Apple's "iOS in the Car" project began under Scott Forstall in 2012 and in 2013 Eddy Cue gave Apple's project its official branding while explaining what the system would basically look like. Apple already has 18 car companies signed on and ready to go for late 2014. This is one of Apple's future battlefronts. Apple's project has been seen as a threat to the status quo. Today, others agree with this assessment of the in-vehicle infotainment system market. In fact, one study is predicting that Apple will shockingly grab close to 50% of this market by 2018. Is this one of the new product categories that Apple's CEO Tim Cook forecasted for 2014? Yes, it would appear to the case. Is Wall Street listening? 

In March of this year Apple first introduced a new invention covering a future free fall protection system in great detail. Apple's proposed protective mechanism is configured to selectively alter a center of mass of the electronic device so that it doesn't fall on its glass face. Today's patent application illustrates one of Apple's latest advances in this project that utilizes a sophisticated magnets system used as a form of a guidance system to ensure that the fall protects the device.

On October 31, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to providing techniques for automatically adjusting a telephone numbers when doing a business card or telephone number exchanges. 

On October 31, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a new power management system that will work with both a power adapter and seamlessly with a portable solar panel accessory for busy people on the go. Apple's engineers are thinking big with their on-site solar power now creating the energy equivalent to powering 17,600 homes a year. The experience that Apple's engineers are gaining with working with solar panels is filtering through to creating a power management system for future Macs and iDevices. Apple has already been granted seven solar power patents thus far and you could review most of them in our Green Technology Archives. Today's patent goes one step further than most by introducing us to a solar power panel accessory for mobile devices like a MacBook or iPhone that won't require a power converter. Apple's system may be closer to reality than first thought considering that Apple's senior power design engineer noted as the inventor of this system has been snatched by Samsung within the last year.

According to a new IDC report, worldwide tablet shipments grew to 47.6 million units in the third quarter of 2013. While slightly below the firm's forecast, the number still represents 7.0% growth over the previous quarter and 36.7% growth compared to the third quarter of 2012. Android products once again drove much of the shipment growth in the market as iOS growth stalled and Windows tablets continued to struggle to win over consumers.Yet the stats showing Samsung as the one driving Android may not be all that they're cracked up to be.

With absolutely no explanation or reasoning, Apple abandons OS X Mavericks trademark in Canada. Was it a mistake by Apple legal or their Canadian agent Baker & McKenzie LLP? Is it a Canadian issue or is it a sign of things to come for the trademark? The abandonment notice was officially published on October 28, 2013 in regard to trademark filing 1648792.

In a new report published today, Rhoda Alexander, director, tablet research for IHS covered Apple and their tablet competitors by stating that "The growth in cheaply made, inexpensive Android tablets is a key piece of the growing imbalance between shipments and usage measurements in the tablet world." Usage measurements is a metric that we've been emphasizing as an important statistic to note for months now as has Apple's CEO Tim Cook who pointed that out specifically in their recent Special Event. Tim Cook stated during the iPad event that "regardless of what you might hear or read about how many are bought or sold or activated, iPad is used more than any of the rest. And not just a little more, a lot more. The iPad is used more than four times more than all of those other tablets put together." So it's refreshing to read about an analyst who finally promotes the idea that Android's mass shipments of junk tablets distort meaningful tablet statistics and facts.

In a September report titled "Why the 64-bit chip in the iPhone 5s matters," they stated that "While one of the key benefits of moving to 64-bit memory is support for up to 16 exabytes of memory, it'll probably be a few years before Apple actually ships an iPhone or iPad with more than 4GB. In fact, the iPhone 5S has just 1GB of memory (at a time when many high-end Android phones have 2GB or even 3GB). ExtremeTech noted in September that "Apple isn't going to start shipping a phone with more than 4GB of RAM, because RAM takes a significant amount of power to initialize." Yet a new game changing memory chip may be around the corner that could kick the A7 into another orbit.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook made it clear during their recent conference call that there was going to be iPad mini Retina display supply restraints for the fourth quarter of the year. Today we're learning that the problem appears to stem from Sharp who is oddly experiencing low yield rates for its Oxide TFT process.

