iOS5 to install.

A leaked BestBuy memo suggests the release could be as early as the first week of October, that it will be available on Sprint, and that pre-ordering will start imminently.

A separate BestBuy e-mail tells staff at an unidentified store to prepare for installation of a major Apple display on October 21, which is said to be reminiscent of the arrangements for the iPhone 4 launch.

(Picture credit: MacRumors.com. Image shows a mock-up based on rumored specifications.)