Here is your daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors for October 4, 2010. AAPL’s mobile advertising platform iAd lost its second high profile advertiser this week, as Adidas allegedly pulls a $10 million campaign from the service due to Apple’s creative control. In other news, the iPad gets more retail support through Amazon.com and Apple settles a lawsuit filed by Sharing Sound, over digital music patents.
Adidas Pulls $10 Million iAd Buy Due to Apple’s Restrictions: It looks like Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz may have been right; Advertisers won’t stand for Apple’s strict control over the iAds mobile advertising platform. A report at the Silicon Valley Insider says that shoemaker Adidas (PINK: ADDYY) has canceled a $10 million iAds deal because of how much power Apple insisted on having during the process of setting up the campaign. Citing two mobile industry executives, the report says that Adidas pulled the deal because “Apple CEO Steve Jobs was being too much of a control freak.” Adidas has yet to comment on the matter. Earlier this year, perfumier and fashion house Chanel pulled their campaign with iAd over similar issues. The Wall Street Journal ran a report in August that iAd advertisers were becoming increasingly frustrated with Apple’s stranglehold on the creative process and also delays in launching campaigns. Advertisers claimed that Apple was taking two weeks longer than expected to produce the ads for iAd campaigns.
iPad Available for Direct Purchase Through Online Retailers Amazon: You will be able to buy an iPad anywhere if APPL has its way. The Cupertino, California company’s successful tablet computer was made available for purchase at big box retail chain Target (NYSE: TGT) just this past weekend and at Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) the week before. Now iPad shoppers can buy the iPad through Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN). The iPad has been available through partner sellers on Amazon’s marketplace before now but this marks the first time since the device’s April 2010 launch that it’s been available directly through the retailer. As of now, Amazon only offers two iPad models, the $599 32GB Wi-Fi iPad and the $699 64GB Wi-Fi version. APPL’s aggressive retail expansion for the tablet should help them increase their control of the tablet market before competitors like Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) bring their devices like the BlackBerry PlayBook to market in the next six months.
APPL Settles Lawsuit Over Digital Music Sales Patent: Sharing Sound, LLC filed a lawsuit against Apple, Amazon.com, Best Buy-subsidiary Napster, RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK) Rhapsody, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) in May. The lawsuit claimed that these businesses and a number of others had violated Sharing Sound’s patent for an online store environment that features song previews, a shopping cart, and a music player of any kind. Discerning readers may notice that this description fits every digital music service on the Web. The patent in question was filed at the beginning of 1999 by Bernhard Fritsch, founder of early digital music service MCY.com. Many of the companies named in the suit have decided to settle with Sharing Sound and now Apple has decided to settle as well.
As of this writing, Anthony Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
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