AT&T today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2011, revealing that the carrier saw record-smashing sales of 9.4 million smartphones, nearly double the previous quarter's sales and 50% higher than the company's previous record. The iPhone was clearly the primary driver of smartphone sales for AT&T, as the carrier reported 7.6 million iPhone activations during that quarter, with the "majority" of those activations being iPhone 4S devices.

Earlier this week, Apple announced that it would be launching the iPhone 4S in 22 new countries on January 13, with China being the highest-profile debut in the group. Bloomberg now reports that China Unicom, Apple's existing iPhone carrier partner in the country, has released details on pricing that include a free iPhone 4S for users subscribing to contracts coming in at as little as $45 per month

Though Sprint, the United States' newest iPhone carrier, has been running advertisements touting its "truly unlimited" network, the carrier is throttling smartphone customers who use "excessive" amounts of data, according to Dow Jones Newswires . For those that want to abuse it, we can knock them off," [Sprint CEO Dan] Hesse said at an investor conference Thursday. He said Sprint pares back data use for about 1% of users, a practice known as throttling

Though Sprint, the United States' newest iPhone carrier, has been running advertisements touting its "truly unlimited" network, the carrier is throttling smartphone customers who use "excessive" amounts of data, according to Dow Jones Newswires .

An extensive report from Patently Apple today highlights three newly-published patent applications from Apple related in various ways to Thunderbolt technology.

Earlier this week, an app called GameStore was accidentally made available for purchase on the App Store.

Reuters reports that Apple has been fined the equivalent of $1.2 million in Italy over issues related to warranty disclosures. According to the report, Italy's antitrust regulators ruled that Apple has not been providing adequate disclosures about the two free years of product warranty assistance required under Italian law, while also pushing customers to purchase AppleCare extended warranties without disclosing that many of the benefits overlap the standard warranty. The authority said Apple Sales International, Apple Italia and Apple Retail Italia did not properly inform customers that they were entitled to two years of free assistance under Italian law