The iPad is doing incredibly well in China; over a million were sold between April and June, which gives them around 75% of the tablet market. Apple’s four official stores are among the most successful in the world, which led Tim Cook to remark “China – the sky’s the limit there!” That didn’t stop a Chinese court from ruling against Apple’s claim to the iPad name.

November 2011 had the usual patent lawsuits, but also had some variety with people suing over unhappiness with Apple products, outing famous people’s religion, and a name Apple really wants to get.

The advantage of AMD’s Llano is that while its processor ends up being a little less powerful, it makes up for it by having much stronger graphics, which is more important when playing games or working with video. While Intel has powerful processors, it has weak integrated graphics, and Apple was likely trying to improve on this by switching to AMD. However, this deal fell through when AMD wasn’t able to guarantee enough supply of their Llano processors to Apple.

In addition to the usual patent lawsuits, there were a few alleged copyright and trademark violations in October 2011 as well.

Apple is no longer a weak underdog, but a fighting force on the cutting edge of technology+liberal arts—a position no other company can claim. While Steve Jobs will always be the foundation of Apple, he built a legacy that can be maintained not only by his senior executives, but by us all. Keep ‘em coming, Apple, and thanks again, Steve, for sharing your vision of how we could all be better.

At Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” press conference, Mike Capps from Epic Games showed Infinity Blade 2, which will be available on December 1st exclusively for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Infinity Blade 2 will use features unique to iOS 5 such as iCloud, enabling profiles and save games to transfer seamlessly between devices.

Apple has had a good month with several lawsuits ending in their favor, but the biggest court battles against Samsung, HTC, Via Technologies, and others in the Android market are just beginning to heat up.

If you have a MacBook Pro that is running OS X 10.7 Lion, you’ll want to get the latest firmware update from Apple. The MacBook Pro 2.2 EFI Firmware Update 2.2 enables Lion Internet Recovery and fixes Apple Thunderbolt Display compatibility and Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode performance on MacBook Pro (early 2011) models.

I’m more than a little skeptical of news that the MacBook Pro will get refreshed before the end of the year, especially since the rumor comes from on an unnamed source. However, “people with proven insight into Apple’s future product plans” state the new models will have faster processors, but little else. If you want the latest and greatest, I’d wait a month or two just in case this rumor turns out to be true.

When you buy a participating product from the Apple Store, Apple Retail Store, or an Apple Authorized Campus Store you will also get a $100 Back to School Card to use at the Mac App Store, the iTunes Store, the App Store, and the iBookstore. You can also get up to a $100 rebate on a qualifying printer when you buy a new Mac in addition to the current education discounts.