Tonight is the night when the Samsung Mobile Unpacked 2012 event kicks off at 7PM UK time and excitement is already building. This is one of the most anticipated events of the year that everyone is keeping an eye on, and it will be the Samsung Galaxy S3 that will steal the show, so where does Apple come into this?

Apple’s WWDC 2012 kicks off on June 11 and many people are hoping that the iPhone 5 will get its long-awaited announcement. This leaves us thinking that Apple will surely watch the Samsung 2012 event tonight. The giant tech company will want to see all the news as it’s no secret that Samsung’s flagship next Galaxy S phone will be the biggest threat to the iPhone 5.

There have already been some hugely impressive Android smartphones released this year and there are plenty more in the pipeline. Nevertheless for many smartphone customers the Galaxy S3 will be at the top of the pile of the Android competition to Apple’s iPhone 5 on the iOS platform. Although we’ve often noted that many smartphone users are fiercely loyal to their platform of choice, there are plenty more potential customers who could still be persuaded to jump ship from iOS to Android or vice versa and that is what Apple will be concerning itself with.

Although of course, nothing will be confirmed until this evening for the Galaxy S3, some of the key features and specs rumored and very widely reported include an Exynos quad-core processor (maybe dual-core for US), larger display, improved camera, Android 4.0 ICS and also LTE connectivity. Indeed these are so widely anticipated that there is a chance that some potential Galaxy S3 owners will be put off buying the phone if it turns up without most of these.

Apple will no doubt be following all of the developments from the Samsung event very closely indeed and will want to see what Samsung comes up with and whether it really manages to pull something out of the bag. We imagine after the big reveal later of the Galaxy S3 that a release may not come too long afterwards but a release timeframe for the iPhone 5 is still very much in question. Opinion seems to be pretty much equally divided on whether it will come in the summer after WWDC or in the fall, roughly a year after the appearance of the iPhone 4S last year.

Either way we’re pretty sure that the iPhone 5 is already well into the development stage and Apple is likely to be pretty definite about the finished article already. Just some of the rumored specs and features for the iPhone 5 (or new iPhone) include an A5X or A6 processor, larger screen, higher-resolution display than the already impressive Retina display, improved camera, LTE connectivity and iOS 6, the next major mobile operating system. Regardless of its plans for the iPhone 5 though, Apple is likely to be watching and listening to every moment of the Galaxy S3 event tonight and scrutinizing the phone, right down to the minutest detail, in order to fully evaluate the competition.

We’d love to hear from readers about what you feel Apple will be thinking while following the event this evening? After the Galaxy S3 reveal is all done and dusted do you imagine that Apple will feel threatened by the excellence of the S3 or maybe relieved that the competition is not as fierce as it may have anticipated? Send your comments to let us know your thoughts on this.