ANDROID HONEYCOMB TO ICE CREAM SANDWICH GUIDE POSTED FOR DEVELOPERS BY GOOGLE

Google posted a guide on its Android Developers website on Monday that should help developers prepare Honeycomb applications for the new Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system, which will run on smartphones as well as tablets. That means Honeycomb developers will need to make their applications compatible with displays smaller than those found on various Android tablets. Creating an Ice Cream Sandwich compatible version of an application is important to reaching a larger audience, too. “Optimizing for handsets can be tricky if your designs currently use all of a large screen to deliver content,” Google explained in a blog post. “It’s worth the effort, though, because Ice Cream Sandwich brings the Honeycomb APIs to handsets and you’ll significantly increase the user-base for your app.”

MICROSOFT GOES AFTER WEBOS DEVS WITH FREE PHONES AND TRAINING

If you are a WebOS developer the last few days have not been easy, but the good news is that WebOS has received some much needed media attention. As the old saying goes, "It doesn't matter what they are saying about you as long as they spell your name right."

In other good news (depending on your outlook) Microsoft, via Senior Director of Windows Phone 7 Development, Brandon Watson, is reaching out to published WebOS developers and offering them free Windows Phones, plus all the necessary tools and training to convert them to Windows Phone developers. According to Watson he has received over 600 emails inquiring about his offer as of Sunday night.

APPLE'S OS X LION GOES GOLD

Apple on Friday seeded the Gold Master build of its OS X 10.7 Lion operating system to developers. The build number is 11A511, and the download is available immediately on Apple’s developer site. Barring the discovery of any major issues, the Gold Master code is likely to be unchanged in the release version of Lion, which will launch to the public later this month. Apple announced recently that OS X Lion will be distributed via the Mac App Store rather than using physical media discs, and it will cost just $29.

APPLE FILES MOTION TO INTERVENE IN LODSYS CASE AGAINST DEVELOPERS

Apple's already made its position on the whole Lodsys situation pretty clear, and it's now taken things one step further after the patent holder hit iOS developers with a lawsuit at the end of last month. As noted by Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, Apple has filed a motion to intervene in the case, and he says Apple is "fairly likely" to be admitted as an intervener based on precedent. In the case that happens, Apple has also concurrently filed its answer to the complaint and its counterclaim, which unsurprisingly line up with its earlier position on the matter: that Apple has already licensed the patents in question on the developers' behalf, and that they are "entitled to use this technology free from any infringement claims by Lodsys."

LODSYS GOING AFTER ANDROID DEVELOPERS TOO

Earlier this week we reported that a firm named Lodsys had started to send out letters to Apple developers claiming that they were infringing on a Lodsys patent related to in-app purchases. Apple stepped in and claimed that, since it licenses Lodsys’ products and services, its developers were also entitled to use the technology.

Now it appears that Lodsys is also going after Android developers for the same reason. “We recently implemented in-app purchases for our Android application and several weeks later we received a letter from Lodsys, claiming that we infringed on their patents,” one programmer said in a Google forum. It is unclear how many Android developers have been contacted, and Google’s Android team has yet to respond, but we hope the search giant backs its developers the same way that Apple did.

APPLE DEFENDS DEVELOPERS AGAINST LODSYS

Earlier this month a company called Lodsys began sending letters to iOS app developers using Apple’s in-app billing system, asking each to license its technology separately. In a blog post on May 15th, Lodsys explained on its website that “the scope of [Apple's] current licenses does NOT enable [Apple] to provide ’pixie dust’ to bless another (third party) business applications.”

On Monday Apple issued a response to Lodsys explaining that iOS developers are safe under its licensing program. “Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the App Makers are protected by that license,” Bruce Sewell, Apple’s senior vice president and general counsel, said. “The technology that is targeted in your notice letters is technology that Apple is expressly licensed under the Lodsys patents to offer to Apple’s App Makers.”

It sounds like developers that have received the notification letters can breathe easy knowing that Apple appears to be offering some support.

LODSYS SUING iOS DEVS FOR IN-APP PURCHASING

A handful of iOS developers received letters this week from a patent holding firm claiming that their applications that offer in-app purchases infringe on the firm's intellectual property (IP).

The letter threatens legal action if developers don't license the patent within 21 days. Lodsys, the firm in question, has apparently patented a system that collects usage data and facilitates feedback between a customer and vendor, though it doesn't address financial transactions specifically. The allegedly infringing applications use Apple's in-app purchase tool to encourage users to upgrade to a paid version after downloading a free app.

Though it's possible that Lodsys has sent a similar warning to Apple, only individual developers confirmed receiving the document.

The developers are understandably unwilling to share too many details at this point -- even though Apple developed the framework, developers could still be liable. Lodsys appears to be in the business of launching suits referencing U.S. patent 7,222,078, having gone after Canon, HP, Samsung, and other giants earlier this year. As the developers that have come to light so far are independent, with limited budgets, some have reached out to Apple legal for assistance, and are awaiting response.

FACEBOOK GIVES DEVELOPERS USERS PHONE NUMBERS AND ADDRESSES

Facebook has put in a lot of effort to getting users to enter their mobile numbers. But now the social network is giving developers access to numbers in addition to home addresses with a single click.

According to the announcement, which was released on Friday at 6pm PST (probably hoping to be overlooked), the new functionality "must be explicitly granted to your application by the user via our standard permissions dialogs."

The problem is that users don't have an option to deny only certain information being released. It is an all or nothing option.