Patently Apple's new iDevice Home Page Button is now ready for download. I'd like to thank TypePad's service/help desk representative Colleen for going beyond the call of duty in assisting me in getting these new buttons out in record time this week. One of our Patently Apple fans by the name of Alex sent me an email this week showing me his iPhone home screen. When I saw our old Light Bulb Button next to other buttons I simply cringed and knew it had to be replaced immediately (Ha!). Thanks for the push Alex. I'd also like to thank another one of our fans from Norway by the name of Terry who asked us to adopt Disqus for our comment section. Both changes were implemented in the last 48 hours. I greatly appreciate constructive feedback and, when we can make changes, we will. Cheers!

ABI Research reports 438 million handsets and 244 million smartphones shipped during the 3rd quarter of 2013. Samsung retained its lead in handset shipments and grew its share of smartphone shipments to 35%, while Apple share remained flat at 14%. Yet ABI's new report is playing a bit of shell game by narrowly limiting iOS stats to only smartphone's to enhance Android's numbers.  

News out of Asia today states that Taiwan said it had lodged a complaint with Apple over new iPhone and computer operating systems that describe the island as a province of China.

IDC's latest report states that the worldwide smartphone market grew 38.8% year over year in the third quarter of 2013 (3Q13). Vendors shipped a total of 258.4 million smartphones in 3Q13, establishing a new record for units shipped in a single quarter by more than 9.0%. The previous high was 237.0 million units shipped in the second quarter of 2013. Apple remained in second spot behind Samsung with slightly better market share gains than Samsung when compared to last quarter stats. Apple was up 5.7% and Samsung down 1.6%.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 40 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. Our report covers patents relating to a fingerprint sensor for applications beyond the Home Button such as a future Mac, a pressure sensitive display for a possible future smart pen accessory and a method of bonding a display to a device using lasers. Today's granted patent report concludes as always with a full list of the patents granted to Apple today that we didn't cover in detail. This list is designed for legal professionals and enthusiasts who wish to explore more of Apple's patents in future detail.

With all of the critics were expecting a poor iPhone quarter, Apple once again foiled their negative forecasts and enjoyed a great iPhone quarter. Apple sold a record 33.8 for the September quarter, compared to 26.9 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple's Tim Cook delivered a knock out statistic in iPad sales in education and more during Apple's financial conference call held this afternoon.

Microsoft thought that by debuting their Surface tablet last year that they'd invade Apple's iPad space just in time for Christmas sales and grab instant market share away from Apple to make headlines around the globe. In reality, they embarrassingly had to write off $900 million worth of inventory as the desire for a Windows based tablet was close to zero. In round two, Microsoft began cutting prices aggressively in the beginning of July of this year. And the results were surprising.

In September we reported that Japan Display would land more than half of the iPhone 5C order from Apple and in a secondary report we pointed to Japan Display connected to display panel and touchscreen components for Apple's upcoming iPhones. While Japan Display has certainly taken a major role for iPhone displays, their next possible contribution to the iPhone could be a stunner if Apple gives them the green light.

Today, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's latest registered trademark for "Designed by Apple in California" which was officially filed last Sunday. Apple first filed for this trademark earlier in the month in both Europe and Hong Kong China. In Apple's US filing they presented USPTO with a jumbo photo specimen illustrating their trademark on the inside of Apple's new iPhone 5S Packaging. Apple's new trademark first appeared during a promotional TV ad video presented to their developers at the WWDC event held in June.

Qualcomm's Chief Marketing Officer Anand Chandrasekher who recently called Apple's new 64bit A7 processor powering the iPhone 5S a marketing gimmick has been demoted to a new position that will cover "exploration of certain enterprise related initiatives." The new position that holds no official title takes is effective immediately.

In an interview at the company's Cupertino headquarters in 2012, Apple's CEO Tim Cook unveiled Apple's OS X Mountain Lion that incorporated several features from iOS that powers all of Apple's iDevices. At the time, the Wall Street Journal noted that Mountain Lion was "the clearest sign yet of Apple's belief that the mobile, laptop and desktop world are destined to converge—and that Apple wants to be a catalyst. Today, news of a new kind of convergence is in the wind and industry watchers are wondering if Apple will join, if not lead, this next wave.  

