Apple, Samsung Still Unable To Trim Down Patent Claims In Ongoing Lawsuit

With the cases from both Apple and Samsung presented over the last couple weeks, the judge overseeing the ongoing patent case between the two ordered the companies to sit down and try to work it out. They were to let her know if they reached any agreements by no later than yesterday, and so they have. The results of these sit-downs: absolutely nothing. The joint statement from both parties reads, “The parties have met and conferred about case narrowing, but have not been able to narrow their cases further.”

The trial resumes in earnest tomorrow, and Judge Lucy Koh had hoped to either simplify the case considerably or settle it outright over the weekend. Now that that plan has failed, the jury will be called back, and the trial will go on. There’s still a chance that the two companies will settle; a law professor interviewed by Businessweek believes the patent portfolios involved are too broad for a jury verdict to not be devastating for the parties involved. A settlement will most likely be reached that will settle all of Apple and Samsung’s ongoing patent disputes, which are currently ongoing on four different continents.
The jurors are back at work tomorrow, August 21, and they’ll be attempting to come to a verdict over the next couple of weeks.

BiteSMS v6.3 Released Bringing About Themes And Many Other Improvements

One of the main reasons I continue to Jailbreak my iPhone is for a Cydia tweak called BiteSMS. You see, BiteSMS is a powerhouse tweak that takes the stock Messages app and injects it with a dose of steroids. Probably the most widely recognized feature of BiteSMS is the ability to reply to text messages from anywhere within iOS without actually having to launch the stock Messages app. It does’t stop at quick reply however, BiteSMS supercharges your iPhone’s messaging capabilities and really is something that needs to be experienced.

Today BiteSMS v6.3 has been introduced with the obvious bug fixes/stability improvements, as well as a bunch of other things. BiteSMS comes with new themes, a ‘mark as read’ icon in banner notifications and much more that you can read about in the changelog below.

• Check out biteSMS, Settings, Themes…NICE!!!
• Added a ‘mark as read’ icon in the Apple banner roll notification.
• Added the ability to display the contact pic in the ‘Lock Screen Notification List’ (see biteSMS, Settings, More Stuff, Contact Pics).
• Better control of Quick Reply. See biteSMS, Settings, Quick Reply: Lock Mode and Unlock Mode.
• Fixed a whole heap of layout issues on the iPad.
• Fixed up issue with very new iPhones (currently in China) in relation to Emoji character encoding.
• For iOS 5.1: Fixed bug in Quick Compose volume HUD where we were restoring the wrong volume category.
• Fixed a bunch of minor bugs.

If you haven’t updated to the latest version of BiteSMS yet, then you should do it right away. BiteSMS 6.3 is currently available in the BigBoss repository for about $5. That folks is a discounted price at half off for a certain time period, so get it before it goes back to its original price tag.

Dock And Headphone Jack Assembly For iPhone 5 Leaked, Plus Complete Back Shell [IMAGES]

More chunks of iPhone 5 just keep showing up. It’s a miracle no one has gathered these all up and built an iPhone 5 yet. Today’s example of this phenomenon comes courtesy of iResQ, who has managed to obtain the USB dock and headphone jack assembly from one source, and the entire back shell from another source. They were kind enough to put them together and take some pictures.

As you can see, all the rumors about a smaller 9-pin connector and a bottom-mounted headphone jack are true. There’s also a comparison with an iPhone 4S, which makes it look like the iPhone 5 won’t be any skinnier than the current model. We’ve probably reached the point of diminishing returns on phone thinness anyways, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, they didn’t provide a picture that would indicate how tall the two phones are in comparison to each other, so it’s still not 100% clear how tall the iPhone 5 will be.

Skype iOS App Updated With Photo Sharing, Minor Visual Changes And More [Download Now]

Everyone’s favorite VOIP calling application, Skype was updated today to version 4.1 in the iOS forefront to bring about new features like Photo sharing. Both the iPhone and iPad version of Skype now supports the ability to send and receive photos, and has a variety of bug fixes which will greatly improve stability. Perhaps the biggest fix however, was targeted around memory leaks causing unnecessary battery drain, and issues with calls being commenced over Bluetooth.

Among other things Skype for iOS v4.1 also includes minor visual improvements and updated privacy settings. As pointed out in our previous article about Skype being updated to v4.0 – for the Jailbreakers, Skype still displays a “system requirements” warning on launch and explains that Skype only works on “unmodified versions of iOS.” Don’t worry about the message, Skype should work just fine. You can download Skype v4.1 from one of the direct links below.

Download Skype v4.1 for iPhone/iPod Touch [iTunes Store Link]

Download Skype v4.1 for iPad [iTunes Store Link]

What do you think about this Skype update? Has it solved more problems than it has created? Share your responses in the comments section.