Here is your daily Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors for August 12th, 2010. The Verizon (NYSE: VZ) iPhone rumors are kicked up a notch today as word comes out that the device has entered the engineering verification testing phase of development. Speaking of rumors, the iPod Touch refresh event is said to be coming in mid-September. Finally, the latest updates for the iPhone 4 and iPad versions of iOS address some vulnerability issues.
Verizon-compatible CDMA iPhone in Testing Phase at Apple: Time to upgrade those Verizon iPhone rumors from pending announcement to product testing. In a week littered with chatter about the seemingly inevitable Verizon-ready CDMA iPhone comes a rumor from Jon Gruber of Daring Fireball who says that “a few little birdies” told him that Apple’s new device is just two short verification processes away from the market. The CDMA iPhone, if Gruber is to be believed, is currently undergoing engineering verification testing, EVT, which is the second to last test a device undergoes before going into production. (EVT is one step below device verification testing, or DVT. The iPhone 4 test unit that was briefly squirreled into non-company hands last April was an example of product in the DVT phase, which is to say very close to final.) Gruber’s report joins rumors from DigiTimes this week, as well as a portentious Form 10Q filing from AT&T that seems to indicate that the phone company’s exclusivity with Apple is not long for this world. APPL shareholders and Verizon investors alike should be patient; the rumors will have to stop at some point.
Long-Rumored iPod Refresh Line to Be Announced at Mid-September Event: While all investor eyes have been on APPL’s brand new mobile devices this summer, the company’s original portable dynamo has been building towards a comeback. Rumors about a relaunched iPod Touch line have been making the rounds since this past March. Word is that the new iPod Touch, equipped with a 5 megapixel camera and the new Facetime application made popular on the iPhone 4, and new iPod Nanos and iPod Shuffles would be announced and released in Fall 2010. Since the early ’00s, Apple has held a media event for the iPod in early September. Now, word comes from All Things D that the iPod line refresh event will take place on September 14th or 15th, and that the company will use that venue to announce it’s new cloud-based streaming iTunes service as well. If the new iPod Touch line is leveraged to use the new streaming iTunes, Apple’s line of media players should find a new lease on life in the consumer electronics market.
iPhone 4 iOS 4.0.2 and iPad iOS 3.2.2 Released: Software updates for the iPad and iPhone 4 versions of APPL’s mobile operating system iOS were released yesterday afternoon. While the updates don’t make dramatic changes in the tablet or smartphone’s usability, the fixes to address security gaps in how both versions of the OS handle PDF files viewed in the web browser Safari. Previously, Safari’s issues with PDF files allowed users to exploit the system to hack the device, specifically through the JailbreakMe web service. While “jailbreaking” an iPhone or iPad—hacking the device to run non-Apple approved applications—was recently deemed legal by the FCC, APPL still has a vested interest in controlling how their hardware is used.
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