Apple Officially Responds To iOS Devs Hit By Lodsys Patent Claims [Updated]

According to a number of tweets from iOS developers hit by Lodsys’ patent infringement claims in regards to in-app purchases and upgrade buttons, Apple has started sending out emails earlier today with legal documentation about Lodsys’ claims. While the contents of the entire email and letter haven’t been posted yet, the first details have started making the rounds of Twitter as Apple is apparently offering support to iOS developers by helping them defending against Lodsys patent infringement claims.

The first paragraph of the email has been posted by Craig Grannel at Revert To Saved:

There is no basis for Lodsys’ infringement allegations against Apple’s App Makers. Apple intends to share this letter and the information set out herein with its App Makers and is fully prepared to defend Apple’s license rights.

The Loop has posted another paragraph of the email, with more coming soon:

Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the App Makers are protected by that license,” wrote Bruce Sewell, Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel.

From what we can gather so far, it appears Apple is asking Lodsys, and CEO Mark Small, to withdraw letters sent to developers as they’re already covered by Apple. We’ll update this story with more details as they become available.

Another excerpt from Apple’s email confirms that the company believes developers shouldn’t pay any licensing fee because Apple’s already licensed to use Lodsys’ patent and offer the technology to third-party App Store developers through software development kits and  APIs:

Thus the technology that is targeted in your notice letters is technology that Apple is expressly licensed under the Lodsys patents to offer to Apple’s App Makers. These licensed products and services enable Apple’s App Makers to communicate with end users through the use of Apple’s own licensed hardware, software, APIs, memory, servers, and interfaces, including Apple’s App Store. Because Apple is licensed under Lodsys’ patents to offer such technology to its App Makers, the App Makers are entitled to use this technology free from any infringement claims by Lodsys.

Update: full text of the letter sent by Apple to Lodsys’ CEO Mark Small has been posted by Macworld. A few notable excerpts:

Because I believe that your letters are based on a fundamental misapprehension regarding Apple’s license and the way Apple’s products work, I expect that the additional information set out below will be sufficient for you to withdraw your outstanding threats to the App Makers and cease and desist from any further threats to Apple’s customers and partners.

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.

Through its threatened infringement claims against users of Apple’s licensed technology, Lodsys is invoking patent law to control the post-sale use of these licensed products and methods. Because Lodsys’s threats are based on the purchase or use of Apple products and services licensed under the Agreement, and because those Apple products and services, under the reading articulated in your letters, entirely or substantially embody each of Lodsys’s patents, Lodsys’s threatened claims are barred by the doctrines of patent exhaustion and first sale.

The conclusion of the letter:

Therefore, Apple requests that Lodsys immediately withdraw all notice letters sent to Apple App Makers and cease its false assertions that the App Makers’ use of licensed Apple products and services in any way constitute infringement of any Lodsys patent.

Contrarily to speculation and rumors posted in the past week, Apple isn’t avoiding the situation and is now actively taking part in backing independent developers hit by Lodsys claims of patent infringement in applications that use Apple’s own iOS SDK. By reassuring that developers shouldn’t pay any licensing fee because Apple is already licensed to offer the technology behind the App Store and in-app purchases, the company is taking a firm position in defending its ecosystem and “app makers.” Several bloggers and patent experts tried to analyze the patent claims over the past two weeks, with the EFF even coming out and saying Apple should have stepped in and started defending its iOS devs right away. As usual Apple has taken its time to study the issue and come up with facts, and is now simply asking Lodsys to withdraw every notice letter and infringement claim sent out to developers.

Square Unveils “Card Case” and “Register” To Reinvent Digital Payments and Wallets

Mobile payment company Square teased last weekend they had some big announcements to make this morning. After the 2.0 update to the iPhone and iPad application that hit the App Store earlier today, Square’s Jack Dorsey announced with a live stream event on TechCrunch Disrupt a few minutes ago the next-generation of payment processing for merchants and mobile payments for customers: Square Register and Square Card Case, two new products aimed at revolutionizing the mobile payment scene and the whole concept of digital wallet.