In a dramatic sign of how consumer tastes have shifted to new, more exciting wireless products, global factory revenue for smartphones and tablets this year will rise to become larger than revenue for the entire consumer electronics market—the first time this has ever occurred. The massive shift to new mobile devices, according to a new IHS report, is largely due to the debut of Apple's iPhone and iPad.

It's been a bad few weeks for Samsung. We've been pounding them at every possible turn of late. Last Thursday we reported about their Galaxy S3 battery problem and on Friday we followed up with a report that their battery problems had in fact spilled over to the Galaxy S4. Then we reported on China's Central Television's 30 minute special report about Samsung's faulty batteries just yesterday. The never ending push against Samsung finally made them cave with an official apology, but the bad news didn't quite stop there. Taiwan had the other punch winding up and delivered a hefty penalty on Samsung.

Yesterday Apple filed for the "OS X Mavericks" trademark in both Europe and Hong Kong China only a day after it was officially launched during Apple's special event held on Tuesday. Today, Apple has filed for three iOS 7 icon trademarks in addition to one for "Designed by Apple in California. Update Oct 25, 2013: Apple filed for Mavericks in the US this morning under number 86097345

On October 24, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals that they're still hard at work on a sophisticated next generation human recognition system. The work on this new system began in 2009 and their most elaborate work on this project was actually revealed in November 2012. We covered Apple's invention in great detail in our report titled "Apple Advances their Multi-Level Presence Sensing System." The 2012 patent provided the image of an HDTV and in this latest patent filing, Apple points to television content that may be R-Rated not being able to play if a young person walks into a room while the content is playing. Apple's new system will instantly scan an individual entering a room and adjust the TV as required. With an elderly person walking into a room, the audio may automatically be adjusted higher. If a Spanish friend walked into your living room, then the TV or Movie content would begin to present Spanish sub-titles. The advances discussed in the patent include fingerprint scanners, retina scanners and much, much more.

On October 24, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals their intent to advance digital gifting on iTunes. The new system will provide gift givers with multiple new ways of personalizing their gifts by using video messaging and the ability to send their gifts through various social media sites.

This year's fall event for the iPad has come and gone and it was interesting no matter how you sliced it. There was a little of everything for everyone in the community from MacBook Pro upgrades to free upgraded software to new iPads through to the introduction of the all-new Mac Pro. You could tell there was a lot of depth behind some of Apple's upgrades, though I must confess that I thought Apple fumbled on the Mac Pro's introduction. I also think that Apple's focus on thin being a big innovation is getting a little old and tired. I'm sure there's a lot of engineering that goes into making a product thin, no doubt. Yet it sure would be nice if Apple would deliver a little more zing. I mean, why didn't the iPad get the new Touch ID this year? That should have been a natural but instead we got more thin air in the form of the iPad Air. Yet all in all, Apple delivered a solid round of product refreshes and we once again applaud the Crazy Ones in Cupertino for their hard work.

Last week we reported that Samsung's Galaxy S3 battery problems were now plaguing their S4 model. Today we're learning that Samsung's headaches continued last night on another front. The official China Central Television (CCTV) station aired a 30-minute special report yesterday night on Samsung Electronics, criticizing their "faulty" Galaxy S3 smartphones.

According to sources within Apple's supply chain, they're preparing 10 million units of the iPad 9.7-inch for the fourth quarter holiday season which quietly began in the third quarter.

The doubting is over. The iPad mini with a Retina Display is a reality and will be available before the holiday season really kicks in. The rumor that got the news right was actually the earliest rumor of them all. In February Patently Apple reported that a rumor stated that the iPad mini 2 would deliver a new level of Retina to 2048 x 1536 ppi resolution. That's exactly what Apple announced would be coming to market earlier today during their special event.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 36 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we mainly cover two of Apple's granted patents. The first one covers Apple's new Lightning connector while the second covers compact ejectable assemblies designed for Micro-SIM cards. Our report also highlights a few other interesting patents that were granted to Apple today including two design patents. Our report concludes with a handy list of the remaining patents that were granted to Apple today should you wish to independently research them further.

