Here are your Apple rumors and AAPL news items for today:
Channel Changing Innovation: A Barclays (NYSE:BCS) analyst says Apple’s next game-changing product could be a super-sophisticated TV remote control, Forbes notes. While rumors of an Apple-branded TV set or set-top box have cooled recently, Ben Reitzes says transforming the iPad into an interface for controlling TVs would combine Apple’s existing technology strengths without having to overcome the high hurdles of entering the TV market. An iPad-based remote control could also be integrated with Apple’s current Apple TV media streaming device, providing yet another reason for consumers to become involved in the Apple product ecosystem. The analyst expects Apple to eventually become a player in the TV market, but not until it can come to terms with media companies on content licensing deals.
Still Selling in Korea: Apple has persuaded a South Korean court to postpone the implementation of a ban on certain iPad and iPhone sales in the country, Bloomberg notes. The ban was imposed after the court found in August that Apple had violated Samsung patents in its iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1 and iPad 2. Samsung was also found guilty of infringing on some Apple patents and faces a ban on certain Galaxy mobile devices. The court approved an Apple request that the ban be delayed until it had appealed the earlier decision.
Desktop Positioning: While sales of desktop computers continue to fall, Macs improved their share of the market, even though their sales slipped too, the Mac Observer notes. A report from IDC says during the third quarter, Macs accounted for 13.6% of PC sales, up from 12.5% last year. The gain came even as Mac sales fell 6.1% from last year. Overall PC sales were down 13.8% from 2011. Apple continued to hold third place in the U.S. PC market, behind Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ). Analysts noted that quarterly PC sales may have been held back by consumers delaying purchases in anticipation of the debut of Microsoft‘s (NASDAQ:MSFT) new Windows 8 operating system.
For more about the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.
