Tuesday Apple Rumors: New iPad Raises Privacy Concerns

by Adam Patterson | March 20, 2012 12:43 pm

[1]Here are your Apple rumors[2] and AAPL news items for Tuesday:

New iPad’s “Dictation” Feature Raises Privacy Concerns: Among the slate of new features debuting with Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL[3]) next-gen tablet are dictation and voice-recognition capacity. However, as ZDNet reports, all voice dictation siphons directly through Apple’s data servers[4], raising troubling privacy concerns. While users personally elect to activate the tablet’s voice-recognition software, a broad swath of seemingly unrelated user information is compiled as part of the feature. The terms of use[5] around the new iPad’s voice-recognition software are oddly vague — with one claim making privacy advocates particularly uneasy,

“Older voice input data that has been disassociated from you may be retained for a period of time to generally improve Dictation and other Apple products and services. This voice input data may include audio files and transcripts of what you said and related diagnostic data, such as hardware and operating system specifications.”

Apple has yet to respond to concerns around the new iPad’s data privacy.

Apple Moves 3 Million iPads Opening Weekend: Apple’s new iPad shattered sales records over its opening weekend, with 3 million units sold since Friday. Apple apparently moved an unprecedented 15.4 million of the previous iPads by the Dec. 31 closing of its first fiscal quarter. However, according to Bloomberg, Apple managed to sell upward of 3 million new iPads[6] in the 72-hour stretch following product debut — an astronomical figure even by Apple’s lofty standards.

Voracious consumer appetite for Apple’s tablet echoes CEO Tim Cook’s prediction that tablet computers may one day fully replace desktops[7], and it bodes well for Apple maintaining market dominance over primary tablet competitors Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN[8]) and Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS[9]).

AAPL Hits New High on Dividend Announcement: Nasdaq.com reports that Apple’s market value hit a new high[10] upon closing yesterday. Following a definitive announcement of a quarterly dividend[11], AAPL’s market value had climbed to $601.10 per share at Monday’s final trade. Apple plans to begin paying a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share by its fourth quarter — the first time the company has paid a dividend since 1995. Apple’s board also announced the opening of a $10 billion share repurchase program.

Adam Patterson is an Assistant Editor of InvestorPlace. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities[12]. For more from the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors[13] stories.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2012/03/tuesday-apple-rumors-new-ipad-raises-privacy-concerns/

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