Couple of weeks back, we reported that Apple is backing iPad and iPhone developers in their fight against patent firm Lodsys over in-app purchasing system. Last month, Patent-holder Lodsys has sent legal notices to some iPad and iPhone developers requesting them to get licenses for using the in-app purchasing system. Apple now has filed a motion to intervene in legal action taken by Lodsys. And, legal experts believe that Apple may be admitted as intervenor in the suit. In its filing to the court, Apple stressed that all iPad and iPhone developers submitting applications in its App Store and using in-app purchasing system and covered by an existing license with Lodsys.

“The app developers whom Lodsys sued appear to be bound by a non-disclosure agreement (which makes sense), so they can’t speak out on their current relationship with Apple,” Mueller wrote in his blog on Friday.

“While I don’t have any confirmation from anyone that Apple has agreed to cover those defendants’ costs and potential risks, it’s hard to imagine how else this could work.”

“In its motion, Apple states explicitly that the sued app developers ‘are individuals or small entities with far fewer resources than Apple and [...] lack the technical information, ability, and incentive to adequately protect Apple’s rights under its license agreement.”

iPad and iPhone developers will surely feel relieved with Apple playing active role in the lawsuit and hope for a favorable solution to the dispute.

Tags: Apple, in-app purchases law suit, iOS developers, iPad-developers, iphone developers, Lodsys, Lodsys lawsuit

Apple previewed iOS 5 in the first day of its World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2011. The beta version of the newest version of the world’s most advanced OS is now available for registered iPad and iPhone developers. The iOS 5 beta release includes over 200 new features including Notification Center- a novel way to effortlessly view and manage notifications, iMessage- an innovative messaging service that enables sending text messages, images and videos between all Apple devices; and Newsstand- a new way to buy and manage your newspaper and magazine subscriptions. Moreover, with the new PC Free feature of iOS 5, iPhone or iPad users can activate and set up their device right out of the box and get over-the-air (OTA) software updates without any computer.

“iOS 5 has some great new features, such as Notification Center, iMessage and Newsstand and we can’t wait to see what our developers do with its 1,500 new APIs,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

“Perhaps iOS 5’s paramount feature is that it’s built to seamlessly work with iCloud in the Post PC revolution that Apple is leading,” he added.

iOS 5 also makes Safari, the world’s most popular mobile browser, even better and includes Safari Reader, which can set the right font size on a web page, to make reading easier for the users; Reading List, so that a user can save desired articles to read later and they will automatically show up on all your iOS devices; and Tabbed Browsing, to flip between and browse multiple web pages on iPad.

iOS 5 operating system also comes with built-in Twitter integration, and makes it easy to tweet directly from all Twitter-enabled apps with a single tap. Plus there are several new features in the Camera and Photos applications to give instant access to the camera from the lock screen, and volume-up button to swiftly shoot a photo. The new Photo application also offers exciting imaging features like crop, enhance, rotate, and remove red-eye, and organize all photos into albums and share them on the move.

Not only this, there are many additional features in iOS 5 such as Game Center, Mail enhancements,  AirPlay and a system-wide split keyboard to make typing on iPad easy and fast.

The iOS 5 beta versionand SDK are available for iPad and iPhone developers at developer.apple.com.

We informed you a couple of days back that Lodsys has served notices to iPad and iPhone developers for using its patented in-app purchasing system. The company has also asked iPhone developer to get licenses for in-app purchasing system within 21 days. Now, in the issue, The Guardian reports that Cupertino based Apple’s legal department is studying the issue. The Guardian post reports-

Apple’s legal department is understood to be “actively investigating” claims by Lodsys, a patent holding company based in Texas, to have a claim against iPhone and iPad developers who use in-app purchase systems.

So far Lodsys has served notices to about a dozen iPad and iPhone developers who were found to use in-app purchasing system and who the company says are infringing its patent. There are reports that many more iPad and iPhone developers are targeted by Lodsys with notices.

Apple has not yet officially responded on the issue but with its legal department investigating the patent infringement case and mounting pressure from iPhone developers, the coming days may see the iPhone maker playing major role to solve the crisis.

Sources- The Guardian

Macrumors

Adobe has announced the availability of the Photoshop Touch applicationss – Adobe Color Lava, Adobe Eazel and Adobe Nav – for iPad in the Apple App Store. These three apps were developed using the Photoshop Touch Software Development Kit (SDK) to demonstrate iOS developers the potential for new interaction between Photoshop and tablet devices.

The Photoshop Touch SDK makes app development possible on several devices including iOS, Android and BlackBerry PlayBook. Utilizing the SDK, mobile app developers will have extensive access to Photoshop functionality. App developers can use the technology in creating new apps and can also use it to incorporate more capabilities in their existing applications.

Adobe Color Lava allows creatives to use their fingertips to mix colors on the iPad, creating custom color swatches and themes to transfer back into Photoshop.

Adobe Eazel takes advantage of cutting-edge painting technology by letting digital artists create rich realistic paintings with their fingertips, and introduces a new kind of interaction between “wet” and “dry” paints. These paintings can then be sent directly to Photoshop CS5 for compositing or for taking the artwork further.

Adobe Nav increases workflow efficiency by letting users select and control Photoshop tools using the iPad as the input surface, customize the toolbar, browse and zoom in on up to 200 open Photoshop files, or easily create new files.

