Patently O has discovered that Apple purchased over 200 patents from Freescale Semiconductor on April 11th of this year. However, the patent purchase was not disclosed until May 18. Freescale Semiconductor was formerly Motorola's Semiconductor Product Sector until the electronics giant spun off the company in 2003.

Details of the patent purchase are unclear. Patently O says it's likely that Apple made a cash purchase of the patents and that there is a large diversity among the group of patents although almost all relate to computer hardware and wireless devices. As always with patent purchases, Apple may never actually implement the patented technologies in its devices. Apple may have purchased the patents to use as leverage in future patent lawsuits, or to stave off those lawsuits.

The Kogeto Dot is an interesting little device. It's a lens that attaches to your iPhone 4, and allows you to shoot 360 degree panoramic video with the iPhone's little camera. Engadget tried it out and they found it a little awkward -- you have to hold the iPhone perpendicular to the floor as you shoot, which means you can't actually see the screen unless you're holding it high above your head. But usability really isn't the emphasis here -- the lens comes with an app that will straighten out your video and even allow you to stream it right from the iPhone, so portability is the main driver in this case.

The company also has a standalone panoramic capture system already, so they've got some experience in the field to play off of, even if the actual iPhone implementation is a bit hacky. The Dot is currently available for preorder for $98, pending actual production of the item. It'd be cool to see some video shot on location in this way, though for most panoramic shots, odds are you'd have gear built more specifically for the task.

The New York Times is reporting on a FreeWheel study [PDF] that says the majority of video views that happen on a mobile device occur on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. The iPhone and iPod touch account for a 30% share each, while the iPad accounts for a 20% share. About 19% of video views happen on an Android device with the remaining 1% happening on all other mobile devices.

Ever since Apple unveiled the original iPhone without Adobe Flash support Apple's competitors have been shouting that users were missing the "full Internet." There were also plenty of people that said lack of Flash support would doom the iPhone since most mobile videos were in the Flash format. We now know, of course, that lack of Flash doesn't hinder video viewing on the iPhone in the slightest. Most videos on most major websites are encoded in multiple formats now -- all perhaps thanks to the iPhone not supporting Flash.

Matter of fact, FreeWheel asserts that Apple's dominance in mobile video views is due to the fact that Apple's devices top the priorities of video publishers and mobile developers who encode and develop for Apple's iOS gear first and Android and other devices only after they have stable iOS offerings.

Perhaps it's the fact that summer is just around the corner in the Northern Hemisphere, but lately we've been seeing a lot of interesting weather apps for iOS and OS X. An new iPad app called Aelios Weather (available at a special launch price of US$2.99) is a refreshingly unique take on getting the weather info you need.

Onscreen, you see what looks like a finely crafted piece of jewelry. You move this virtual instrument around the screen over a Google satellite map of the world. The app has a little animated pointer that locks onto the nearest weather station and gives you the current temperature, wind speed and direction. In a few seconds, icons appear and show you the forecast temperatures and winds for the next 24 hours. Changing a setting makes a multi-day forecast available for viewing.

The app can figure out your current location and display weather information for wherever you are. You can also search for any city in the world to see what the weather there is like. Midnight appears at the top of the dial, with noon at the bottom. As you push the instrument north, you can see night getting shorter as the days get longer; at least that's what happens in the Northern Hemisphere at this time of year.

Aelios Weather is an interesting idea for an app, and it is beautifully rendered. One of the developers, Mehdi Aminian, told me the idea was to make an app that was different and more functional than standard weather apps, so they included an atlas, time and weather information. It's fascinating to move the instrument around from low altitude to a nearby mountain top and watch the temperature and winds change.

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Gameloft's CEO Alexandre de Rochefort spoke last weekend at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in Paris, and gave a particularly stark view of this growing global app market. While a lot of big time developers are bullish on the app market and its possibilities, de Rochefort presented a more tempered view. He called it "an ugly scene," and said that "the smartphone market is not a goldmine for developers. It's a bit like playing the lottery."

He's got a point -- there are some major developers making a lot of money selling their apps on the App Store (and Gameloft is one of those), but there are also thousands if not millions of developers out there whose apps just can't seem to find the public's interest. Even low-budget, one man developers might have trouble even recouping the costs of their apps if not featured by Apple or the press, not to mention huge developers who risk huge budgets on games that might not fly.

Of course, some may say that's business, and for the most part they'd be right. But a lot of times the app market is portrayed as a new gold rush, with millions of dollars of revenue available for anyone who releases an app. That's not quite the case, especially a few years into the app scene.

Nike+ is about to turn five years old and they are celebrating by giving their Nike+ GPS app away for free for a limited time. The app is similar to other run-tracking apps, but it's got a much cleaner interface than most and a color-coded map line so you can see the parts of your run where you were faster or slower.

