But patents wouldn't protect them in this instance. Patents are explicitly for implementations, not abstractions/ideas. I highly doubt they could get a patent o

But patents wouldn't protect them in this instance. Patents are explicitly for implementations, not abstractions/ideas. I highly doubt they could get a patent on an implementation sufficiently abstract that would block any statistical tracking/monitoring of app usage, or at least one that wouldn't run into prior art issues. Apple isn't tunneling everything through a VPN to track it.