Tag: iOS

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Apple Defends iOS Developers Against Threats From Lodsys.

“Good News iOS Developers!”

Actually it is good news for a lot more than iOS Developers. Apple has finally spoken out against Lodsys for threatening iOS Developers over some licensing issues.. MacWorld published the full text of the letter Apple Legal sent to Lodsys regarding its patent dispute with app developers.

Apple certainly took the time to review the matter, 10 days after Lodsys sent patent lawsuit threat to iOS Developers (Friday May the 13th, 2011). John Gruber of Daring Fireball seems to think that Apple is doing the right thing by carefully reviewing the matter and preparing an appropriate response.

This would be an interesting case to follow since Apple already licensed the patents in question from Lodsys.

First, Apple is licensed to all four of the patents in the Lodsys portfolio. As Lodsys itself advertises on its website, “Apple is licensed for its nameplate products and services.” See http://www.lodsys.com/blog.html (emphasis in original). Under its license, Apple is entitled to offer these licensed products and services to its customers and business partners, who, in turn, have the right to use them.

It would be interesting to know when Apple become licensed to Lodsys’ four patents; as Google and Microsoft do. Did Lodsys reach out to Apple, Google and Microsoft after iOS, Android and WP7 were released? How significant are these fours patents in the Lodsys portfolio?

It would be an even more interesting development if Apple, possibly joined by Google and Microsoft would seek to invalidate Lodsys’s patents in question.

If Lodsys were to prevail in their threats, it would set a scary precedence for Developers; Android, iOS and WP7.

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EFF Wants Apple To Defend Its Developers.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is weighing in on Lodsys’s patent threat against iOS Developers. EFF wants Apple to defend its Developers.

Lodsys claims that Apple is licensed to use Lodsys’ patents, even though there’s no detailed explanation of the licensing. At this moment Apple is keeping the silence. Lodsys’ threat against iOS Developers will ultimately hurt iOS App ecosystem if Apple chose to do nothing. Developers can opt to forgo in-app purchasing and upgrades; effectively taking one revenue-generating feature for Developers and Apple.

Apple, it’s your turn!

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Yahoo! Messenger for iOS is now optimized for iPad 2.

Yahoo! has just updated its Messenger client for iOS and is now optimized for iPad 2.

  • iPad-optimized layout
  • Voice & video calling for iPad 2
  • Improved spam management: block one or all add requests from a single view
  • Fixed multiple bugs including the unexpected sign-out issue

This update requires iOS 4.0 or Higher

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WordPress 2.8 for iOS.

WordPress 2.8 for iOS is now available at iTunes App Store.

New features:

  • Quick Photo button: only available on iPhone for now.
  • Stats
  • Added translations to Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Bosnian, Hebrew, German, Dutch, French and Croatian.

WordPress for iOS now has Stats feature just like its Android counterpart.

In addition to that, WordPress 2.8 for iOS could be the last version that supports iOS 3.x.

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About the iPhone after iPhone 4.

In the recent weeks there have been numerous rumors about the next iPhone, be it iPhone 5 or iPhone 4S. We first jokingly reported the so called iPhone 4.5 as an April Fools joke, in fact some of the “made-up” info indeed came from credible sources.

For what we already know about “the next iPhone” in addition to iPhone 5:

  • No, it will not be a “teardrop” design.
  • No NFC
  • No LTE

What we heard is that Apple would release the next iPhone before 2011 Holiday Season. Rest assure that Phil Schiller is not the one who told us this.

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Can we cross the bridge now?

Lodsys explains why it’s not after Apple but only the developers for In-App Purchasing. Apple is licensed to use their patent, as a matter of fact both Google and Microsoft are also licensed.

Lodys sets the licensing fees:

Lodsys is seeking 0.575% of US revenue over for the period of the notice letter to the expiration of the patent, plus applicable past usage.  So on an application that sells US$1m worth of sales in a year, the licensee would have an economic exposure of $5,750 per year.

Lodsys also mentions that it has been getting a lot of hate mails including some death threats.

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Related articles:

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so Apple, Google and Microsoft can cross the bridge, but not people who are riding with them?

This is what the iPad Auto-Correction thinks of Lodsys:

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Rage Against Patent Troll.

On Friday May 13th, 2011 some iOS App Developers revealed that they are being sued by Lodsys for In-App Purchases and Upgrade Links. This lawsuit baffles many developers since Developers are using API in iOS SDK provided by Apple for In-App Purchasing. Lodsys so far is suing the Developers, but not Apple.

Adam C. Engst provided a great analysis on the matter.

It’s entirely unclear why Lodsys has chosen this approach — their lawyers have undoubtedly read the iOS Developer Program License Agreement and know that the iOS developers can’t settle. And they’ve chosen such small targets that there’s no way they could even cover their legal fees with what they could squeeze out. The only strategy that makes sense is that by targeting small developers, they put additional pressure on Apple to settle quickly.

Apple should respond to this lawsuit even though it is not yet directed at them.

In the meantime, this is what the iPad think about Lodsys:

That makes a lot of sense.