Here is your daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors report for Nov. 16, 2010. A double dose of iTunes news today, as the Beatles finally come to iTunes and new evidence of the streaming version of iTunes emerges. Also, one analyst predicts strong Mac sales for the holiday despite low consumer spending.
Apple Settles With Apple to Bring Beatles to iTunes: After years of speculation and negotiation, all 13 albums made by the Beatles will finally be made available for download on AAPL’s digital music store, iTunes. The band’s famous record label EMI and the band’s company Apple Corps came to an agreement with AAPL after years of negotiation, announcing today that the band’s music could be purchased on iTunes immediately. iTunes is also selling the “Red” and “Blue” collections as well as the two-volume “Past Masters” collection. A “box set” package of all the albums includes a downloadable version of 1964 Washington Coliseum concert film. The box set sells for $149, with individual songs at $1.29. Individual albums cost $12.99 while double albums, like the band’s infamous self-titled white album, cost $19.99.
iTunes Live Could Be Cloud-Based Streaming Service From Apple: Just as the Beatles discography coming to iTunes has seemed an inevitability in the past 12 months, so to has the launch of a cloud-based streaming version of Apple’s digital music service. Since the company acquired Lala last year, rumors have circulated claiming that Apple would soon launch a purely streaming version of the iTunes store that had users purchasing access to music that’s stored by Apple rather than downloading MP3 data directly to their own hard drives. It was thought Apple would announce the service in September when iTunes 10 was released, but Apple made no comments at the event regarding a possible streaming service. Now, French tech blog Consomac has spotted a label called “iTunes Live Stream URL” in the localized text strings inside the new iTunes 10.1 update. A trademark filing for “iTunes Live” was made public last May, indicating that this may be a reference to Apple’s new streaming offering. Peter Kafka of MediaMemo, however, believes that Apple is not prepared to launch a new streaming version of iTunes since its current distribution deals with music labels do not cover a non-downloadable service. It’s likely that Apple is ready to launch the iTunes Live service as soon as licensing issues are cleared up.
Mac Sales Could Hit 4.3 Million This Holiday: Businesses across the world are bracing themselves for a the second consecutive harsh holiday season. Consumers, while starting to spend more on cars and essential items, still aren’t spending large quantities and though analysts don’t expect drops in holiday revenue like those seen in 2009, they do expect revenue to be flat going into 2011. AAPL, however, is expected to soar through the coming holiday thanks to the continuing popularity of the iPad, iPhone 4, and the company’s line of Mac computers. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster weighed in on the recently released NPD Group sales numbers for the month of October and said that he expects AAPL to sell 4.3 million Mac computers across November and December.
As of this writing, Anthony Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
