Here is your daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors for Nov. 9, 2010. The iPhone and iPod join the 3D craze next year thanks to a new add on device from toy-maker Hasbro. Pricing for Apple’s proposed digital newsstand has been standardized before launch thanks to Amazon announcing a new revenue sharing plan for magazines and newspapers sold in the Kindle store. Finally, a new Apple patent details new space-saving, scrolling menus for the iPhone and Mac line of computers.
iPhone, iPod Touch Get Stereoscopic 3D Add-On Device Next Year: Nintendo (PINK: NTDOY) won’t be the only consumer electronics maker hocking glasses-free stereoscopic graphic effects on a handheld device next spring. Of course, Hasbro‘s (NYSE: HAS) My 3D add on for AAPL’s iPhone 4 and iPod Touch device is arguably all glasses.
The new peripheral for Apple’s iOS mobile devices is shaped like a pair of binoculars and, when affixed to the face of an iPhone or iPod, provides three-dimensional graphical effects for iOS games, movies rented from the iTunes Store, and “virtual travel experiences.” Apps that support the device will be sold in a My 3D section of the Apple App Store. The new add on will retail for $30 and analysts think its success or failure will depend not on price but how many apps take advantage of the technology. “The issue with this is whether they are going to get enough content for it,” Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu told the Associated Press. My 3D will launch in early 2011 with a variety of free and paid apps.
Amazon Offers Kindle Digital Magazine, Newspaper Revenue Split Similar to Apple Terms: Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced this morning that the online retailer would begin offering new revenue sharing terms for digital newspaper and magazine sales in the Kindle store. Starting Dec. 1, Kindle store partners like News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) and the Gannett Company (NYSE: GCI) will receive 70% of fee for issues of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today sold through the store, while Amazon will pocket the remaining 30%. In order to qualify for these terms, publishers must meet quality standards set by Amazon and must offer digital content that includes at least 95% of the same content offered in print editions.
These terms are identical to those in Apple’s App Store, where papers like The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are already sold. Publishers like Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) have taken issue with the revenue split in the past. These terms kept Time Inc.’s publications like Sports Illustrated off of the iPhone and iPad until an agreement was reached last summer that saw Time selling subscriptions for digital editions themselves, not through the App Store.
Apple Exploring New Scrollable Menu Navigation Technology: A new patent filed in Europe last week by AAPL entitled “Scrollable Menus and Toolbars” describes new technology that would help both OS X and iOS device users cut down on screen clutter. The new technology described would introduce a new scrollable toolbar that would take up a portion of the screen designated by the user. For example, a user using the Mac OS X System Preferences utility could set a small, 1-inch box in the corner of the screen which would then allow them to flip through different tools in the System Preferences application. The patent describes implementations of the new menu on both home computers and iOS portables like the iPhone and iPad.
As of this writing, Anthony Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
