Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Tuesday:
iPad 2 Debut to Outperform iPad 1: AppleInsider reported Tuesday that Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster is predicting major sales for Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) second-generation tablet PC, which is due out on Friday. Apple sold a million iPads within 28 days of that device’s release in April 2010, and 3.3 million by the end of the second quarter that year. Munster expects around 5.5 million iPad 2s to sell by June 2011. The stronger numbers will result from both stronger production as well as improved distribution from a broader range of Apple retail partners. But that means investors and industry followers alike shouldn’t expect the sort of consumer turnout that’s typified Apple product releases in years past. In other words, a lack of massive lines outside every Apple store doesn’t mean the iPad 2 is a flop.
iOS Update: BGR reported Tuesday that the latest update for Apple’s iOS mobile operating system iOS would be available for download by the end of today — a surprise to many since the update was scheduled to come out alongside the iPad 2 on Friday. The Loop, however, has now said that the early release surprise will be delayed into Wednesday, a prediction backed up by website MacRumors. A reader at that site speaking with an Apple Store representative online was told that the update would in fact be available to iPhone and iPad 1 owners on Wednesday. The iOS 4.3 update includes a number of updates, the most significant of which is the ability to use an iPhone 4 on both Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and AT&T (NYSE:T) as a mobile hotspot. Other new features include improved Web browsing and the new Nitro JavaScript engine.
Flash Support: Apple’s ongoing efforts to keep the Flash media platform off its iOS mobile platform and attendant mobile devices isn’t keeping Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) away. The software company has released a preview version of the new application called “Wallaby” which converts the art and animation in Flash files into the HTML5 format recognized by the Safari web browser on iOS handhelds. For now, the app is best used on iOS 4.2, the version to be replaced this week. The lack of native Flash support in Apple’s iPhone and iPad has been a major selling point for competing products like phones running Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
