Apple Handles 40 Billion iMessages and 15 to 20 Million FaceTime Calls Daily [iOS Blog]

During today’s annual stockholders meeting, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that 40 billion iMessages and 15 to 20 million FaceTime calls are made daily. That number suggests iMessage has grown exponentially over the course of the last year as usage numbers were at two billion messages per day in January of 2013.

As of mid–2013, Apple had 320 million iCloud accounts with 900 billion iMessages sent, a number that would be significantly higher today, taking into account 40 billion iMessages a day.

In comparison, popular messaging service WhatsApp, which was just purchased by Facebook, processes 50 billion messages per day. BlackBerry Messenger users on Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry phones send and receive upwards of 10 billion messages per day.

iMessage and FaceTime have become increasingly important messaging services for Apple over the course of the last year, and the company recently enhanced FaceTime with FaceTime Audio for both iOS devices and Macs, putting the video service on par with other apps like Skype.

During the meeting, Cook also announced impressive Apple TV sales numbers topping $1 billion and said the company had not lost its “innovative DNA.”

MOGA Working on New Bluetooth iOS 7 Game Controller [iOS Blog]

MOGA today announced that it is working on a successor to its original MOGA Ace Power iOS 7 game controller, sending out a teaser image that depicts a controller with a new Bluetooth-compatible design.

The original MOGA Ace Power was compatible only with the iPhone due to its need to connect to the phone’s lightning port, but it appears the second version will utilize Bluetooth instead, connecting to both the iPhone and the iPad much like the SteelSeries Stratus.

MOGA’s first controller was criticized for both its poor build quality and its high price tag, two issues that have plagued all of the iOS 7 controllers released thus far. It is possible that with more time to work on the hardware, MOGA’s second controller could have a substantially better build quality.

Aside from Bluetooth connectivity, it’s hard to discern much about the new controller based on the teaser image. Like its successor, it has dual analog sticks, a d-pad, and a set of action buttons.

MOGA plans to unveil its new controller at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, which begins on March 17.

Apple Readying Fix for Issues with Touch ID Fading

Apple is preparing an update that will improve performance of the Touch ID sensor on its iPhone 5s handset, claims AppleInsider. Apple has tapped its AuthenTec team to eliminate “fade”, a term coined to describe the increasingly erratic performance of the fingerprint sensor that is experienced by some iPhone 5s owners.

After launching iPhone 5s last fall, Apple has continued to work with the original AuthenTec team to improve its recognition software and will release an update relatively soon, the source confidently reported. However, AppleInsider could not verify whether the update will ship as part of iOS 7.1, which is expected to drop in mid-March.

Issues with Touch ID surfaced shortly after the iPhone 5s was introduced, with owners reporting an increasing number of failed scans shortly after they enter their fingerprints. Deleting and rescanning a fingerprint only temporarily fixes the issue.

iPhone 5s owners have devised creative homemade fixes that include scanning the same fingerprint five times and overtraining the sensor for improved accuracy, but these are workarounds that don’t address the underlying problem.

Apple introduced Touch ID in the iPhone 5s and promoted the technology in an ad campaign that appeared in The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated and other print newspapers and magazines. Apple obtained the fingerprint scanning technology when it acquired AuthenTec in 2012.

Apple Retail Stores Pushing Sales of Current Apple TV with $25 iTunes Gift Card Offer

With rumors of a new Apple TV set-top box swirling, Apple’s brick and mortar stores have launched a one-week promotion offering customers who purchase the current model a $25 iTunes Store gift card, reports 9to5Mac.

The promotion naturally sparks speculation that Apple is trying to clear stock of the current model ahead of new hardware. A recent report from Bloomberg claimed, however, that while Apple was aiming for an April introduction of the new Apple TV, a launch would not come until much later in the year around the holiday shopping season.

The Apple TV recently received added prominence in the Apple online store with its own major heading as opposed to its previous placement as an accessory, suggesting that Apple may be laying the groundwork to move the Apple TV from its longtime “hobby” status to a full-fledged product on par with its other lines.

Apple has reportedly considered a new set-top box that would combine the features of the current Apple TV with the Wi-Fi router features of the existing AirPort Express. The new Apple TV could also leverage iOS devices and Bluetooth accessories as game controllers for a potential Apple TV App Store, while also adding an Apple software layer on top of users’ existing cable television services. Apple has also reportedly been in talks with Time Warner Cable about a potential content deal.

