Another development in the very long and winding road of mobile patent disputes: Apple has now had to disable the mobile push email function used through MobileMe and iCloud, after a court ruled earlier this month that Apple had infringed on a Motorola patent claiming IP on push email.

A spokesperson from Apple told TechCrunch that the turn-off happened overnight, and that it will be appealing the ruling.

The block was first reported by the German blog Mobiflip.

As Apple did when the decision against it was first handed down earlier this month, it is once again downplaying the impact of not being able to offer push email through MobileMe and iCloud, saying that only a small number of German users will be affected:

“This ruling only impacts customers in Germany who use a Push setting to get their MobileMe and iCloud email,” he said. “These customers will still receive email to their devices. Apple believes this patent is invalid and is appealing the decision.”

TechCrunch understands that those who live and travel in Germany will not be able to get push email notifications on their Apple devices, but that this does not disable email altogether. There are rules that a user can still set up to check email regularly — Apple details how to do that here, on an information page it has made for users affected by this — although this will not be as instantaneous as those that are pushed.

When Apple first had the ruling on the pager case handed down earlier this month, a company spokesperson dismissed Motorola’s IP as an “old pager patent” — but even so, it represents a setback for Apple, in that it shows the company is not immune to roadblocks, either, when it comes to patent litigation.

Up to now, Apple has been successful at getting injunctions on Android-based Samsung tablets, both in Germany and Australia: Apple claims these rip off its designs and patents. Those cases are still in progress, and some of the injunctions have since been lifted.

Apple had another hiccup in Germany this month, when it had to remove older models of the iPhone and iPad from its online store after another ruling in a separate Motorola case. That block was lifted, however, less than 24 hours later.

The original ruling centered on a pager patent held by Motorola — going back to its earliest days as a mobile company, which now makes smart devices based on the Android platform and is in the process of getting acquired by Google, pending regulatory approvals still to be secured in China, Israel and Taiwan.

We are also reaching out to Motorola for comment for this story.

Freshdesk, which has raised $1 million in funding from Accel Partners, is debuting a new version of its cloud-based customer support platform today. Similar to the leader in the space, Zendesk, the India-based startup aims to bring customer service to the cloud by offering a simple, online help desk and support ticketing application.

With the new version of Freshdesk, customer service agents can support, update and assign projects directly from an email client, without needing to login or use a mobile app. Agents simply email or forward a request to a Freshdesk unique email address and the request will be added to Freshdesk’s interface. Freshdesk automatically processes the command, makes the update, and sends the rest of the email to the appropriate customer. Agents can also directly send an email to a specific address, automatically converting the ticket to a knowledge base article that can be accessed by any agent.

Freshdesk is also debuting ‘pay as you go support,’ starting at $1 per day. These occasional agents get complete access to all the functionality in the customer’s Freshdesk plan without the business having to pay for the whole month—a cost. The platform also gives agents the ability to measure how much time is being spent on each ticket, and generates time sheet reports that can be sent directly to each customer.

Freshdesk, which launched last year, currently has 350 customers. For basis of comparison, Zendesk has 10,000 customers and $26 million in funding.

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Salesforce users are about to get the chance to enjoy smarter email after ToutApp announced it has integrated its services into the CRM giant.

The email and analytics specialist is bringing a new tab of email functionality to Salesforce users that use its services. Customers will be able to enjoy a range of new analytics, which include real-time updates showing when and where emails that they send out are being read, which links within them are being clicked and even how long the recipients spend reading them.

ToutApp is also bringing time saving features that include support for email templates, automatic attachment of files and performance reports. Using ToutApp, Salesforce users will no longer be required to manually track the address of ongoing mails, which is typically done by adding a dedicated tracking address in BCC, as the app will match up all emails to the correct contact.

ToutApp CEO Tawheed Kader believes that the company is addressing “a major pain point in Salesforce” with its services:

We believe our comprehensive yet simple-to-integrate solution between Salesforce, iOS and cloud-based app will not only save hours of emailing time but will also provide deep insights into sales communications.

The company isn’t stopping there as it has “further developed” its solutions for Gmail and its iOS application to include its Email Activity Feed product, which gives access to the very useful statistics that track email recipient interaction.

ToutApp’s Integration with Gmail is also getting a change with a new cleaner and quicker interface, while iOS app users are now able to access their customised messages and all analytics right from the app.

We’ve written some nifty Salesforce add-ons in the past, including one which scans and imports business card contacts and another that gamifies the system, but the introduction of ToutApp looks to be bringing some of the more essentials elements to business users on the service.

ToutApp pricing begins with a free account with limited functionality, with other more featured-led packages priced upwards of $30 per month.

➤ ToutApp | ToutApp for SalesForce | ToutApp for Gmail

Image: Shutterstock user Lichtmeister

ToutApp, the email productivity app that emerged as part of the 500Startups Summer Accelerator program last year, is rolling out a new feature that will let users track their emails right from within Salesforce. With the update, ToutApp customers will be able to see who viewed their emails, when they were viewed, where they were viewed, what the recipient clicked on, and how long they read the email.