Nike+ GPS also offers some fun features other running apps don't, such as motivational messages from Nike's top athletes, personalized PowerSongs to jazz up your run, and even the ability to hear mid-run cheers every time your friends like or comment on your run status.

Even if you are using another running app, Nike+ GPS is worth the download while it's free (it's usually US$1.99). And remember, Nike+GPS uses the iPhone's built-in GPS, so it doesn't require the separate Nike+ shoe insert.

[via 9to5]

Spotify might not have made it across the pond just yet, but that doesn't mean millions of Mac users aren't getting their music fix via the ad-supported or premium streaming service.

A new Mac App Store app called SpotiMy aims to enhance the Spotify experience of Mac users by letting them control playback right from the menu bar. The little app adds a menu bar icon with drop-down previous, pause/play and next track buttons.

Unfortunately that's about all you're going to get for your US$0.99. In fact you can easily and quickly control Spotify playback using the existing media keys on any Mac keyboard, which makes the app practically redundant for anyone with said keyboard.

SpotiMy shows that there is potential for Spotify add-ons like the plethora available for iTunes. At the moment SpotiMy doesn't bring anything you can't do better with a keyboard to the table and therefore I can't recommend it. But the developer is keen to add to the app, with its current form very much a simple start. If track selection, or playlist support, along with what's playing and some other control features make it into the app, a menu bar Spotify control app could be really useful. One to watch but not buy, unless you desperately want Spotify menu bar playback control right now.

If there's one good thing that Windows 7 users have built-in that Mac users don't, it's window snapping. In Windows 7 you can drag a window to the top of the screen to maximize it, or to the left or right side of the screen to make it fill half the display.

BetterSnapTool is window snapping for OS X on steroids. Whether you want to snap and expand to full screen, half screen (either horizontally or vertically), one-third of a screen, quarter screen, centered or even centered or maximized on the next monitor, BetterSnapTool has a gesture or keyboard shortcut to do it.

Options include the ability to define your own keyboard shortcuts, all 17 of them, turn on or off the various screen edge snapping gestures, as well as a whole host of settings for the preview window. If you're a fan of manually resizing or moving windows, BetterSnapTool includes a system of window resizing and movement using a modifier key and the movement of your mouse -- you don't even have to click. You can even make the OS X window traffic lights do set things with right or middle clicks, or define a task to a title bar double-click.

As the name might suggest, there are other apps that do similar things to BetterSnapTool. Cinch, for instance, gives you some of the screen edge gestures, but none that I've tried have had such a comprehensive and easy to use list of snap options. Even the optional menu bar icon is rather attractive and looks like a mini Battenberg cake.

While there are other applications that do similar things, including the recently featured Flexiglass, BetterSnapTool is certainly one of the best and an absolute steal at US$1.99.

Update 2: Macworld just posted the complete text of the letter sent by Apple's legal department to Lodsys, as has CNET. You can view the text of the letter below, or see the full-color version on Scribd.

The letter asserts definitively that Apple's license for the Lodsys patents covers the developers who are using App Store upgrade technologies.

"[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."

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A flurry of tweets from developers indicates that Apple will be taking an active role in dealing with the patent infringement complaints from Lodsys, LLC. This comes a few days after the Electronic Frontier Foundation issued a statement urging Apple assist its developers in the fight.

Although none of the developers we spoke with could comment, it seems clear from the public tweets that a collective sigh of relief is going through the developer community about now. "The sheer amount of support from everyone regarding the patent matter is quite humbling. Can't say thanks enough," Iconfactory's Gedeon Maheux tweeted.

The Lodsys situation was also a primary focus of Sunday's TUAW talkcast. Listen to the full discussion and an interview with Maheux here.

Update 1: The Loop quotes the letter from Bruce Sewell, Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel as saying, "Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the App Makers are protected by that license."

There's a nifty little free demo you may want to pick up that uses the iPad camera to do some head tracking and create a kind of faux 3D on your iPad display. We took a look at an early demo for this last month, and now the app has arrived for your downloading pleasure. Unlike stereoscopic 3D systems, i3D doesn't send two images to your eyes.

What i3D does instead is show you several scenes that change perspective as you tilt your iPad side to side and up and down. The effect does not depend on the gyros built into the iPad, but instead uses the camera to track the position of your head and render a changing perspective in real time.

The demo was developed by Jeremie Francone and Laurence Nigay, and as you use it you can just imagine the possibilities for games and educational apps. The app only works in portrait view at present. There is an iPhone version, but screen size makes a difference and the 3D effect on the iPad version seems stronger. I've seen some similar demos that use the built-in gyro, but they don't seem as responsive as this app. It's hard to give you a feel for this app in a static screen shot, so I'd suggest that you check out the fascinating video on the next page to get a good idea how it all works.

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