Apple has long been renowned for the innovative architecture and layout of its retail locations. The minimalist design and glass storefronts have become as familiar with the public as the company's iconic logo.

According to at least one woman and her attorney, however, Apple's retail storefronts are less an archtectural marvel and more of a looming death trap.

The 83 year old resident of Queens, NY claims that Apple was negligent when they erected their Long Island store with a massive glass front. The woman suffered a broken nose when she failed to see the glass wall and walked into a door.

As a result, the woman now believes that Apple owes here roughly $1m in damages. Her lawyer claims that the company's store designs are insensitve to the needs and limitations of older customers.

Such lawsuits have become a favourite passtime here in the US, so it is not much of a surprise that the matter has gained traction and will likely be settled out of court for significantly less than the claim.

That a glass storefront would pose a problem for Apple should hardly be a surprise. After all, the company has long been haunted by its struggles with Windows...

Apple surprised just about everyone on Wednesday by naming its latest iPad, not the iPad 3 or iPad HD as was expected, but just New iPad.

Sneak noted that when asked about the branding by Miguel Helft of Forbes magazine, Apple's chief of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller responded with a throwaway line:

I asked Phil Schiller why the name "new iPad" (and not iPad3, iPadHD). Answer: we don't like to be predictable.
- mhelft (@mhelft) March 7, 2012

Aside from the observations that this won't be the New iPad for long and won't be the last New iPad either it is, to say the least, something of an unfortunate choice by Apple's top executives.

Just imagine for a moment the millions of conversations that will happen in the native habitats of the Apple faithful all over the world: the potted fern festooned and so tastefully decorated, trendy coffee shops that shamelessly peddle overpriced lattes and GMO-laced sweets - the types of places Sneak is never seen.

Sweet, young, lonely potential hookup (SYLPH): "Oh, nice tablet! Is that an iPad?"

Turtleneck-wearing internet surfing twit (TWIST): "Why yes it is. Haven't you seen one?"

SYLPH: "Oh yes, my ex-boyfriend had one years ago, but he never let me use it."

TWIST: "That was the old one. This is the new iPad."

SYLPH: "That was called the iPad too. Is yours a newer model?"

TWIST: "Yes, this is the latest one. It's called just the iPad."

SYLPH: "Oh, I see. So was my ex-boyfriend's. [suspicious] Are you sure this is a new one?"

As you can imagine, this sort of thing isn't going to be helping any Apple fanbois hook up. Sneak imagines, though, that people will call the device the iPad 3 anyway, to help avoid this kind of confusion.

However, for Apple, it's not so simple. What do they do when the next device comes out, call it the Newer iPad? Then what, the Newest iPad? Followed by the Even Newer iPad? Old Steve Jobs would never have painted himself into this corner.

At VMware's recent VMworld conference in Copenhagen, a colleague of Sneak's happened to notice that a fellow IT journalist was carrying two phone handsets; one was an iPhone, the other an old-fashioned looking Nokia.

It turns out that the iPhone is so bad for making voice calls that the guy decided to keep his Nokia for this purpose, presumably holding on to his iPhone for other stuff such as music, emails and running apps.

With all the bad publicity that Apple got over poor signal quality after the launch of the iPhone 4 last year, this set Sneak wondering if it is a widespread phenomenon.

We have all heard people complain that their iPhone has terrible reception, or it cuts out in the middle of calls, or that it has to be recharged every single day, or some other flaw.

With all this going on, how come the iPhone is still one of the bestselling handsets on the market? Is it possible that people don't generally use their iPhone to make voice calls, but instead use it as a kind of glorified iPod touch while making calls from an old Nokia, like that journalist does?

If this is the case, then it is quite ironic. The whole reason the smartphone evolved in the first place was supposedly because people were tired of lumping multiple digital devices around with them, and wanted one device capable of doing everything.

In other words, Apple hasn't built the most successful smartphone in the world. Instead, it appears to have reinvented the PDA.

The notoriously strict application gatekeepers at Apple appeared to let their guard down on Tuesday when they approved a game called Phone Story for download on the firm's ever growing App Store.

However, the dozy staff should have looked closer, as the game is a none-to-subtle dig at the way smartphone factory workers are exploited in less well-off nations.

One level of the game involves the player trying to catch workers attempting to commit suicide, a reference to the fact that several staff at Foxconn, Apple's notorious manufacturing supplier, have done just that.

Eventually the staff at Apple realised their mistake (See? People at Apple do make mistakes) and pulled the game from the store, but not before countless thousands of iPhone owners had no doubt downloaded the game to see what it was all about.

Sneak thinks the developers should now make Phone Story 2, in which a disgruntled customer has to overcome levels such as The Inept Shop Worker, The Unfathomable Contract of Doom and The Fiddly Sim Card of Death on their way to getting a new phone.