Creepy? OK, maybe. But for serious CRM users, it’s kind of great, too.

If you haven’t heard of ToutApp before, a little background: the startup is attempting to address one of the most woefully overlooked pain points nearly everyone deals with today: email overload. To help speed up the process of creating and responding to email, the company launched its service last year which helps users create personalized email templates (aka “canned responses”). After installation, the app digs into your email to identify the types of mass emails you send to help you build these templates.

After your templated emails are sent, you can track nearly everything that takes place with them in the recipient’s inbox: it’s the who, what, when, where and how long of email viewing. It then presents this in a live-updating feed within your preferred email client. While privacy advocates my find this a shocking invasion, I disagree. Privacy, shmivacy. There are real-world benefits to this sort of tracking across multiple industries.

In my (fantasy) world, here’s how ToutApp could improve my life dramatically: a PR person sends a pitch. I open it. Read it. Click the link. Close the link. Then return to reading more email. When the PR person doesn’t hear back, instead of sending out one of those “just circling back” emails to determine interest, they already know I read the email and followed through by viewing the URL it included. If they still had to follow up, the response wouldn’t be a time-wasting “hey, did you read my email?” email, but a more productive follow-on pitch containing different angles or information the first one had neglected to include.

Of course, that’s just one example. As a entrepreneur, you could template different pitches to journalists and investors, and then see if they were read. Salesforce users could craft templates for client emails that help them close deals. And so on.

ToutApp is designed to integrate with Gmail, CRM systems like Highrise, Batchbook, and Capsule, and has been working to support Salesforce. However, until this latest update, the Salesforce integration was limited. The startup was doing some sporadic testing, but nothing was available to the public.

But now, Salesforce users will be able to see real-time updates on when and where emails were read, what was clicked and other analytics data related to email tracking directly from within Salesforce. Templating, automatic file attachments, and performance reports are also included.

In addition, for Gmail and iOS ToutApp users, there are a few other changes rolling out today, too, including a new Email Activity Feed for real-time tracking of emails, an improved interface for ToutApp’s Gmail integration and an updated iOS app that allows you to edit templates, send messages while on the go, and view email analytics on mobile.

ToutApp was founded in 2010 by Tawheed Kader, and closed a seed round of $350,000 last summer from 500 Startups, Esther Dyson, Eric Ries, Daniel Eskapa, NYC Seed Fund, Joshua Baer, and others.

Pricing for the service is based on the size of your team, ranging from a $12/month pack allowing you to send 25 emails a day, make three Tout groups and use 10 email templates, all the way to $199/month, offering support for unlimited groups and shared templates, team-wide analytics tracking, and support for up to 25 team members. More info is available on the ToutApp website here.

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By most accounts there aren’t very many people out there in the world using PlayBooks, but for those that are, or are considering the purchase of one, comes some good news: RIM has finally updated the OS to include two services that have been long discussed and much anticipated: integrated email support and Android app availability.

The OS could serve to give the device a boost in the market, after many people slammed RIM for shipping the tablet too early when it debuted last year without these and other features.

PlayBook OS 2.0 will be available as a free download for existing users and will automatically update on new devices. Some details:

The new email client — at long last integrated with the tablet and no longer requiring the user to own a BlackBerry to use email on the tablet — was perhaps the most obvious feature that RIM needed to fix in this update.

But what RIM has done is effectively bring the PlayBook up to speed with what other device makers have already been doing on other platforms like Android. Now users can access both personal and work email via the device, and the unified inbox can also be used for incoming messages from social networks Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Not clear if others, like Google+, can be added as well at the moment. Similarly, social features are also being integrated with RIM’s calendar and contact apps.

The other big area that has become crucial for tablet and smartphone makers is apps and content in general. The PlayBook has not been a standout in this area up to now, but RIM again is hoping to make up for that by not only beefing up its own catalog of apps but also giving access to a select number of Android apps:

During RIM’s developer conference earlier this month, the company said it had 60,000 apps on App World. Today, RIM tells us that it is adding “thousands” of PlayBook apps, with the addition of “a range” (again, no specific numbers) of Android apps also to be used on the tablet.

It is also finally adding its video store — first discussed last year — which will feature some 10,000 films and TV shows to rent to buy. RIM says will only be available initially in the U.S., with further countries to be added later.

One nice hardware development: those who do own BlackBerry smartphones will be able to link them up to the PlayBook to use their keyboards to input text on the tablet.

And in a nod to enterprise users — still very much part of RIM’s heartland, despite its many moves to bring consumers into the fold — there are also more productivity features added to the new OS, to print documents and manage files on corporate networks. With a number of third-party players getting involved in this space on other platforms, it will be interesting to see if these features drive more enterprise takeup of PlayBooks.

What’s interesting is that many had thought that RIM would wait until Mobile World Congress next week to announce the PlayBook update. Will that mean that there is other news up its sleeve for next week?

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