Here are your daily Apple news items and rumors for Thursday:
Angry Android: Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) is none too happy about Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft‘s (NASDAQ:MSFT) recent patent acquisitions. In a Wednesday post on the company’s official blog, Google senior vice president David Drummond claimed those companies and others are conspiring in a “hostile, organized campaign against Android.” They are doing this by acquiring patents from Nortell and Novell for no other reason than to “make sure Google didn’t get them” and to leverage them in suing Google’s partners, such as Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS), Motorola (NYSE:MMI), HTC and Samsung (PINK:SSNLF). The smartphone business is getting downright nasty.
T-Mobile Woes: By the time T-Mobile USA and AT&T‘s (NYSE:T) merger is approved, the latter might not want to go forward anymore. The Deutsche Telekom subsidiary reported its second-quarter earnings Thursday, and the period was rough on the company. Although revenue was flat year-on-year, totaling $5.1 billion in 2011 compared to $5.4 billion during the same period in 2010, the company continued to shed customers at an alarming rate. After losing close to 100,000 subscribers during the first quarter of the year, T-Mobile USA lost another 50,000 between April and June. “Competitive pressures” were cited as the cause for T-Mobile’s losses. Just two more quarters, T-Mobile, and everything will be okay.
Going Global in October: Word is that Apple will release the iPhone 5 in the United States at the beginning of October. While most iPhones have had staggered international releases, a Thursday report at All Things Digital says both the fifth-generation iPhone and a “simplified iPhone 4” will be available in China in October, as well. Sohu.com and Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities are cited in the article as saying that Apple has reached a “preliminary agreement” with China Telecom (NYSE:CHA) to release the new iPhone models at the same time they release in the U.S. The simplified iPhone 4 referenced in the report likely refers to the smaller, cheaper iPhone rumored in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year. That phone will look to replicate the success of Apple’s iPod Nano.
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.
