While Apple celebrates its success in the retail sector, its battles off the high street and in the courtroom are heating up. Not only is Apple embroiled in patent disputes with Samsung, the Korean manufacturer: Now it has set its sights on Motorola phones, the firm recently taken over by Google.

Motorola Mobility has filed a lawsuit against the Californian technology giant accusing Apple Inc of infringing copyright patents. Motorola have now decided to step into the ring and are taking on the giants regarding the iPhone 4S and Apple’s iCloud service. The lawsuit they have filed concerns Apple’s perceived violation of six of Motorola’s patents in their iPhone 4s. It is linked to the external antennae – redesigned after “antennae-gate of the iPhone 4 to improve connectivity – and how music and media is stored on the iCloud remote service. Papers filed in Florida are a response to an earlier patent case brought by Apple against Motorola.

It has been suggested Motorola have only opted for the legal option after they were bought out by Google. Apparently no mobile manufacturer can engage in any lawsuit around a patent without Google’s approval. It suggests the Android merchant is up for the fight. And why not? Apple’s sales figures were impressive in the fourth quarter of 2011, but they were close. The iPhone 4S was released at the beginning of that final quarter of the year. Their sales figures in that period marked Apple as the top smartphone vendor worldwide. They had lost out to Samsung in the previous quarter as the Korean technology firm became the market leader, shipping nearly a billion smartphones during the year and topping the popularity charts month in and month out with the Samsung Galaxy S2. Apple’s loyal followers bided their time and bought the iPhone 4S, breaking and setting new records. Apple shipped 37 million smartphones in the months from October to December. Those figures are up 128% from the previous year.

Cause for champagne certainly, but it can’t be ignored that Android is catching up, and while Apple once had the unfettered dominant position in the mobile phones market, especially in the UK, now it has to look over its shoulder. This might be legal papers filed in the US but it shows Apple is not afraid of a fight and while it is winning the battle on the high street, it may believe it can also consolidate its position by winning in the courtroom as well.

What does this mean for UK mobile shoppers? Well nothing much really. It provides fodder for bloggers and technology journalists but until there is a major win from one side or another in a British court it is unlikely to impact what UK consumers can buy on the shelves or online. It shows more clearly that both Android and Apple believe the smartphone market is there for the taking. Competition is fierce and both sides want to be the winner. Competition means one thing for consumers; reduced prices. So while the lawyers on both sides will be making money from the on-going disputes, the consumer could well be saving it.

Many reports are now flooding across the information super highway that Apple have announced that a brand  new white i phone 4 will be released this month.

Up to now, Apple have implemented the old attitude towards colour as car manufacturer Henry Ford who famously said of his Model T Ford “You can have any colour you like, as long as it’s Black.”. Most people aren’t too bothered about what colour their iPhone is but there are a whole host of people out there who think it is one of the most important things about the phone also. These people have been calling out for a lovely new white iPhone for a long time now and to be honest, many of us had thought that the guys at Apple had just given up after a long time trying.

Rumours of problems, such as the paint peeling off in high heat, have been absolutely rife so it came as a pleasant surprise when Paul Schiller, CEO of Apple revealed on his Twitter page last month that the with phone is on the way this spring and that “it’s a beauty!”. Since then though, we have had no more news – until now…

Bloomberg, the America news corporation, have announced that the iPhone 4, in glistening white, will be in the shops in the USA by the end of this month, sold by networks AT&T and Verizon. This means that it should be available in the UK this summer at the latest. Let’s hope that these stories are true and that there will be no more manufacturing problems from Apple.

One of the downsides of this is that it possibly means we will not be seeing the iPhone 5 for a while yet. The rumours are that it will be announced by September which will be a disappointment to those who were hoping that Apple would continue their habit of releasing phones every summer.