Here are the daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors for November 30, 2010. Apple’s line of smartphones, laptops and desktops are lauded by PC World‘s Reliability and Service Survey today, while the more rumors about the next iPad come out of Taiwan. Meanwhile in Japan, telecom SoftBank begins promoting Apple’s tablet by handing them out for free.
Apple Named Most Reliable By Survey: Results from the annual Reliability and Service Survey conducted by PC World magazine were published this morning and Apple Inc. trounced their competition in a number of categories including smartphones, desktop computers, and laptop computers. The Cupertino, Calif., company received high scores for their aesthetically pleasing hardware as well as quality customer service through the Genius Bar help centers at their retail outlets. Even the iPhone 4, which was maligned by issues surrounding its antenna when the phone released last June, received at least “average” scores from those surveyed. That said, the iPhone 4 did lose out to Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) on the pair’s Android-powered Droid phones in two reliability categories. The companies other victories included extremely high reliability ratings for their line of laptops. Just 8% of AAPL laptop owners reported problems that weren’t resolved by Apple customer service, a rate that PC World says is “significantly lower” than averages from owners of machines by Apple’s biggest competitors, Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) and Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ).
More Hints at iPad 2 From Taiwan: DigiTimes says today that market rumors are shedding more light on the much-discussed second generation Apple iPad expected from AAPL next year. The latest industry murmuring indicates that Largan Precision will be the exclusive provider of camera lens modules for the iPad 2. Previous rumors concerning the iPad 2’s specifications have pointed to the inclusion of both forward- and rear-facing cameras on the tablet, with support for Apple’s Face Time video chat application. Though the new rumors don’t specify what specific lens modules will be incorporated into the new iPad, it’s believed they will be the same 5-megapixel lenses Largan provides for the iPhone 4. Largan Precision conspicuously refused to comment on the matter in a filing with Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Japanese Telecom Offers Free iPad With Two Year Contracts: Apple continues their aggressive mobile push into Japan, allowing major subsidies to distributors in preparation of their mobile advertising platform iAd’s impending launch in the country. mocoNews is reporting that telecom SoftBank is set to give away 3G-cpable 16GB iPads when new customers sign up for 25 month, $56 per month contracts. SoftBank has the same exclusivity agreement with Apple that AT&T (NYSE: T) has in the United States, making them the sole provider for the iPhone in Japan. The iPhone controls 72% of the Japanese smartphone market according to the MM Research Institute Ltd. Given SoftBank’s success with Apple’s other handheld powerhouse, their new iPad push should prove successful.
As of this writing, Anthony Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
