News

The big news of the past week was the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) - Google truce. Amidst what seems to be hundreds of patent infringement lawsuits going on around the globe, the two smartphone giants agreed to cease all litigation and "work together in some ares of patent reform."

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn bought another 2.8 million shares of Apple, bringing his total stake in the company to around $4.5 billion. His recent bullishness regarding Apple probably means good things are in store for shareholders.

There wasn't much terribly exciting news about any Apple products last week, but there were a few noteworthy items...

As we are constantly reminded by TV commercials for competing tablets, the iPad is lacking when it comes to multitasking. Rumor has it that Apple will remedy this with iOS 8. The iOS update, which will be unveiled at next month's WWDC, will allow users to run two apps simultaneously and allow apps to interact with each other.

Wideband audio was showcased by Apple at the iPhone 5 keynote, however T-Mobile is the only US carrier to support the technology. This is all set to change later this week, when AT&T rolls out HD Voice on its Voice Over LTE (VoLTE) network starting Friday. HD Voice will be enabled on the Samsung Galaxy S 4 mini first, with more devices to follow.

Both the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s will support HD Voice, which expands the frequency range heard during a voice call. This reduces background noise and provides more natural and realistic sound, making caller's voices easier to hear. According to an AT&T press release, the first markets to receive the upgrade will be in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Recent years have seen a seemingly endless amount of patent infringement lawsuits between the big smartphone companies, not just in the U.S., but around the globe. Just two weeks ago a verdict was delivered in Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) second patent suit against Samsung, in which Apple sought a monstrous $2.2 billion. That will likely be appealed and the legal battle will continue. The gray area of patent infringement needs to be cleared up if this state of affairs is ever to end, and Apple and Google's Motorola Mobility unit have taken a step in that direction by dropping their lawsuits against each other.

On Friday, a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a "joint motion to dismiss the appeal." Both parties agreed to dismiss all current and pending "litigation without prejudice." According to Reuters, the companies issued a

It was a slow week for App Store releases but there were a few big announcements. DeNA and Hasbro announced that the official Transformers: Age of Extinction tie-in will be available for mobile devices this "summer". The movie is set to hit theaters on June 27, 2014, so expect the game to land on the App Store around the same time. Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen made headlines again after he told CNBC he plans to release a "less additive" version of the game with a multipayer option in August. Nguyen also teased his newest release, a platform game, on Twitter. You can see the first image of Nguyen's unnamed new game posted below. And finally, Adult Swim's new iOS game Delivery Outlaw soft launched in Canada, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland.

Here are the most noteworthy apps and games released to the Apple App Store between 05/11/14 to 05/17/14. Apple's Free App of the Week is the hotel / flight booking app Kayak Pro. The app will be free on the App store until 05/22/14.