With 500,000 card readers shipped across the United States and $1 billion gross payment volume, Square undoubtedly changed the way people thought of phones and tablets as point of sale units capable of receiving credit card payments with a simple swipe. But Square wanted to go one step further, and allow everyone, merchants and customers, to get rid of cumbersome cash registers, POS devices and wallets altogether by unifying the Square experience into a single software that takes care of the data, personal information, credit cards on file, location, and more. The Card Case is the first step to allow customers to forget about wallets, cash and credit cards to carry around all the time: within a single iPhone application, users are getting access to a virtual wallet that contains place-specific cards to pay, check out products, and get receipts. TechCrunch explains:

Once you’ve downloaded your mobile Card Case, you can fill your case with ‘cards’ of all the merchants you visit and buy from who accept Square. When you click on an individual merchant’s card, you’ll be able to see a map of where the merchant is located, contact information, your own order and purchase history, and receipts with the merchant and a daily live menu of items or services from the merchant. You’ll also be able to see what other customers are buying at the store, and merchants can serve customized offers to specific customers based on their purchase history.

So here’s where things get interesting. In a merchant’s card within the case, you can press a “use tab” button which allows the frequent customer to essentially put a purchase on their virtual tab with Square at the merchant. So once you press that button within two blocks of the merchant, you’ll be able to tell the cashier your name and your card will be charged on the merchant’s backend Square register. Because you are a repeat customer, Square already has your payment information. The purchaser will then receive a push notification when the merchant processes the payment.

The Card Case basically acts as a wallet to keep all the places you frequently visit together and set up tabs so payments will be processed automatically without even swiping a real credit card. In a video reel showcased by Jack Dorsey at the announcement event, a Square user was shown entering a coffee shop, ordering a cappuccino and simply asking the cashier to put it under his name. No swiping necessary, no need to sign any receipt or carry a wallet around – just an iPhone. After a purchase however, the app of course handles virtual receipts emailed or texted to you, so you’ll be able to organize all your expenses and view the places where you spent your money. The concept’s really simple and disruptive from a user standpoint – as long as you have an iPhone and the credit card on file, it’s as simple as walking into a bar and ordering what you want with your name. The software takes care of the rest.

On the merchant’s end, Square has also announced a new product, the Register, which will dramatically improve the way business owners used to deal with POS machines and real cash registers and engage with customers as well. Merchants have always been able with the Square reader to store customers information and send them a receipt via email or SMS; with today’s update, merchants get the possibility to send customers a link to download the Card Case app so next time payments will happen faster, over the air, and with more features to engage with a local shop and nearby places that support Square. Again, it all comes together with the reader used to set up a credit card for the first time, the iPhone app for customers to pay with their mobile device, and the iPad Register for merchants to check out analytics and customer data. From the website:

  • Transform your iPad into an elegant point of sale. Customize it with product photos, prices, and sortable categories. Accept cash and credit cards.
  • Swipe a card, let customers sign directly on the screen, and send them an email or text message receipt. Customers can add a tip as they sign.
  • Know how many cappuccinos you sell each day. Download full reports that give you insight into your sales patterns and inventory.
  • Let your regular customers set up a tab right from their phone and pay with their name. Publish your menu and share daily specials.

At this point, it’s clear Square isn’t a cool startup with a neat credit card gadget anymore. Square wants to disrupt mobile payments, bringing merchants and customers together socially, locally, just with software, phones and tablets. Square Register and Card Cases are rolling out today through 50 US merchants in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, St. Louis, and Los Angeles.

Instagram: 4.25 Million Users In 7 Months

With the launch of an official API and hundreds of connected applications proliferating in Apple’s iOS and Mac App Stores, there was little doubt photo sharing service Instagram was off to a great success after a few months. Back in December, two months after public launch, it was reported the service had reached 1 million users – a pretty big milestone considering the app was (and still is) just an iPhone app to snap and share pictures. Instagram still doesn’t have an online interface to customize profiles and browse users, but thanks to the API it’s seen lots of different implementations the developers probably couldn’t even imagine last year.

As tweeted by The New York Times’ Nick Bilton this morning, Instagram has reached 4.25 million users in roughly 7 months. The impressive result has surely been made possible by the wide adoption of Instagram by Twitter celebrities, popular brands and Apple’s features in the App Store homepage – the fact that several Twitter clients and apps like Flipboard directly integrate with Instagram also helped founder Kevin Systrom and the rest of the team getting photos shared with the service off the ground.

