Oh those clever bastards at Apple are up to it again. Sitting back in their glass spaceship palace in Cupertino acting so coy as they unleashed their trickery on the world in the form of a simple invite . Right as Google’s Eric Schmidt was taking the stage at Mobile World Conference to talk about how awesome his company’s Android platform is, Apple completely distracted the entire internet by sending out invitations to their iPad 3 event.

Mere coincidence you say? Bullshit. Apple usually sends out invites exactly 7 days before the date of a keynote, but today they broke tradition and sent the invites out 8 days before the event just to screw with Google.

Remember when we told you about Evi, a Siri clone in the App Store? While the iPhone app mimicked much of the features found in Apple’s digital assistant, there seemed to be enough differences to keep it safe from the watchdogs in Cupertino. For instance, you can ask “Where’s a good place to eat Mexican?” and Evi will use Yelp’s API to provide you results in-app.

According to new reports, Apple has threatened to yank Evi from the App Store. The app has been downloaded over 200,000 times and costs $0.99 in the App Store. 

Although the war will rage on for a few more years, Apple just scored a major victory in their legal war with Motorola Mobility in Germany. In December 2011 Apple lost a preliminary injunction with Motorola and faced the possibility of having their 3G-enabled products, like the iPad and iPhone, barred from Germany. However, a recent decision by the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court has ruled that Motorola can not enforce their injunction against Apple while the appeals process is underway, meaning Apple is free to sell their products in Germany until the appeal has been resolved.

A recent study of finance chiefs at over 200 companies revealed that one in six expect the job of CIO to be gone within five years. More than twice that many (40%) expected that IT will eventually be folded into the finance department. This highlights the impact of trends like BYOD, the consumerization of IT, and the growing importance of cloud services.

As IT departments struggle to deal with an ever-increasing influx of iPhones, iPads, Android devices, and other “consumer” technologies, this raises big questions. Would handing management of IT over to a CFO with limited technical experience help or hinder Apple’s position as a business vendor? Would that drive BYOD programs or inhibit them? Would this ultimately be beneficial to most employees at a company?

25 iPhones worth over $16,000 have been stolen from an Apple Store in Northlake Mall in Charlotte, North Carolina. Unlike the familiar attacks in which thieves smash in Apple’s trademark glass doors, the suspect in this case was an Apple store employee and had easy access to the store’s stock room.

Apple has settled a class action lawsuit over the ‘antennagate’ debacle that surfaced shortly after the launch of the iPhone 4 in 2010. Around 25 million customers in the U.S. will be entitled to $15 in cash or a free bumper case.

Apple has always been notoriously tight-fisted when it comes to spending. As the world’s most valuable technology company by a long shot, there’s a ton of pressure on Apple to acquire competition and flaunt its $100 billion cash reserve.

At the Goldman Sachs Conference today, Cook noted that Apple has spent billions on acquisitions, in the supply chain, retail, and company infrastructure. “But yes, we still have a lot,” he said.

At the Goldman Sachs keynote today, Tim Cook was asked a question about the Apple TV that was extremely revealing in regards to why Apple keeps calling it a “hobby device”… and why it might soon lead to the so-called Apple iTV.

Speaking at today’s Goldman Sachs keynote, Apple CEO Tim Cook began by bluntly addressing charges of worker abuse in Apple’s supply chain: Apple will not rest until every worker is guaranteed a fair, safe working environment without discrimination and at a competitive salary. Any suppliers who don’t take care of their workers will be fired.

Jailbreakers have the ability to run a homegrown version of Siri on unsupported iOS devices, and it appears that Apple doesn’t like it. According to mixed reports, a large amount of unsupported Siri users are now unable to use Siri. Has Apple stepped up its game, or is this merely a routine update to the spunky digital assistant?