The Little App Factory seems to have a big problem on their hands. The company received a letter from Baker & McKenzie, representing Apple, asking that The Little App Factory change the name of one of their most successful applications. Why? It has the word iPod in it.

iRip (formally known as iPodRip) was originally written in 2003 at the MacHack developer conference in order to fulfill an obvious problem with the iPod. Basically, iRip lets your copy and transfer your songs from iPod and iPhone to your computer. The app itself has been downloaded more then five million times, and has helped users transfer more then one billion songs to their computer.

Oh, iTablet. When will you ever come out? At this point, it might be better for Apple if it was never released and the company keeps leading everyone, including shareholders, around. But according to DigiTimes, the Apple Tablet is real and was delayed until the second half of 2010 so that it could use a 9.7-inch LG OLED screen in one model. I know, the Internet has cried wolf too many times.

Thieves in Willebroek, Antwerp cut a hole in the roof of an electronics warehouse and stole 3,000 to 4,000 iPhones, one of the greatest heists of its kind in history. The phones were headed to Belgian Mobistar and are estimated to be worth $3 million.

The news article noted that the thieves made a hole directly over the iPhones which suggests they knew exactly where the phones were being kept.

OMWOW! Pocket-Lint has some red hot pix of the iPod Touch used in Apple Stores to enable on-the-spot check out. It’s a standard Touch with a barcode scanner and credit card reader but it replaces the old EasyPay systems from Microsoft they were using until now.

These days, when people aren’t talking about the Apple Tablet, they’re talking about how Apple’s next target is the Big Three gaming companies. The iPhone will topple them! The iPhone is a revolutionary gaming device! Well, certainly a little optimism is warranted; the iPhone has inarguably changed the landscape of mobile phones, personal media players, and to a lesser extent personal computers. Why shouldn’t Apple extend its holy sovereignty to gaming?

It already has, in fact. But Apple has come kicking and screaming the whole way. The iPhone, you understand, was not meant to be a gaming device, and in Cupertino, Apple’s intentions are paramount. Apple could never accidentally create a platform for gaming; if it wasn’t meant for gaming (or enterprise, or medical use, or reading e-books, etc.) from the beginning, Apple doesn’t want it happening at all. Because if Apple didn’t intend it, it’s outside of the bounds they set into the platform (regardless of how well it works, much like tethering) — it breaks the mold and, ironically, that’s the last thing Apple wants. And there are plenty other reasons not to expect Apple to jump into the gaming arena any time soon.

Clearly this is either an old patent or a Macguffin because whatever this thing is it’s not the iPad. Basically you’ve got some sort of tablet app for recognizing pen input in phrases instead of in “chunks.”

There were rumors out there that the iPhone would be coming to authorized resellers soon, and we’re finally starting to see it showing up. Surprisingly, The Shack will be the first one out the gate.

Apple seems to have bought some keywords on Google including, most interestingly, “download windows 7.” That’s right: every hax0r out to download Win7 will see a little ad from Apple saying “Upgrading to Windows 7? There’s never been a better time to switch to a Mac. Find out why.”

The HyperMac from Koyono aims to keep your notebook and iPhone charged when you don’t have access to a power outlet. If they had swappable batteries, this wouldn’t be an issue. Apple, however, decided that no one actually wants to change batteries on the go anymore; that’s a last gen feature. That’s fine. The HyperMac looks like it should get the job done.

Not that this should surprise anyone, but Apple has sold only 5,000 iPhones since last week when it officially launched. The phrase “officially launched” is key, since people there have been able to buy the iPhone on the gray market for some time now. And it’s a superior phone on the grey market, since the official phone doesn’t have Wi-Fi. That’s right: a smartphone nearly in 2010 that doesn’t have Wi-Fi.

Apple is finally getting rid of the ass-ugly Winmo-based handheld checkout systems in its Apple Stores. After all, the devices themselves were always kind of an ironic statement to the vast adaption and usefulness of Window Mobile. But those will soon be gone and the checkout systems will use an iPod touch with a card scanner snapped onto the back. Oh, and yeah, it’s a whole lot sexier than the Winmo version and just looks like an iPod touch external battery/case.

Riddle me this: would you pay Apple $30 a month for unlimited access to TV, presumably coinciding with the actual network air time or shortly thereafter? Interesting, non?

PKafka has talked to some industry execs who have been approached by Apple in preparation of just that sort of thing. You pay $30 and get TV – on demand. The Apple TV would ignore the DVR market completely, instead becoming a sort of subscription-based cable TV service.

It’s time to put on the Swami hat and predict just what we have in store for 2010 and beyond. Considering all of the movement in the gadget world in the past few months, I’m fairly sure most of this going to be accurate. Given the current status of some of these technologies, it’s hard to prognosticate very far out but there are a few things that have become apparent over the past year, especially the rise of Android and our expectations for the iPad.

Without further ado… the envelope please:

Apple TV -> 27-inch iMac -> Wall Mount for 27-inch iMac

It’s sad but true: Apple doesn’t care about Apple TV. All the real brain power is going to the desktop and laptop and probably onto the iPad. They’ve made it clear with the 27-inch iMac that they can make a high-resolution screen and powerful computer inside of a case the thickness of a college textbook. Who needs a TV, let alone an Apple TV?

The obvious conclusion here is that the 27-inch iMac becomes a real Apple TV. The Mac Mini already makes a great multi-media system and a quick update to FrontRow, now considered abandonware, may make it a great 10-foot interface.

It isn’t the first, and I assume it’s not going to be the last either.

Apple and AT&T are facing a new putative class action from an iPhone user who alleges that the companies misrepresented the phone’s MMS (multimedia messaging service) capabilities.

Clyde Bernard Franklin filed the complaint (case 1:2009cv00704) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama on behalf of all Alabama residents last Wednesday.

Japan went crazy over the iPhone when it made its debut in summer last year, but China as another big Asian market for Apple seems to react differently. The iPhone officially launched in China today, offered by China Unicom, one the country’s three big cell phone carriers. But our friends over at major Chinese news portal 163.com are reporting [Google machine translation] that not too many people were actually queuing up to get one, at least in Beijing.

Writing about patents really ought to be banned, since so many companies file so many patents every year that it’s silly to cherry pick this one or that one, drawing attention to something that may never exist. Be that as it may, today an Apple patent was discovered that shows a wireless headset that includes a media player. Think of it as “a Bluetooth” with a built-in MP3 player.