Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Tuesday:
Samsung’s Song: The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is suing competitor Samsung for copying the design of the iPhone and iPad with its line of Galaxy smartphones and tablet PCs. The lawsuit goes well beyond the typical patent infringement kerfuffles that have characterized the mobile technology industry in recent years. Apple is claiming that Samsung has literally copied the design of its portables, from the basic casing to the software interface (Samsung’s Galaxy devices use a customized version of the Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system.) The suit is especially thorny because of how deeply invested Apple is in Samsung. According to a Tuesday AFP article, Apple is Samsung’s second-biggest client for components such as processing chips and LCD displays, with Apple spending about $5.7 billion.
No App Store For You: According to Gigaom, Apple is now banning apps from its store that offer incentives to install a certain app multiple times. Tapjoy, an e-commerce business that processes transactions for app makers, said a number of app makers have seen their software rejected because they offer bonuses, such as virtual currency in video games, if they install the app multiple times, thus inflating the app’s position in Apple’s sales charts. Apple’s app charts have traditionally used downloads as the chief metric for determining rank, but Apple is now altering the system to measure app usage and user ratings as well as installs. It’s unclear if other app stores run by Google and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) will follow Apple.
Gamevil Fends Off Rovio: Korean game maker Gamevil unseated Rovio from the top of the top 10 iPhone games last week. Gamevil’s Air Penguin took the No. 1 spot from Rovio’s Angry Birds Rio, which held the No. 2 position with the help of its News Corp. (NYSE:NWS) movie tie-in as well as the No. 3 slot with the original Angry Birds game.
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.
