According to this article and others those 6 patents are all still pending meaning they haven't yet been accepted by the PTO as valid patents. For less than $400 any of us can file a provisional patent with the PTO that would allow you to claim patent pending status. So unless Apple's lawyers are certain they'll be accepted they aren't worth much of anything right now.
You're correct, but in the case of patent acquisitions in many cases having a claim of priority (i.e. filing/invention date) is far more important than whether a patent is granted or not. In any patent litigation, the defendant will argue that a patent is invalid regardless of if it's actually been published.
In other words, when you look at a patent, you can concretely say a couple things: a) what prior art exists and b) what the priority date is. You would like to say c) is this a viable patent, but even if the USPTO grants a patent this is never set in stone (thanks to the court system).
Edit: sounds like the priority dates are all in 2011, which isn't particularly early, still a little dumbfounded.