The new gift card offer on the existing Apple TV runs through March 5 and is currently not offered on the Apple online store. As with all iTunes gift cards, the credit can be used in any of Apple’s digital content stores, including the iTunes Store, App Store, Mac App Store, and iBooks Store.

IPCom’s $2 Billion Patent Lawsuit Against Apple Dismissed by German Court

German patent licensing company IPCom was handed a setback today when both of its patent infringement lawsuits against Apple were dismissed in a German court, reports FOSS Patents. The decisions were handed down by two different chambers within the Mannheim Regional Court.

Two lawsuits against Apple, including one involving a €1.57 billion ($2.2 billion) “partial” damages claim, and one against HTC (a company IPCom has been suing for about six years) were dismissed because the court concluded that Apple and HTC didn’t infringe a certain IPCom patent family by implementing the 3G/UMTS standard.

The patents cited in the dismissed lawsuits include European patent EP1841268 and German patent DE19910239, which describe methods of managing priority emergency access when wireless networks are overloaded. Apple, Nokia, HTC and others asked the European Patent Office to invalidate the European patent, but the EPO denied this request.

IPCom is expected to appeal these decisions, while Apple and other mobile manufacturers likely will continue to challenge the validity of this patent. Outside of Germany, Apple is petitioning both the <a href="U.S. Supreme Court and the <a href="EU to limit the power of patent holding companies like IPCom in future infringement cases.

Amazon May Add Streaming Music to Prime Service

Amazon may be planning to introduce a streaming music product that could be bundled into its Amazon Prime service, competing with existing streaming music services from companies like Spotify, Pandora, Apple, and Google reports Re/code.

Amazon is reportedly in talks with major music labels with the aim of releasing a music service in the future, hoping for low rates much as Apple did when negotiating for iTunes Radio.

One label source reports that Amazon isn’t close to getting a deal done, because its executives are asking for a substantial discount on the pricing the labels have given to other services, like Spotify, Rhapsody and Beats.

Still, label talks have been going on for the past few months, sources say.

Amazon already offers its Amazon Prime subscribers a Netflix-style movie and television streaming service – Amazon Instant Video – but music could entice customers to pay more. Earlier this year, Amazon said that it may be raising the price of Prime by up to $40, increasing the cost of the service from $79.99 to $120. Amazon already offers a Cloud Player service for playing music purchased or stored using its Cloud Drive, which is similar to iTunes Match.

Last year, Apple released its own streaming music service, iTunes Radio, which is built into the Music app of iOS 7. The service is radio-based, allowing users to discover new music through stations based on specific artists and songs, much like Pandora. It is unclear whether Amazon’s service would mirror Apple’s, or if it will more closely resemble services like Spotify, which allow users to search for and play specific songs.

Like Amazon, Apple was originally aiming to pay lower prices than the industry standard at six cents per 100 songs streamed, or half of Pandora’s royalty rate, but the company was unable to reach deals with music labels at such low rates. Apple ended up agreeing to pay labels 0.13 cents for each song played, along with 15 percent of net advertising revenue, and it is likely that Amazon may have to make similar pricing concessions to bring a music service to fruition.

California Appeals Court Rules State Law Doesn’t Prohibit Driver Use of Smartphone Maps

A California appeals court has ruled that a driver cannot be convicted of distracted driving for using a smartphone mapping application under current state law that prohibits the use of talking and texting while driving.

Because the law is so narrowly tailored — it prohibits “listening” and talking on a phone without a hands-free device, as well as sending and receiving text-based messages — it does not specifically apply to using smartphones in other ways.

The 5th District Court of Appeal reversed the case of a Fresno man who was ticketed in January 2012 for looking at a map on his iPhone 4 while stuck in traffic. The driver, Steven Spriggs, challenged the $165 fine and won.

Spriggs was caught up by road work and grabbed his cellphone to find an alternate route when a California Highway Patrol officer on a motorcycle spotted him and stopped him to write the ticket.

It is possible that the California state legislature will address the issue in a future session as the law was likely intended to ban drivers from playing Angry Birds or making changes in a smartphone mapping app while driving, though a strict reading of the law doesn’t explicitly make those activities illegal.

The decision reversed the ruling of a lower appeals court from last year.

Laws in other states may or may not cover the use of smartphone mapping apps, and this ruling will have no impact in states other than California. In addition, California drivers can still be cited for distracted driving, but could point to this case when fighting their ticket in court.