A week after Madfinger Games made much to-do about piracy driving its decision to make first-person zombie shooting game Dead Trigger free on the Android platform, the game developer has now done the same for the iOS version.

Those who purchased the game while it was 99 cents will be given in-game currency 25 gold and ten casino chips in the 1.1.2 update. Unlike last time however, there is no grandstanding from CEO Marek Rabas on a privacy problem on Apple's mobile platform. All we know is that Madfinger is moving to a "freemium" model with Dead Trigger, and in one case, blamed it on piracy.

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Who would have guessed that it was time for the smartphone market to take a breath and slow down before the second half of 2012? Strategy Analytics released a report analyzing the U.S. smartphone market and shipments for Q2 2012, focusing on the two biggest smartphone operating systems, Android and iOS. The results make for an unexpected scenario: has the smartphone market reached its peak and if so, who’s the winning platform?

The Strategy Analytics report posts a decrease on smartphone shipment growth year-over-year with a 70.1 percent increase in 2011 and a 5.4 percent decrease for 2012, calling for a comparison with the report made available by IDC, which focuses on worldwide sales and market share. The differences between global results and those in the U.S. only suggest the U.S. market might have reached its peak, while worldwide smartphones are enjoying better sales.

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Apple released OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion on July 25, and based on that small sliver of time, data analysis company Chitika released a statistic forecasting Mountain Lion's adoption rate, claiming a 3.21 percent OS X market share in just 48 hours. Five days after the release, Apple has announced Mountain Lion downloads exceeded 3 million in just four days. What does all of this mean?

Apple responded rather quickly last year after OS X Lion’s release, claiming 1 million downloads in the first 24 hours. Yet, with Mountain Lion, 3 million downloads in the first four days averages out to 750,000 downloads per day. Granted that's an estimate, but it would actually place Mountain Lion behind Lion based on first day downloads.

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Apple recently made its first ever presentation at the Black Hat security conference, and despite being one of the most expected and highly anticipated moments of the event, the Cupertino, Calif.-based corporation hasn’t made the best possible initial impression. The audience was left somewhat disappointed, only to have Apple follow up a major security acquisition.

The keynote was presented by the manager of Apple’s platform security team, Dallas De Atley, who reiterated the iOS security paper that Apple released two months ago. The problem stems from the fact there were higher expectations for Apple's debut: updated information on steps the Cuppertino, Calif.-based corporation is taking to resolve their security issues and concerns would have been of far greater interest, and it would have shown how seriously Apple takes security.

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Like I wrote two days ago, "iPhone sales are slowing", all while Samsung's increase. Today, IDC released calendar second-quarter smartphone shipments, and Samsung and ZTE took share from every other major manufacturer, including Apple. Let's be clear: iPhone doesn't typically lose share. It's a persistent gainer. Well, that is, until now.

Apple shipments into the channel increased by 27.5 percent year over year to 26 million units from 20.4 million. But global market share fell to 16.9 percent from 18.8 percent a year earlier. Meanwhile, Samsung smartphone shipments surged 172.8 percent to 50 million units from 18.4 million. Market share rose to 32.6 percent from 17 percent a year earlier. Quarter on quarter, Apple share fell from 24.2 percent, erasing most of the gains following the iPhone 4S launch last autumn. Meanwhile, Samsung rose from 29.1 percent.

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Apple has agreed to purchase security firm AuthenTec for $356 million, a Thursday SEC filing from the Melbourne, Fla.-based company indicates. Apple is likely looking to bolster the security credentials of its products, and with the recent focus by hackers on Apple's products, that might be a good idea.

AuthenTec produces a variety of software and hardware-based security solutions, including fingerprint sensors. Its VPN security software is already included in smartphones and tablets from Samsung, and its DRM platform is used to protect streaming content within the HBO GO application.

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If you’re running Windows 8, but like the look of Apple’s new Mountain Lion OS, you can use a skin pack to assuage some of your UI envy, without dumping Metro in the process (which may be a good or bad thing, depending on how you feel about the new tiled interface).

The Mountain Lion Skin Pack for Windows 8 Consumer Preview was obviously designed for the earlier trial version of Windows 8 (the clue is in the name), but it works just as well in the release candidate. It won’t actually transform Windows into Mountain Lion, so you won’t get cool features like apps that match their iOS counterparts, cloud-based sync features or AirPlay mirroring, but it will at least give you a reasonable flavor of Mountain Lion’s aesthetics.

