Here are your Apple rumors and news items for Monday:
Free Time: The ongoing clash between Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Time Warner’s (NYSE:TWX) Time Inc. publishing imprint seems to have finally come to an end. According to The Wall Street Journal, the disagreement over how print subscribers could access iPad editions of Time Inc. magazines has been settled: iPad editions will be free to print subscribers beginning Monday. The back-and-forth between the two companies has been ongoing since the iPad came out last year. Time was disgruntled at first by Apple’s refusal to share information about customers who bought Time publications through Apple’s app store. Apple additionally moved to halt Time from selling iPad subscriptions through Time’s own web outlet, a contributing factor to the much-debated policy that iPad publishing partners must sell through Apple’s store.
Quality, Not Quantity: Research group Distimo says Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android store will have more downloadable apps than Apple by the end of 2011. But Apple is focusing on the quality of apps. A report from Apple Insider says Apple has banned the practice of pay-to-install programs used by some app makers. This process involved sellers giving users virtual currency (typically used to purchase goods in games and similar apps) each time they install a given app, thus raising its ranking on Apple’s sales charts. Apple also has stopped highlighting the number of apps available in the store in its advertising, choosing instead to focus on quality and revenue made by specific app developers in touting the store’s merits.
Flash-y Startup: Despite Apple’s staunch refusal to support Adobe’s (NASDAQ:ADBE) Flash video and software development tool on the iPad, forcing Flash-centric services like YouTube to build apps specific to the tablet, that doesn’t mean people haven’t been finding ways around the policy. A new startup company called iSwifter has just found a new way to ease the process of getting Flash-based software running on an iPad with its new app. The app works by opening a web browser that supports Flash on iSwifter’s servers and then streaming that to the user’s iPad. Although the service is free for now, iSwifter aims to make it a subscription service.
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.
