Here are your daily Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) news items and rumors for Monday:
10 Billion Sold: Apple’s App Store saw its 10 billionth download on Saturday, a milestone it reached in half the time it took its iTunes music store to hit the same total. As many as 7 billion of the downloads for Apple-platform devices like the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch were made in 2010 alone. Apple marketing chief Philip Schiller even took digs at competing mobile software stores like Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android App Market, Research In Motion’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry App World, and Nokia’s (NYSE:NOK) Ovi store. “While others try to copy the App Store, it continues to offer developers and customers the most innovative experience on the planet,” said Schiller. By the way, Gail Davis of England won the honor of making Download No. 10 billion — and Apple rewarded her with a $10,000 iTunes gift card.
Production Ramps: China’s Commercial Times said Monday that Apple’s next generation of iOS handhelds will go into production over the next three months. A “small pilot” number of iPad 2s will be made in February with production ramping up significantly throughout the back half of 2011’s first quarter. The article says iPad 2 shipments will likely exceed the original iPad’s peak shipments during the 2010 holiday season. This production schedule fits previous rumors that have pinpointed April as the iPad 2’s official release date. The report also said that “volume production” of the iPhone 5 will begin in May, which would set the purportedly 4G smartphone for release in June. The iPhone 4 was released in the U.S. last June.
Make Mine White: Last year, Apple announced that the iPhone 4 would come out in two colors, the traditional black — and a white model similar in design to the company’s line of MacBook laptops. Days before the smartphone was released, the white model was delayed. Rumors of production problems with its casing emerged as press coverage of the iPhone 4’s antenna problems intensified.
Now it appears that Apple will finally release the white iPhone 4. BGR reported Monday that AT&T’s (NYSE:T) Online Account Management System now includes product listings for a 16GB and a 32GB white iPhone 4. This new evidence follows the appearance of a white iPhone 4 product listing showing up on Best Buy’s (NYSE:BBY) website last week. The Best Buy product page included a tentative release date of Feb. 27, suggesting that a new white iPhone 4 will hit AT&T’s network just in time to compete with the new iPhone carried by Verizon (NYSE:VZ).
Motorola’s iPad Competitor: Website Android Central published pictures of leaked pricing details for upcoming Motorola (NYSE:MMI) products, including the company’s Google Android tablet PC, the Xoom. The listing says that the tablet’s minimum advertised price, is $799, which would make the Xoom $70 more expensive than the 32GB iPad. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs said late last year that he expected competitors to “have a tough time coming close to iPad’s pricing.” If the leaked Xoom MAP is accurate, Jobs statements will be verified and then some.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