Sneak is a worldy wise kind of fellow and would like to think that not much gets past him, so it was with some suspicion that he heard of another Apple employee managing to lose another top secret iPhone prototype in a bar recently.

The reports suggest that a test version of the much anticipated iPhone 5 went AWOL in San Francisco Tex Mex hell hole Cava22 sometime in late July, and may have been sold on.

Now, Sneak's spider senses are tingling at the moment, and it's not just because the air-con is on full blast. AGAIN.

No, it's because an almost identical story emerged last year with an iPhone 4 prototype which eventually ended up in the hands of Gizmodo editor at the time Jason Chen.

On that occasion the cops were called in and Chen was apparently lucky to avoid gettin' himself into some serious bother. But of course the real winner in the story was Apple, which managed to get some brilliant publicity in the process, whipping its fanboys into a near frenzy by the time the dratted handset was finally launched.

Now, Sneak is not saying the current story is all the invention of Apple's magnificently Machiavellian PR team. Oh, no. It's easy to see how said employee managed to lose the phone in Cava22.

To be honest, looking at the web site - with its references to 'live Mariachi music and Margaritas that make you want to say "Una mas, please!"' - Sneak is surprised he didn't lose his mind too.

That Apple is a wonderful company. Everything it does turns to gold, or in this case, meat. Yes, marvellous meat.

Into the inbox of Sneak popped a little gem of weirdness from a company called iDevices announcing the availability of an iGrill Apron for its iGrill product which monitors the heat of a barbeque remotely via iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.

The apron relays this info via Bluetooth (the old Norse king would be turning in his Valhalla grave if he knew how his name had been sullied) so that alpha male cooks can mingle instead of cooking, thus defeating the point of posturing next to meat cooked by flame.

What's even more baffling, though, is that the iGrill Apron offers a silicone skin for the iGrill to keep it safe from heat, moisture, food and the elements for outdoor barbequing and indoor cooking - exactly the sort of functionality that should have been essential from the beginning.

However, it could be useful for the UK market as perhaps too many people in Blighty bought the device (for $99.99!!!) and then found it wet through when the heavens opened and the rain came gushing down.

The rain was to blame for no-one turning up to Sneak's barbeque last week. Yes, the rain. Nothing else ...

Google may have lost the Nortel auction patent battle with Apple, Microsoft, RIM and a host of other tech firms, but Sneak can't help applauding the way the search firm went about the bidding process, demonstrating its corporate personality as smart, funny and creative.

According to sources who talked to Reuters, all of Google's bids during the auction for some 9,000 odd patents referred to famous mathematical numbers.

The company bid $1,902,160,540 and $2,614,972,128 during the early round, which maths wizzes may recognise as Brun's constant and the Meissel-Mertens constant. Once bidding passed $3bn, Google offered $3,141,592.65, representing the first nine digits of Pi.

The eventual winning bid was $4.5bn at which point Google dropped out, which is strange as it could have bid $6.66bn to really confuse those who argue that the company has lost its way from the 'Don't Be Evil' mantra.

Other companies involved in the bidding were apparently utterly confused by the bids coming from Google, and the source told Reuters that the company was "either supremely confident or bored".

However, Google has a track record of these kinds of shenanigans. When the firm went public in 2004 it looked to raise $2,718,281,828, the value of e multiplied by a billion. Sneak doesn't know what this means, but it sounds jolly smart.

Other details emerged from the source, including the fact that Apple named its consortium Rockstar and went by the name Ranger, which sound like team names made up by the wallies that appear on The Apprentice.

Fanboys beware, parliament is not as safe as it appears. Apple iPads, iPods and even candlesticks regularly go missing in the hallowed halls, according to new reports.

The shady goings on have been brought to light by official Palace of Westminster crime reports. The documents reveal that the crimes logged since 2008 range from assaults to the theft of a £1,500 microphone and even a £25 orchid.

However, in the latest case, upstanding MP Keith Vaz has reported that his iPad and laptop have been stolen.

Considering that Vaz claimed £75,000 in expenses for a flat that was 12 miles from his home, Sneak is a little bit sceptical about any of the crime reports logged in the Commons. Sure there's nothing else on the list? A new Motorola Xoom or an Xbox 360 perhaps?

With former Labour minister Elliot Morley having been jailed today for 16 months, it's fair to assume that most of the incidents are an inside job, and Sneak's not pointing the finger at the cleaners here.

The high level of crime also doesn't say much about security at the Palace of Westminster. Although, it's not fair to blame the guards entirely. Sneak wouldn't want to give Ken Clarke or his boozed up colleagues a full body search on their way out, either.