Here is your daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors for December 1, 2010. Bad news for Apple as the iPhone’s share of Web usage on mobile phones plummets . Elsewhere, a new Apple patent describes a tablet akin to iPad that is also a laptop computer. Finally, users are reporting problems with Apple’s 27-inch HD Cinema Display monitor en masse.
BlackBerry Surpasses iPhone Web Browser Usage: Last September, the story was that the real threat to Apple in the United States smartphone market was Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and its Android operating system only. It’s other competitors, namely Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) had fallen by the wayside. A Quantcast report found that iOS was dominant at the end of last summer, accounting for 56% of mobile Web browsing in the U.S., but still shy of highs reached in 2009 when 67% of mobile browsing was done on an iPhone. Google meanwhile rose up to 25%, a 17% increase over 2009. Both companies had all but eroded RIM’s BlackBerry, who Quantcast found only account for 9%. How much things change. StarCounter published a report this morning that bares bad news for Apple but excellent news for Research in Motion. The research group found that RIMM BlackBerry overtook the iPhone in mobile Web usage in November, taking a 34.3% share compared to Apple’s 33%. BlackBerry’s gain even eroded some of Google’s Quantcast-calculated market share, with Android falling down to 23.8%. This could change dramatically if Apple releases a Verizon (NYSE: VZ) iPhone in early 2011, though, as that would allow iOS to compete with BlackBerry on a more even playing field.
Apple Patent Shows iPad-Laptop Combo: When the flood of iPad competitors hit the market in 2011, the next big movement in tablet PC design can begin in earnest: laptop tablet combos. The new 10-inch Acer Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows tablet set to debut in February 2011 will have support for a laptop-style dock with a full QWERTY keyboard, and the increased functionality as an office tool should give it an edge over Apple’s iPad. At least until Apple releases the new convertible iPad revealed in the new patent for “Application Programming Interfaces for Scrolling Operations.” The patented was granted to Apple just yesterday and while the patent specifically covers the technology for scrolling on a device’s screen, it includes illustrations for a new tablet that can be converted into a laptop computer by folding out a QWERTY keyboard. The touch screen can fold over the keyboard for a tablet form factor, or slid out and angled above the keyboard not unlike other laptops in Apple’s line of MacBooks. Illustrations from the patent can be viewed here.
Apple Cinema Display Monitor Troubled By Sound Problems: Launched earlier this fall, Apple’s new $999, high-definition, 27-inch Cinema Display monitor for Mac desktops and MacBook laptops is apparently plagued by issues with its sound output. Three complaint threads logging hundreds of posts reporting the same problems with the Cinema Display have opened on Apple’s official forums since Ocotber. Users are reporting that the Display stops outputting sound after a period of use, and while unplugging the monitor and reconnecting it seems to remedy the issue, it is only a temporary fix. Other users are reporting delays between input and response from the monitor, with actions to change the volume taking as much as 7 seconds to create an activation sound effect on the monitor. Apple has not yet addressed the issue.
As of this writing, Anthony Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
