Apple is facing another lawsuit over its handling of location data, according to a report from The Loop. The latest complaint was filed by Lymaris M. Rivera Diaz in the United States District Court for the District Of Puerto Rico.

Riveria is asking for monetary damages stemming from Apple's alleged practice of capturing both the device ID and location of a handset and sending it to third-party advertisers. Besides Apple, Diaz also cites The Weather Channel and Pandora in the suit.

The suit also names 10 'John Doe' defendants. This tactic is used in lawsuits when the plaintiff believes there are more targets to sue, but can't name them specifically until after the suit is filed or after the discovery process. This means there could easily be additional companies targeted by the same suit later on.

Apple is also facing an earlier lawsuit and a congressional investigation into its usage of location data stored on the iPhone. Apple confirmed in a FAQ and testified before Congress that location data is necessary for services such as local search and is not being used to track individuals.

An original Apple-1 sprung back to life during a presentation at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy this week. Hand-built by a then young Steve Wozniak, the vintage computer was purchased by Mark Bogle for US$211,000 as part of a high-profile Christie's auction. Despite its age of 35 years, the computer booted smoothly with the help of an oscilloscope to check the wave function of the clock, an NTSC monitor to display text and a MacBook Pro to send a simple BASIC program to the Apple-1's BASIC interpreter. Much to the amusement of the crowd, the Apple-1 displayed the words Hello Polito, a charming reference to the Polytechnic University.

[Via Engadget]

We've seen a bevy of vintage photography apps. Hipstamatic might be the most popular, though Instagram has a solid group of users as well. But, Super 8 brings a new idea to the party: vintage videos [Of course this isn't really "new" as apps like 8mm and Silent Film Director perform a similar function - Ed.]. Just like Hipstamatic, Super 8 will capture media from your iPhone that looks like it was photographed with an old camera. But instead of still pictures, you'll get old film-style videos. Just like the other vintage apps, there's a cool UI and plenty of extras to play with, including adding film scratches, titles and editing film clips on your iPhone.

When your films are done, you can email them or save them to a computer with iTunes. It's very well done -- the app is actually put together by Paramount as a promotion for the upcoming JJ Abrams movie, but it's still very well done by marketing firm QMX Interactive and offers a lot of functionality to play with.

Plus, for now, the app is a free download, so you can check it out without paying a thing. Very cool idea.

I'm a big fan of Pomplamoose, the fun indie duo of musicians Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn that often posts song covers on YouTube, and I was happy to see that their latest cover is directly iPhone-related. They're apparently big fans of Angry Birds, and they've put together a "videosong" cover of the popular smartphone game's theme song. The cynical among you may be inspired to try and fight the cheer in the video on the next page (especially since the video seems to be promoted by some Samsung smartphone), but let's keep that to a minimum, shall we? It's cute.

This definitely isn't my favorite Pomplamoose song, though. If you want to hear these guys doing something a little more original (and frankly, subtle), check out their great songs Centrifuge and Always in the Season. They're not theme songs to popular iOS games, obviously, but they are great tunes nevertheless.

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Back in February, Apple began enforcing App Store rules regarding requiring in-app purchases of e-books in addition having options outside the app. Sadly, today that has caused the people behind iFlowReader to shutter their business because "Apple is giving us the boot by making it financially impossible for us to survive." Users of the e-book reader app are being warned to back up their data carefully, or they might lose access to the content they have purchased through it.

Previously, apps like iFlow Reader were able to sell content for the app only via non-App Store purchases. For example, with Amazon's Kindle app, you can use the Mobile Safari web browser to purchase books via your Amazon account. Apple doesn't take its usual 30% cut of these transactions. The new rules mean that developers wouldn't be allowed to do this. All such business would have to go via the in-app purchase API, using the user's iTunes account and with Apple taking 30% of the money. Existing apps apparently were given until the end of June to change how they work or face removal from the store.

UPDATE: Companies are not required to only offer in-app purchasing, but they are required to offer it as an option and, according to section 11.13 of the T&C, must price the in-app purchase the same as or lower than purchases made outside the app. In effect, this does mean that most purchases are likely to move to the in-app model and accrue the 30% surcharge. Customers will presumably prefer to carry out the smallest number of steps to make the purchase, which is the in-app model.

I speculated in February that Apple's change could cause some popular apps to flee the store. We know that Sony's Reader app was rejected, that Readability had to shelve its native app (it later released a web app) and that TinyGrab also abandoned plans for an iOS app.

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Everyone knows how protective Apple is over its trademarks. Now, one Dutch company has had to change its name just to gets its apps back on Apple's App Store. As Macworld UK points out, Dutch app maker App Stores BV -- the legal name of the company -- had all its apps pulled from the App Store at the end of March after Apple alleged that the company's name infringed on its App Store trademark. App Stores BV makes a popular series of navigation apps for the iPhone called NAVV, which covers almost 40 countries and territories around the world.

