In the past week — unless you’ve been in a coma, trapped on a desert island, or completely and totally disconnected from any news source (and somewhere else other than a desert island, because I’ve already used that) — you couldn’t get away from news stories about Apple Inc.

If, as the quote goes, “there is no such thing as bad publicity,” then Apple chiefs must have had no complaints about the past week’s press… but somehow, I doubt it.

It’s almost like a bad soap opera.

The tech giant and creator of all things “I” (as in iPhone, iPod, iPad, iMac, iChat and I-don’t-know-what-else) has recently launched its newest product, the iPhone 5, to mostly lukewarm and “meh” reactions from tech critics and gooey, gushing love poems from adoring fans.

Apple could come out with something called the iPoo and I’m convinced millions of people would declare they never knew how unfulfilling their bowel movements were until now.

People actually camped for hours outside stores (like these thing were Stones tickets or something) to secure one of the gizmos on launch day, and in the first three days of sales, Apple unloaded more than five million of the new smartphones to consumers.

This, despite the fact that the newest iteration of the iPhone really isn’t that different from the last model… other than maybe a bigger screen and slightly faster processors. But that really isn’t worth all the hype or the mad, lemming-like rush to upgrade. Every other “new” iPhone has had at least some new bell or whistle that the previous model didn’t have — front-facing camera, Siri personal voice assistant, etc. — but the 5 is just a bit of a brawnier version of the 4S. There are also tons of news stories surfacing this week about the iPhone 5’s new map application (app) not working properly, or simply missing certain locations altogether.

Of course, the new iPhone may be out of stock for a bit now, not due to the huge demand, but rather thanks to the employee riot earlier this week at the Foxconn Corp. plant in China that makes the gizmo.

News agencies say the “massive brawl” started because of a dispute in a dormitory, while other reports say the 2,000 or more people got into the fight because of guard abuse at the plant. The plant has since reopened, and the incident is under investigation.

Also under investigation is the jury that awarded 1 billion smackeroonies to Apple in a patent dispute with Samsung last month. It seems Samsung is alleging juror misconduct, saying the jury foreman used his own patent experience, and not just the evidence in the trial, during deliberations that led to the final verdict.

Apple execs are probably just howling with laughter at that last-ditch effort by Samsung, while — of course — lighting cigars with $1,000 bills.

So there you have it… enough Apple to keep a whole hospital of doctors away, and it all happened in just the past seven days or so.

Who knows what will happen next week for the tech giant?

But now that you’re all caught up, feel free to slip back into that coma, take a three-hour tour on the S.S. Minnow or unplug from the news cycles. I’ll keep an eye on things while you’re out.