Instagram has reached another important milestone and we’re sure there’s more to come in the next weeks. The team has been busy updating the app recently with new features and speed optimizations, though an iPad 2 counterpart or web app are still nowhere to be seen. [via BusinessInsider]

Tap to Chat 2 Launches with New Design, Google Talk Support

When I first reviewed Tap to Chat back in December, what I stumbled upon was a very simple app with a nice and clean design to access Facebook chat and talk to your buddies without all the clutter of the Facebook website or other similar applications for iOS. The app was driven by simplicity in the way it put contacts on a grid, and let you simply tap on one to start chatting. No additional screens or options, just a tap and a chat. On top of that, notifications enabled me to keep up with the conversation even if I was busy doing something else on the home screen or another app. Tap to Chat 2, released last week, builds on the factors that made the original version so great and popular on the App Store, adding support for Google Talk but retaining the fundamental concept that online chat should be easy and accessible.

First and foremost, the app has got an updated UI to switch between Facebook and Google Talk: there’s an iOS-like multitasking dock at the bottom to switch between the services, but if you don’t like the dock idea you can hide it and simply swipe horizontally to change buddy lists. Friends available for chat are still displayed on a grid, though this time the design has been greatly improved to show better contact pictures, inline previews and a button to mark a person as “favorite.” Favorites will be placed on top of your lists when they’re online for quick access, and you’ll also receive a Growl-like notification on screen when they log in. These notifications are displayed for a few seconds like Growl on the desktop, but they obviously only work inside Tap to Chat as iOS doesn’t allow for other notification systems to be injected in the main Springboard. However, when you’re chatting with multiple contacts at once, the notifications make it super simple to jump from one chat to another, as does the aforementioned dock at the bottom – switching between services and chats is a real pleasure in Tap to Chat 2.0.

As for the chat itself, it’s really just a box with a text entry field and buttons to clear the conversation or go back to the grid. If you want, you can also tap on a friend’s profile pic to rename the contact, remove it, or open his Facebook profile in Safari. From the settings icon in the upper left corner, you can change your online status, account names, or color theme for the whole app. General settings include options to turn off sound effects, chat alerts and session alerts – if you really don’t want to be bothered unless you’re actively using the app, you can even turn on auto disconnect to make sure you’ll go offline once you close the app.

Tap to Chat 2 is simple, fast, incredibly reliable (I didn’t see a single connection error on Facebook or Google Talk) and it runs both on the iPhone and iPad. You can get it here at an introductory price of $0.99.

BlueNube Is The First CloudApp Client for iPad

If you love CloudApp as much as I do and you own an iPad, you’ve probably been looking for a way to upload and share items from the tablet without having to use Safari and the web application. There’s no shortage of CloudApp-enabled clients on the iPhone – the excellent Cloud2go is a staff favorite here at MacStories – but the iPad hasn’t seen a real native CloudApp client so far. BlueNube is a $1.99 app I bought a few months ago but never really used because it was only focused on letting you see uploads to your CloudApp account from the iPad, without letting you send an actual file or URL to the service from the device. I was told the next version would include full upload support and other features, so I decided to leave the app in my iTunes library and wait for it. Version 1.1, released yesterday, indeed adds upload capabilities to BlueNube, thus making it the first CloudApp client that runs natively on the iPad.

The interface design of BlueNube isn’t as delicious as the one I’m currently testing in the upcoming Stratus for iOS, nor does the app support live streams and other fancy things as in Cloud2go, but it sure is functional to the main purpose of uploading files and bookmarks to CloudApp using the iPad and third-party applications. The biggest feature of version 1.1, in fact, is the possibility to upload anything from any other app thanks to the “Open In” menu integration that allows you to select a file from 3rd party apps like, say, iFiles or GoodReader and send it to BlueNube, which will start uploading automatically and paste a link to the file in your clipboard.

You can also upload photos and videos within BlueNube with Camera Roll support, upload an image or link from your pasteboard as you open the app thanks to clipboard detection and even cache entire images and other files so BlueNube won’t have to download them every single time to display them. Cache size can be modified and reset from the settings; items uploaded to CloudApp can be shared on other social networks like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.