In a statement released at the time, App Stores BV said, "App Stores BV's registration under the laws of The Netherlands does not violate any laws; the interference of the difference between USA law systems results the current situation. In order to avoid possible violations, 'App Stores BV' is taking the necessary steps to rectify the situation. Accordingly, all NAVV applications will cease to be sold while these issues are addressed. We expect NAVV applications back on sale shortly and kindly ask for your patience until then."

The situation has been rectified by the company changing its name. App Stores BV is now known as "Wazado Mobile Applications BV." As the newly minted Wazado said in a statement today, "Dutch-origin App Stores BV, the developer of NAVV and legal name behind the organization, entered into the process of changing its name in order to prevent possible copyright violations concerning Apple Inc's 'App Store' brand name."

Of course, making a tiny developer change its name is easy for a company that has the legal resources Apple does. However, Apple may have a harder time fighting "app store" infringements against other tech giants, like Amazon and Microsoft.

Despite losing truckloads of money, iPad magazine The Daily is apparently seeing a lot of traffic, and content aggregation app Flipboard is seeing the same trend. CEO Mike McCue says the company is seeing a huge slope upwards in traffic, with an average of 8 to 9 million "flips" (essentially pageviews), up from 3 to 4 million just a few months ago. That's some solid growth, probably driven both by sales of the iPad 2 and by tablet growth in general. As we've reported before, as more people learn to use tablets, more people (as you'd expect) actually use tablets.

Unfortunately, there's no news about how all of that traffic is affecting Flipboard's bottom line. Magazines and content aggregators still haven't quite figured out how to turn all of those user numbers into profit numbers. But there is still some life in content on the iPad, despite all of the issues we seem to be hearing about from traditional magazine and newspaper publishers.

For every gadget that claims to charge an iPhone on the go, there's sure to be a constituency that swears by it (or quite possibly at it). With external battery packs from HyperMac, Zagg, Kensington, Newer and Monoprice, you can dangle a cable; with battery-equipped cases from Exogear, Boost and Kensington you can keep your extra joules right next to your phone. We've seen some clever inventions (the RichardSolo 1800, the PowerEZ) and too-clever ones (the X-Power charger-in-a-cable), but precious few options that give you power when you need it without adding weight, aggravation and charging hassles.

Since Macworld Expo this year, I've been happily using the US$79.99 mophie juice pack air with my iPhone 4 when I need extended power. It's light (about 68 grams), packs a solid 1500 mAh battery and charges reliably and simply with a Micro USB cable. It's a great product, but it does bulk up the phone substantially; if you carry the iPhone in a pocket, you'll notice the difference in weight and size (mophie's 2000 mAh product, the $99.95 juice pack plus, adds even more bulk and mass). I also don't need extra power most of the time; it's only when I've got a busy day on the road, and I can't charge here and there. If there were a way to get the all-in-one convenience of the juice pack without having to carry the battery all the time, I'd love it.

That's why I was excited to check out Third Rail Mobility's new battery and case system for the iPhone 4, developed by a family of entrepreneurs who say they aren't afraid to touch the 'third rail' of mobile consumer electronics in addressing poor battery life. The system, on sale today, pairs a slimline 1250 mAh battery with a light protective case. But this battery comes off, attaching firmly when you need it and staying out of the way in your bag or jacket when you don't. I've been testing a prerelease unit for the past week, hoping to figure out if it truly is the best of both worlds.

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Three great iOS games got big updates this week. First up, the excellent and popular pirate simulator Plunderland got a whole new campaign to play through with new graphics, new sounds, new enemies to fight and new weapons to play with. The app is US$2.99, and it's well worth the purchase -- the depth of the game will likely surprise you.

Death Rally also got a new update. I haven't really been able to say much about this game because I'm actually in it (there's an achievement for killing me, so have fun with that), but the latest patch features a new track, lots of bug fixes and the ability to save player information to Game Center.

And finally, Hothead Games' Bunny the Zombie Slayer picked up a big patch, with new modes to play, support for the Retina Display and Game Center support (which is one of the quibbles I had when I first played with it). That one's only a buck on the App Store -- three great titles that are all getting better this week.

Silicon Alley Insider has posted a chart showing the comparative results of reported iPad usage from November 2010 to the current month of May 2011. As you can see from the chart above, an overwhelming amount of people spend a majority of their time on Apple's tablet surfing the Web -- most of those people presumably using Safari to do so.

After Web browsing, which came in at 36%, emailing, Facebook and Twitter usage on the iPad came in second place at 23%. Social networking was followed by "other app" usage at 21%, and after that, watching videos and gaming virtually tied at around 14.5% each. The results from this informal poll show that the iPad is still primarily a consumption device as opposed to a creation device, but with apps like iMovie and GarageBand for iPad, not to mention all of the other ways iPads are being used to create content rather than just watching it, that could be changing quickly.