Here is your daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors for Wednesday. The big news is Ticonderoga Securities again being the outlier on AAPL stock, with a $612 price target. Out of 45 Wall Street “experts,” the average target is about $450.
Analyst Sees Apple Going Up… Again: Ticonderoga Securities’ Brain White issued a note to investors on Wednesday saying that Apple is still a “Buy.” White claims that even though April sales have been below past years—an expected drop seeing as the original iPad debuted in April 2010 — it’s likely that Apple will still see growth over the quarter that ended in March. The analyst set a price target of $612 on the stock.
iAds for Mature Audiences Only: App developers making games and other downloadable entertainment for Apple’s iPhone and iPad say that the Cupertino, California, company is pulling iAd display advertisements from apps intended for children. Rather than an altruistic move to try and spare young iPhone users from the ravages of a media obsessed culture, Apple’s doing what any respectable company does: recognizing where there’s no market. iPhone game creator Mike Zomek told Mac Stories on Tuesday that a representative from Apple iAd Network Support told him products paying for promotion “are not targeted at that audience.” There have been rumblings since last fall that iAd is underperforming for Apple. The company halved the minimum cost of iAd campaign buys, down from $1 million to $500,000, in February when the service’s fill rate (the number of available ad slots that are filled) fell from 18% to 6%.
iPad Ready for Docking: Apple Insider published details of a patent granted to Apple on Tuesday. The patent in question details “the ornamental design for a portable display device.” That vague description is accompanied by images of what appears to be a dock for the iPad that would allow users to arrange the tablet PC vertically or horizontally in a laptop-style position. Sadly the patent does not show any tools some iPad users might find useful such as an external keyboard or mouse connected to the dock.
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.