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Apple shares closed down 4.32 percent today, keeping with a trend started during after-hours trading yesterday. The real question: Could matters have been much worse, if not for the big carrot that came with the little stick? Apple missed fiscal Q3 Wall Street analyst consensus for revenue and income, but announced a big dividend and promise of more to follow. Performance was by no means bad, just not as good as forecast and the dividend, $2.65 per share, is something for shareholders to smile about.

But behind the magic, I have to ask: Is Apple distracting shareholders and Wall Street analysts, making them look over there so they miss the trick going on over here? It's a question I can't answer but can only speculate about. Another quarter of results will reveal much. One thing is certain now: iPhone sales are slowing. There's no if about it, but why. Are people waiting for the new model or are Android rivals like Samsung pulling away more buyers?

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Apple is one of the most important companies in the world of consumer technology and one that has changed the destiny of the smartphone and the tablet. It came as a big surprise when the Cupertino, California-based company announced the iPad more than two years ago. In 2010, Apple made waves with its first tablet generating $9.566 billion in revenue from the iPad alone, and in 2012 it's making headlines again with a smaller, seven inch tablet it hasn’t even announced yet.

In 2010 Apple had the market all to itself, with the iPad dominating 83 percent of the tablet market. Why? The iPad wasn't designed to have the most cutting edge software or hardware in terms of features or speed, but it was conceived to offer easy-to-use software with hardware to match it, wrapped in a good looking package. It sold 14.789 million units in 2010 alone, so it's clear the idea caught on. The original iPad was released in a time when tablets weren't as popular as they are today, and despite previous efforts by Microsoft with the TabletPC, they never caught up. So what's changed?

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Uncertainty hung over Apple's fiscal third quarter coming into today's earnings announcement. Gulfs widened among analysts for overall revenue estimates and about how many iPads or iPhones were sold. No one expected poor performance, there was just more uncertainty about what and where than more recent quarters. Fiscal Q3 will be remembered as sea change coming, as Apple missed Street consensus for the first time in years and iPad sales surged against iPhone.

For fiscal third quarter, Apple reported $35 billion revenue and net profits of $8.8 billion, or $9.32 a share. A year earlier, the company reported revenue of $28.57 billion and $7.31 billion net quarterly profit, or $7.79 per share. Apple announced fiscal Q3 results after the market closed today.

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Demand ahead of the launch of Apple's iPhone 5 is "unprecedented", with a third of all potential smartphone buyers planning to purchase the device. The data comes courtesy of a new survey of 4,000 consumers carried out by research firm ChangeWave.

Fourteen percent of those polled say they are "very likely" to purchase an iPhone 5, with an additional 17 percent saying they are "somewhat likely" to do the same. Combined, that represents the highest number for those planning to purchase a new iPhone model.

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According to the Bloomsberg News Agency a UK judge has ordered Apple to publish a notice on its website and in various newspapers and magazines (the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, Guardian Mobile magazine, and T3) informing visitors and readers that Samsung did not copy the design of the iPad. The judge, Colin Birss, also stipulated that the notice on Apple’s website should remain there for a minimum of six months.

The order follows Apple’s failed attempt to block sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets in the United Kingdom and is apparently intended to correct any damaging impressions consumers may have been given about the South Korean company as a result of the litigation.

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HTC is like a child with shiny new toy taken from HP and used against neighborhood bully Apple. Enjoying its December 2011 patent purchase, yesterday the Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer filed a counterclaim in a Florida court, accusing Apple of infringing on two patents. HTC wants to keep momentum after a win against Apple in a UK court, invalidated the famous "slide to unlock" patent.

Apple has targeted major competitors -- HTC, Motorola Mobility and Samsung primarily -- with patent infringement lawsuits. While counterclaims are common, HTC has so far mostly been on the losing end against Apple. HTC purchased two patents -- US Patent No. 7,120,684, titled "Installation of network services in an embedded network server", and 7,571,221, named "Method and system for central management of a computer network". Both patents are claimed to be infringed by the fruit company.

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It's bad enough that Apple uses patents to bully competitors. Now the company threatens retail partners, demanding they remove two Samsung devices from store shelves. Apparently, court orders aren't good enough for Apple, which also ignores one of them.

Apple, through its army of lawyers, has sent a letter to an unknown number of retailers and carriers selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet and Galaxy Nexus smartphone. Last month a US court issued temporary injunctions against both devices, but temporarily lifted the one against Galaxy Nexus.

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If you’re a U.S. resident and want to buy a phone today, there’s a one-in-two chance you’ll get a smartphone.

According to a recent report from Nielsen, 54.9 percent of U.S. phone subscribers owned a smartphone as of June 2012. By comparison, in February 2012, smartphone adoption was at 49.7 percent, which can only mean one thing: feature phones are slowly going away and smartphones are here to stay.

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