Adobe Photoshop Touch Software Development Kit (SDK) enables developers to build tablet applications that interact with Photoshop from Android, BlackBerry PlayBook and iOS devices.

John Loiacono, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Media Solutions, Adobe said “Tablet devices are destined to become part of creative workflows and these companion Photoshop applications are just the first indications of the creativity we can expect from Adobe and our developer community. With our Touch SDK, we are going to see some astonishing new ways to keep Photoshop at the heart of the creative process no matter what the device – desktop computer, Android tablet, BlackBerry PlayBook or iOS device.”

Source- Adobe

Couchbase has announced the release of Mobile Couchbase for iOS beta for iPhone developers. Mobile Couchbase is a CouchDB non-relational database powered by Apache CouchDB technology. It is the first NoSQL database available for iPad and iPhone developers and the only one to offer transparent mobile-to-cloud data synchronization. Mobile Couchbase will allow iPhone developers to build applications that will automatically synchronize locally-stored data to a cloud- or datacenter-deployed Couchbase whenever network connectivity is available.

Mobile Couchbase allows iOS developers to write web applications, synchronize multiple copies and share data and apps across any mobile device. Mobile Couchbase is easy to download and is fast, reliable and keeps the data on all your mobile devices synchronized with Couchbase database in the cloud.

Mobile Couchbase for iOS development is perfect for data like user preferences, contacts, game scores and enterprise application data. The Lightweight CouchDB architecture is ultimate for mobile devices. Mobile Couchbase for iOS development is powered by Apache CouchDB, known for its highly efficient memory usage. In addition to memory efficiency, CouchSync technology also minimizes synchronization-related radio traffic, thus extending battery life.

Chris Anderson, Couchbase Co-Founder and Chief Architect, Mobile says “Mobile Couchbase for iOS solves a huge problem in application development – how to build applications that run and synchronize with mobile devices. Sync has been an unsolved challenge and users are often turned off by slow applications, even when the slowness is due to network issues, not necessarily code. Now developers can take advantage of CouchDB’s powerful sync capabilities to scale and share data across any mobile device on one of the most successful platforms.”

If you are an iPhone developer who wants some help in making and marketing apps then: The Business of iPhone & iPad App Development: Making and Marketing Apps that Succeed would be a good resource for an iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch developer to build a successful iPhone app marketing plan and build the right buzz.  Apple app store with over 350,000 apps in various genres is a difficult place to be. And, if you want your app to stand out in the crowd then you have to market it aggressively so that mobile users get to know about your app. Successfully marketing your app is also important for an iPhone app developer to increase downloads and to make money out of your iPhone application.

The Business of iPhone & iPad App Development: Making and Marketing Apps that Succeed is written by Dave Wooldridge and Michael Schneider who are experienced iPhone app developers and is published by Apress Media LLC. This book will aid an iPhone app developer in a step-by-step process in iPhone app development and testing, transform their apps into a powerful marketing tool with the use of social media, how to implement a post-release marketing strategy, understand the business potential of the iPhone application, legal obligations, intellectual property issues and Apple app store submission process. The book will also guide you in monetizing your application through multiple revenue-generation models.

With a comprehensive guide like- The Business of iPhone & iPad App Development: Making and Marketing Apps that Succeed- iPhone app developers will not only be able to reach out to their intended audience in a successful way but will also be able to make their app a chartbuster in App Store.

Apple has released the third beta of iOS 4.3 carrying build number-8F5166b for iPhone application developers. Features and other details of the latest release are yet to be ascertained.

The beta 1 and beta 2 were released on January 12 and 19 respectively. Beta 1 offered a new Personal Hotspot feature that will make it possible for an iPhone user to share his 3G Internet connection and tether as much as 5 devices over the Wi-Fi connectivity. Beta 1 of iOS 4.3 also introduced a new feature that allows third-party application developers to employ AirPlay to stream videos into their apps. It also offered a software option to change the hardware switch of the iPad from mute and orientation lock.

With the release of iOS 4.3 beta 2, the Cupertino giant confirmed that multi-touch gestures will not be available for Apple customers and was just a preview to gather input from iPhone developers.

Beta 3 will allow users to stop the download process which is particularly handy if the user has initiated the app download process unintentionally. The iOS 4.3 beta 3 is currently available for Apple registered iOS application developers.

Apple has also introduced Verizon iPhone’s software version 4.2.6 today which more or less confirms that iPhones available on Verizon will not come with iOS 4.3 by default.

iPad’s dominance on the internet tablet field continues with more than 3 million iPads sold and 11,000 iPad apps ready for download within 80 days. That’s a startling number that beats all other mobile computing tablets like a charm.  Credit goes to adroit iPad developers who in a short time tweaked the iPhone applications and made it iPad compatible apps.

With most of the sales in US and iPad shipping yet to flourish worldwide we should expect the iDevice to spread exponentially. When compared to Apple’s earlier report the number of iPad applications in the app store doubled. This clearly shows developers interest in firming their ground early in the iPad app store.

Even though Apple has sent out invitations to developers to make iOS 4 compatible applications the craze is still on for iPad application and game development as evident from the reports. The iPad is supposed to be available in nine more countries in July which would mean the figures would go for a double next time we see this report around.