Apple

Apple's popular iMessage and FaceTime services were interrupted for a several hours on Tuesday which affected numerous users in the U.S., forcing iPhone users to send text messages via the old 160 character standards and unable to make video calls.

The outage occurred between 3:11 p.m. ET to 8:20 p.m. Easter Time.

During the outage, users took to twitter and other social media websites venting their frustration at the inability to use those features. Users were able to use their iPhones and iPads to post such comments.

Apple has claimed the top spot for the nation's largest smartphone maker, selling 17.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, 34% of the market share, compared to Samsung, which sold 16.8 million, or 32% of the market share.

Apple's success is credited to its highly popular ecosystem for iPhones and iPads and iTunes, whereas Samsung's Android based devices lack a one stop for everything store for apps, music, movies, tv shows and other content.

LG came in third with 4.7 million units sold.

While most still have the mindset that being hacked involves your desktop or laptop computer, increasingly, its actually smartphones that are are giving up your secrets to intruders.

The newest trend for hackers is being spreadheaded by mobile apps which often collect and use personal and priviate information about you, sometimes in unintended and inappropriate ways along with harvesting your credit and debit card information stored in your phone's contact info or from the phone's cache from other legitimate purchased you've made.

Here's some striking statistics you should be aware of:

Apple has announced that it has sold over 3 million of its newest iPad and iPads Mini's, which is more than was sold during opening weekend of the previous iPad, or iPad 3 as some have called it.

Apple did not break down the numbers between the iPad fourth edition and the iPad mini.

News of this surpassed analyst expectation of between 1 and 1.5 million.

Apple launched the iPad mini to get back a segment of the market in the 8 inch tablet size dominated by Amazon and Google and to keep ahead of Microsoft's new 'Surface' tablet.