On October 22, 2013, the US Patent and Trademark Office officially published another killer Steve Jobs patent regarding the iPhone that Apple is likely to use in future litigation. One of the key patents regarding the iPhone that Samsung and Google have tried to invalidate at all costs was reaffirmed by the US Patent Office last week. The patent was known as the "Steve Jobs patent." Patent specialist and blogger Florian Mueller made it known that last week's patent reaffirmation represented a major victory for Apple and the beginning of a massive uphill battle for Samsung. Today, Apple was granted a secondary major "Steve Jobs patent" that builds on the first patent by covering a "Graphical User Interface" and more. If last week's reaffirmed patent was considered a major victory for Apple against Samsung, then the second one is bound to pound Samsung o the mat even faster.

On October eleventh we noted that a Korean report had stated that the influence of the iPhone to be released in Korea at the end of this month was attracting their attention. The report further stated that "as there are maniac consumers for the Apple iPhone in Korea, the question is how much replacement demand the new iPhone will generate." Well, the answer to that question was made loud and clear. According to a new Korean report, KT's online pre-orders for Apple's latest iPhones ended in 7 minutes flat.

If the iFixit iPhone 5S teardown information in step 10 is correct concerning the iSight camera using an 8 MP CMOS image sensor from Sony, then there's a good chance that the iPhone 6 will likewise adopt Sony's next generation 16 MP in 2014.

Wild speculation hit the Taiwan Stock Exchange today with rumors that notebook maker Wistron has secured orders from Apple concerning communication devices such as Apple's "smartphones and tablets.

A new Gartner study published today provides us with a new round of statistics to mull over and dissect regarding 2013 worldwide shipments and trends. Combined worldwide shipments of devices (PCs, tablets and mobile phones) are projected to reach 2.32 billion units in 2013, a 4.5 percent increase from 2012. A generalized trend that Gartner sees in the year's closing quarter is that it will be driven by lower-priced devices in all categories while there'll be a boost for PC devices coming from hybrid notebook-tablets

In August we reported that the race for indoor location services was heating up with Apple on the prowl with a key acquisition and new patent filings. New research from ABI this week noted that Apple, eBay, Google, and others are all making definite moves on indoor location in 2013, with a view towards a $4 billion plus market in 2018.

Late on Friday the Hong Kong IP Office published three new Apple trademark filings for iOS 7 icons relating to iBooks, Music and the iTunes Store. Apple's iOS 7 was officially launched with their latest iPhone models iPhone 5S and 5C in September. While Apple's new colorfully bolder "flat design" was applauded by most, it certainly has its critics who think that Apple failed in both design and function. Today's report presents you with the three redesigned iOS 7 icons which were originally filed in Jamaica.

A new Google patent application that was recently published by the US Patent & Trademark Office reveals an ambitiously unique invention that's related to the construction of a future Android smartphone structure. The structure would be pressure sensitive to user-directed squeezes and other physical gestures to control applications in a more intuitive manner than by touchscreen alone.

Many Apple investors are a little jittery at the moment with concerns about the success of Apple's new iPhone models. Investors are hoping to hear a little good news away from those reports about poor iPhone 5C sales. With Apple only reporting its quarterly earnings on Oct. 28th, a little good news could go a long way in calming any fears investors may have. That good news arrived late Thursday when Verizon reported their iPhone sales numbers. The news was positive – very positive. Whether Apple's success with Verizon is any indication of how things will translate for the current quarter is unknown at this time, but the first signs are positive. 

During a conference call in 2011, the former CEO of U.S. Cellular, Mary Dillon, stated in the company's third-quarter earnings conference call that it had turned down Apple's iPhone because it did not make sense for the company economically. Dillon said that the carrier had the opportunity to sell the iPhone but that Apple's "terms were unacceptable from a risk and profitability standpoint." Well, that all changes on November eighth.