Here are your daily Apple news items and rumors for Wednesday:
iAd Head Out: Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL) mobile advertising platform for the iPhone and iPad — iAd — hasn’t been quite the success it was predicted to be since opening for business in 2010. Business Week expected Apple to control 21% of the mobile advertising business by the beginning of 2011. In February, Apple had to halve the minimum iAd purchase to $500,000 because no one was buying the space. Now iAd is losing executives in addition to business. A Wednesday report at All Things Digital said Apple vice president of mobile advertising Andy Miller is leaving the company for venture group Highland Capital. Miller’s mobile advertising company, Quattro, originally funded by Highland Capital, was acquired by Apple for $275 million then shut down ahead of iAd’s debut. Apple and Miller have yet to comment on his departure.
Koreans Bring Class Action Lawsuit Against Apple: The people of South Korea have had it up to here with Apple attacking their hometown hero Samsung (PINK:SSNLF) with patent infringement lawsuits and have decided to do some suing of their own. OK, that’s not entirely true — however, 27,000 South Korean citizens are indeed suing Apple in a class action lawsuit, claiming their privacy was violated by Apple’s location tracking services on the iPhone. A Tuesday report at Yahoo! Finance said each person is seeking approximately $932 in damages — the same amount awarded to attorney Kim Hyung-Souk earlier this year after suing Apple over an iOS bug that stored a database of user locations. This is the largest lawsuit brought against Apple over the bug yet, according to Apple Insider.
David Byrne Creates Fake iPhone Apps: David Byrne is a funny guy, even when he’s being serious. The man made his name by singing hilarious songs about being frightened of people and by wearing a giant suit on stage while dancing with a living room lamp. The musician’s latest work is perhaps less ambitious than making a building that also is an instrument, but it’s pretty funny all the same — not least because its target is Apple and its sometimes haughty customers. Byrne created a number of pieces for a social media-themed exhibit at the Pace Gallery in New York, and they all are fake iPhone apps, including features and user reviews. The apps include “Childster,” which turns your iPhone into a babysitter with a setting to monitor “aging parents.” Another is “Invisible Me,” a program that automatically responds to text messages and emails in three modes: agitated, distracted and sexy. Funny guy, that Byrne. Thing is, these probably would sell.
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.