Here are your Apple rumors and AAPL news items for today:
Gone Quick: The first batch of Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL) new white and silver iPad Mini sold out within an hour after the company began taking pre-orders on Friday morning, AppleInsider notes. The black-and-slate version was still available for delivery next week. The iPad Mini, featuring a 7.9-inch screen was unveiled at special media event earlier this week, aimed at similar-size tablets from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Samsung. The basic, WiFi-only model with 16GB of storage is priced at $329. Reports from Asian sources say Apple has ordered the production of 10 million iPad Minis for the holiday shopping season.
Not As Cool: Apple has posted a link to an statement that Samsung’s tablets do not copy its iPad designs on its website, PC magazine noted. The move came after an U.K. appeals court upheld a lower court’s order that Apple to inform customers of the court’s ruling. Apple sued Samsung in the U.K. and in a number of other jurisdictions around the world claiming that Samsung smartphones and tablets copied a number of its software and design patents. Samsung has countersued claiming similar violations by Apple against its own patents. In August, a California jury found in Apple’s favor and awarded it $1 billion in damages. In the U.K., the judge found that, in terms of design, Samsung’s tablets did not possess the “understated and extreme simplicity” of the iPad. In the online statement, Apple notes that while Samsung’s tablets were found not to have copied the iPad’s design, they are “not as cool” as the iPad. In addition to the statement on its website, the British judge ordered Apple to run ads in newspapers and magazines noting Samsung had not copied the iPad’s design.
No Customer Demand: Apple’s head of marketing, Phil Schiller, says Mac buyers have stopped asking for Blu-ray drives in their desktop computers, Time notes. Apple debuted updated iMac desktops earlier this week. The new iMacs are significantly thinner than previous models and do not feature optical drives, prompting some complaints from DVD and Blu-ray devotees. Apple has never put a Blu-ray drive in its computers, and Schiller said it was unlikely to ever do so. As for CDs and DVDs, Schiller noted that most software is now downloadable over the Internet, eliminating the need for CD-packaged applications, while music and movies can be downloaded or streamed in a similar fashion — from iTunes, of course.
For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.