Overall, BlueNube may not be as sexy as other apps but it gets it job done when it comes to integrating with CloudApp on the iPad to offer uploads and smart URL detection from the system clipboard. If you need CloudApp on your iPad, this simple and lightweight app is a $1.99 purchase here.

Square Releases Major 2.0 Update for iPhone and iPad

Square, the mobile payment company that allows you to pay with your credit card on the go by simply swiping it through an iPhone or iPad secure reader, teased some major announcements last week, leading to speculation that the service might have something huge up its sleeve after being featured by Apple multiple times in iPad and iPhone commercials and receiving approval to sell the card reader in Apple’s retail stores. While Square’s Jack Dorsey is stil holding a special announcement at TechCrunch Disrupt in about two hours, it turns out the big new update was a major overhaul of the mobile app, which has just been upgraded to version 2.0 in the App Store.

Square 2.0 brings a refreshed interface on the iPhone (which looks pretty neat from the screenshots) and an entirely new design on the iPad that lets business owners organize items into shelves for “easier browsing.” Alongside other bug fixes, the UI changes seem to be the focus on this new update. Apparently, the new Square is now allowing merchants to easily organize different items with different “variations” (categories, we assume) on these new shelves that should make it easier and faster for customers to select something they want to buy. You can swipe through shelves, add items to the processing queue and, as usual, swipe your credit card to pay. The interface changes on the iPhone make for a more professional-looking, elegant app we’re pretty sure Apple will feature again soon.

From the changelog:

- iPad: Arrange your items into shelves, for easier browsing and faster checkout.
- iPad: Small, medium, large; chocolate, vanilla, strawberry – create variations of your items.
- iPhone: Refined look and feel.
- Minor bug fixes.

Square 2.0 is now live in the App Store. We’re still waiting for other major announcements later today, especially considering the company recently achieved 3 million payments processed every day. Check out more screenshots below. Read more

Backblaze Launches Location Service to Find Stolen Computers

Backblaze is the fiery backup service well known for their series of custom red-hot storage pods used to encapsulate all of your sensitive data, and today they’re launching a new location service designed to help you recover a lost or stolen computer. Locate My Computer aids in the recovery of a computer by reporting the IP address, the ISP the computer is on, the time the computer was last online, and by showing the computer’s location on a map. Mapping updates may take a while (after I enabled Locate My Computer for the first time I received a notice that it may take up to four hours), but time and IP address related information is updated frequently. Blackblaze also provides links to various IP services to help track down the exact location (possibly even the house address) of the stolen machine.

Locate My Computer is available immediately and is free to all Backblaze customers. Mapping is enabled for new users; users with existing accounts can “Turn On” mapping. To turn mapping on or off, sign-in and visit the Locate My Computer page. (Please click “Check for Updates” from your menu icon to ensure you are using the latest version.)

The update is free to all Backblaze customers. To enable the new feature, simply install the latest Backblaze update over your previous installation before turning the service on.

[via Backblaze]

Scott Forstall Places Second In Most Creative Business People Award

Fast Company has placed Scott Forstall as second in their 2011 ‘Most Creative People in Business’ awards. Forstall, who is VP of iPhone software, received the award for leading the development on iOS, with Fast Company noting that “the popularity of that tap, pinch, and swipe interface has sent Cupertino’s earnings rocketing”.

Jonathan Ive’s slick designs may grab the headlines whenever Steve Jobs introduces a new product, but it’s Scott Forstall’s smart software that fills Apple’s coffers.

Meanwhile, Wadah Khanfar took out top honors for his work as Director General of the Al Jazeera network – which has seen recent surge in popularity for its extensive coverage of the uprisings in the Arab world, notably for its coverage in Egypt and more recently, Syria. In its entirety, the list featured a variety of people that exhibited creativity in business from Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post (10th) to Oprah Winfrey (12th) to the singer Bruno Mars (58th).

However of most interest to us at MacStories are those which have heavily utilized iOS as part of their business strategy – in some cases even dedicating their entire business to the success of iOS. Jack Dorsey of Square and Twitter made the list at number 4, whilst Marcos Weskamp of Flipboard made the list at number 42. Others included Aaron Levie of Box.net (59), Kevin Systrom of Instagram (66), Dong Minghzhu of Gree (71) and Mikael Hed of Rovio, who rounded out the list at number 100. [via Setteb.it]