iPod Minis: Patents, Purple Haze, Passbook

Now that the furor over the new Maps app has largely died down (or at least everyone has gotten used to it), the iOS news is a little light. Still:

• Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, and other companies recently participated in a roundtable hosted by the United Nations International Telecommunications Union to discuss wireless industry patents. Here's hoping that could be a first step to end litigation over core patents for wireless devices.
• Lodsys, the patent troll that has been trying to extract licensing fees from app developers with threats of lawsuits, reports that its tactics are working. When Lodsys first appeared, Apple was standing with its developers and fighting the company. Whatever happened with that?
• Some iPhone 5 users have complained of a "purple haze" effect appearing in some photos taken with the phone. Consumer Reports looked into the matter and concluded that not only is the haze normal, but that previous iPhones and a number of Android phones are all subject to the same effect, based on the conditions in which the photo is taken.
• A four-team trial run of Passbook by Major League Baseball found that 12% of ticket buyers chose Passbook as their means of getting tickets. Seems like Apple might have something here. I got to test my first Passbook integration yesterday for a project at work--it was pretty cool.
• What did Tim Cook know, and when did he know it? A group of anonymous developers have told CNet that they informed Apple of the problems with the new Maps app as far back as June.
• The sourcing seems a little ropey (a product manager in the Czech Republic?), but reportedly Microsoft Office is coming to the iPad as native apps after March 2013.