Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Friday:
iCloud on the Horizon: Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) recent purchase of the iCloud.com domain name suggests plans for the company’s web-based “cloud” services will be made public sooner rather than later. GigaOM reported on Thursday that Apple purchased the name for $4.5 million from the Swedish cloud-storage service Linkoping. A variety of hints as to what types of cloud services Apple will offer have emerged over the past 12 months. The company is expected to offer cloud storage to iTunes users, letting them create a “music locker” to store purchased songs on Apple’s servers that can then be played on any device. The expected fall release of a new MobileMe service suite is also expected to provide cloud storage for office documents and other personal data.
Staunching the Android Flow: A new report from research firm NPD found that, despite lower-than-expected sales, the Verizon (NYSE:VZ) iPhone served a crucial purpose in staving off the rapid expansion of Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android mobile operating system. Of all smartphones sold in the first quarter, 28% were iPhones. This is especially impressive considering that just 19% of smartphones sold in the fourth quarter of 2010 were iPhones. Android phones saw sales decrease slightly over the period, with market share slipping to 50% from 53% in the fourth quarter. However, what’s promising for both platforms is that smartphones accounted for the majority of mobile phone sales for the first time ever, with 54% of all mobile sales over the period.
Big in Japan: The monthlong delay didn’t hurt the debut of the iPad 2 in Japan, according to a Friday report at The Wall Street Journal. Tablet consumers began waiting in line for the device on Thursday night, with lines stretching three city blocks by Friday morning outside Tokyo’s Apple Store. One consumer interviewed by the paper said that he preferred Apple’s sleek design to “clunky” competitors like Sony’s (NYSE:SNE) recently announced S1 tablet, an unusual sentiment in a citizenry that has historically shunned gadgets made by outside companies.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook.
