Here are your daily Apple news items and rumors for Friday:
iPad 3 Gets Real: Rumors about the next Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad were running around the Internet before the second-generation iPad was even released. Some claimed the new device would be a more significant upgrade than the iPad 2, while others claimed it would be the exact same device but with a higher-resolution screen. Some even said the iPad 3 would ship in November 2011, just eight months after the last iPad release. A Friday Wall Street Journal report shed light on what the next iPad likely will include and when it will be released. Rumors of an improved display seem to be on the money. The Wall Street Journal claims the iPad 3 will have a 2048-by-1536-pixel screen (compared to the 1024-by-768 screen on current models) and will release in early 2012. It should come out just in time for Christmas shoppers to regret their gift-giving choices.
Big Time: Research group DisplaySearch released its survey of the mobile PC industry Thursday, and Apple became the No. 1 manufacturer in the world based on device shipments. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company controlled a 21% share of the market in the second quarter, beating out Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), Acer and Lenovo. Of course, the survey included tablet sales, meaning it was the iPad that put Apple over its competitors. DisplaySearch calculated that Apple shipped nearly 13.6 million mobile PCs over the quarter. Apple itself reported 9 million iPads sold during that quarter, meaning that when it comes to just the laptop PC business, Apple still trails all of those aforementioned competitors.
HP Takes Its Ball, Goes Home: Just more than a month after it released its TouchPad tablet, a would-be iPad killer developed by Palm, Hewlett-Packard is abandoning the tablet business. According to a Friday WSJ report, HP also is quitting the smartphone market. Chief executive Leo Apotheker said that “to be successful in the consumer device business we would have had to invest a lot of capital, and I believe we can invest it in better place.” The embattled technology company already invested quite a bit in consumer technology. It bought Palm for $1.2 billion in 2010.
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.
