Apple is again going toe to toe with HTC. This time Apple has sued the Taiwanese smartphone maker for breaching a total of four patents related to software and technologies used by in the smartphone manufacturing.

Great news for all those that pre-ordered iPhone 4! As noted by some lucky customers, the pre-order devices are now shipping. They have got an update in their online pre-order status – it has changed from “not shipped” to “prepared for shipment.” This comes as a surprise, as pre-order customers are likely to get their devices before release day. What is even more surprising is that some customers received notifications that mentioned the delivery date to be June 23, reports MacRumors.

Apple has finally made the MobileMe service available, after it was holding it in beta for quite some time. Apple has added some enhanced features to e-mail at me.com. The features include widescreen and compact views, e-mail organization rules, one-click archiving, a formatting toolbar, high performance speed, better SSL and junk mail protection. The service is made functional only with Safari, Firefox, and IE8, but not with Chrome or Opera.

Whether it was stolen or it slipped under a couch cushion, Apple has introduced a new application to find your lost iPhone or iPad. Now you can locate your lost devices in a flash. Just install the Find My iPhone application (which is available as a free download from App Store) on the closest iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

After iPad’s stupendous success, Apple’s iPhone 4 is set to create new records. According to statements released by Apple and AT&T, the iPhone 4 pre-order sales are already over 600, 000 units which is 10-times higher than the first day pre-order performance of iPhone 3G S last year. Whereas, Apple stated that it is the largest number of pre-orders it has ever taken in a single day and that it is far higher than anticipated. However, the party was partially ruined by the fact that massive traffic caused AT&T’s site to breakdown and have account privacy issues. Reportedly, AT&T website received more than 13 million visits from the customer anxious to check their upgrade eligibility status.

The highly anticipated iPhone 4 has always been troubling Apple in one way or another. Before Apple announced the new iPhone, it had already leaked (and again in Vietnam). Now that Apple has started taking pre-orders yesterday, sources say that the day has turned out to be bad for the company. Because of the high pressure set forth by anxious fans, it took many multiple tries to pre-order. It also seems that the first batch of iPhone 4’s available for pre-order have been sold out. Apple has changed the shipping date of from the  to July 2.

Apple Inc. has introduced the new Apple Store App that allows iPhone/iPod Touch users to buy products from Apple’s Store. The app is free to download. With it users can buy just about everything Apple has on its online store (just no apps), including iPhone accessories, iPods, Mac desktop and iPads. From the app you can also pre-order the iPhone 4, saving time and the headache of going to an overcrowded store.

By this point you've probably heard about AT&T’s iPad security breach, with the most recent update, being an apology letter that AT&T forwarded to all customers whose email addresses and ICC-ID numbers were supposedly “hacked maliciously” by Goatse Security. Well now its Goatse Security’s that put out a release. The reply began: “So, AT&T calls us malicious in their letter to their customers. I think this call for a statement to clear the air.”

Yesterday evening, AT&T reached out to iPad customers who had been part of the recent iPad security breach via email. The email from Dorothy Attwood, senior vice president and chief privacy officer at AT&T, confirmed that only email address and ICC-ID numbers were the only information to be leaked. With Apple having no part in the issue, AT&T was the only company in question. In their release, AT&T put all blame on the hackers that gained unauthorized access to the site by taking advantage of its attempt to speed up log-in. It was Goatse Security that first reported the flaw that leaked the e-mail addresses of 114,000 iPad owners. 

Do you plan on buying the brand new iPhone 4 on the very first day of its release (now only 10 days away)? It looks like you’ll have more options aside from Apple and AT&T stores. Three more retailers will be offering the iPhone 4 on release day. Wal-Mart, Best buy, and Radio Shack will all have the iPhone 4 on release day, and some for pre-order

After all the bad blood between Adobe and Apple, you wouldn’t expect much cooperation.  After Apple hilariously hypocritical accusations of unethically proprietary business practices, Adobe retaliated with their brilliantly tongue-in-cheek “We Heart Apple" Campaign, (not to mention the release of flash player’s source code).  This whole debacle isn’t exactly conducive to working together, yet low and behold, flash 10.1 actually went out of their way to make the new version more compatible with Apple computers.  No, you still won’t be able to use flash player on your iPhone (at least not yet), but all of those unpleasant little kinks that you inevitably run into while running Flash in Safari have apparently been ironed out.  What’s even more impressive is the fact that this was actually a joint effort on behalf of both companies.

The FBI is currently looking into AT&T/ iPad3G data breach. According to FBI spokesperson Katherine Schweit, “The FBI is aware of these possible computer intrusions and has opened an investigation.” She did not make any specific comments about who will be questioned.

If you’re a diehard application fan (with a couple bucks to spare) or a developer then this news is for you. A company called appbackr has just launched in hopes of bringing together funding and  iPhone and iPad application developers. Simply put, developers post their app. If people like it they will fund you by purchasing the app at a discounted price and when the app hits the app market “investors” receive their initial purchase and then some. This is a great way to provide funding to developers along with providing a great value for app and tech enthusiasts. When the developers list any application on the appbackr store, it is grouped into one of the following:

Oh Apple, you rap-scallion.  We all know about your propensity for manipulating every little piece of legal documentation, ever so slightly in your favor until it all adds up to one giant monopolistic advantage.  But, there was some hope due to apples less maniacal behavior after their rise to #1.  Unfortunately, that fantasy was not long for this world because Apple’s new mobile advertising terms has just burst that bubble.  There is a slew of prohibitive terms that will severely reduce developers’ ad revenues in the name of maintaining Apple’s preeminence.

It hasn't been a good couple of months for Microsoft.  First their position as king of the profitable computer technology companies was taken by Apple, and then Google starts to seriously move in on their primary cash-cow software: Microsoft Word.  It even got so bad that they had to offer a cloud MS word for free.  Just to add insult to injury, the current iteration of Microsoft Windows has just been revealed by Palo Alto Networks to have some very serious security holes (even by their standards).  Normally this would be bad, but with their recent history, and online security/privacy being such a hot button issue right now, it’s absolutely disastrous.