David Yastrab, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple in California. Much of the complaint revolves around iOS 7 issues and the "Grayed out Issue" in particular. It's clear that many Apple fans were not happy about their iOS 7 experience and so this lawsuit shouldn't come as a surprise. Whether the suit is worth more than $5 million dollars remains to be seen. Our report focuses on the "Nature of the Action" which provides a detailed yet narrowed overview of the lawsuit.

The "Obscure Analyst" blog that's run by Matt Margolis is reporting today that Apple has shipped small quantities of sapphire from their plant in Arizona to one of their partnering plants in China. Margolis, who owns stock in Apple's sapphire plant partner GTAT, believes that the sapphire is for future iPhone covers even though Apple's CEO clearly stated that the sapphire is for a secret project. Margolis is convinced otherwise for reasons unknown.

A new report published yesterday by market research firm Strategy Analytics shows that Apple's iPhone sales grew an impressive 16.8% year-over-year, significantly above Samsung's anemic 6%. Apple was only second to Huawei who scored an impressive year-over-year growth of 22.4%. Yet some of the other statistics that were presented in Strategy Analytics' charts skewed Apple's real position.

Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published four of Apple's latest registered trademarks covering iOS 7 icons for the iTunes Store, Music, Voice Memos and Safari. The four were officially granted to Apple late yesterday. Apple's iOS 7, which was released on September 18, 2013, included a redesigned user interface led by Apple's Senior VP of Design Jony Ive. The newly registered icons reflect just a few of the icon updates.

During Apple's April Financial Conference Call Apple's CEO Tim Cook stated that Apple's Q2 (or calendar Q1) demonstrated that they could do well in a number of geographies from emerging markets to the developed markets. Cook then followed up with specific examples: "Brazil was up 61%, Russia was up 97%, Turkey was up 56%, India up 55% and Vietnam was up 262%. I could go on but the point is that there are a number of markets out there where we're beginning to really catch on with. These haven't been particular strong points for Apple." Apple's conference call was held on April 23, 2014. The very next day, a new study was published with findings that put a little wind into Tim Cook's sails about the momentum for Apple in emerging markets.

Back in 2012 we briefly covered the news that the European Commission was going to investigate Samsung for abusing their Standard Essential Patents (SEP) against Apple. At the end of 2013 we reported that the EU wasn't happy with Samsung's initial Anti-Trust offer to end its patent dispute with Apple. Today, the European Commission adopted a decision with finds both Motorola and Samsung guilty of abusing their Standard Essential Patents. Yet the punishment doled out to Motorola for starting this war against Apple over essential patents ended up being a joke. Their big punishment was nothing more than a roaring press release with no bite. Yes, a polite little slap on the wrist. Yet perhaps there's a silver lining to all of this.

A new report posted today claims that Google wants to take a run at Apple's iPhone with a new line of smartphones called "Silver" that's really just killing off the Nexus branding for something that they could market better. The plan is also a part of a backup plan should Samsung decide to push their Tizen platform against Android.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 45 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover Apple's patent for a MEMS based autofocus actuator for iDevices which will provide faster response times, better photo stability and more. The inventor of this patent worked at Cambridge Mechatronics who specialized in auto focus actuators. Will this cause Apple any problems in the future or did Apple license part of the technology? Only time will tell. In addition, we cover Apple's newly awarded design patents and we wrap up this week's granted patent report with our traditional listing of the remaining granted patents that were issued to Apple today.

The US Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of 45 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. today. In this particular report we cover a single granted patent that surprisingly relates to an iWatch-like device form factor.

Samsung Electronics saw earnings dip in the first quarter – for the second consecutive quarter – as margins were squeezed by competition in the high-end smartphone market (ahem, Apple). The dip contrasts with rival Apple, whose smartphone unit sales jumped 17 per cent in the first quarter, driving an overall 5 per cent rise in sales to $45.6bn and helping Apple's earnings growth hit its highest rate in six quarters, with net profit of $10.2bn.

On May 20, Apple iPhone users, starting with the iPhone 4S with integrated iBeacon technology, will be able to participate in New York's May 20 event called "BeaconCrawl." BeaconCrawl, an interactive bar crawl event supporting bars in lower New York that were hit by 2012's Superstorm Sandy, will integrate beacons with a mobile application to drum up business.

Last Thursday the US Patent & Trademark Office published a series of 82 patent applications from Apple. While we only highlighted three of the patent applications (one, two and three) that were most interesting to the general Apple community, the fact remains that there were many other inventions that could appeal to many niche communities that have specialty skills. In this report we've compiled a list of 50 of the remaining 82 patent applications and their respective hyperlinks so that the curious explorer could find some of Apple's little hidden treasures that didn't get much attention last week. Enjoy the hunt.