Once again keeping you in the loop on some of the news around Apple this past week.
Apple's invitation to the Sept. 12 event shows a number "5" as a shadow, a likely reference to the launch of the long-rumored iPhone 5.
It?s almost here. Apple?s new iPhone 5, also known as the-worst-kept-secret-of-the-year, is expected to debut Sept. 12 and analysts are already tallying up how many of the slimmer, faster phones the company may sell. Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray predicts 6 to 8 million in the first week after the new model ? which will reportedly add support for 4G LTE networks and devote more of the surface real estate to the screen ? is released. The iPhone is good news for those in the smartphone market, whether or not you want Apple?s latest device. Seems there?s nothing like a new Apple product release to spur on the competition. In the past week alone, Motorola Mobility (now owned by Google), Samsung and Nokia have announced new phones with all sorts of bells and whistles. Now I know choosing a smartphone is about more than just the device. It?s about the ecosystem ? the apps, the carriers, the services, the fees. But all this competition has got to be good for us consumers. As Siri says, ?competition is a business relation in which?parties compete to gain customers.??
Renting Songs? News reports from the WSJ and New York Times, citing unnamed sources, say Apple is looking into starting a streaming music service that would rival Pandora Media and also, like Pandora, be offered with ads or without (for a fee). But unlike Pandora and iHeartRadio, which ?operate under limited licenses that restrict what they can do with the music ? for example, limiting the number of times songs by particular artist can be played within an hour ? Apple is seeking direct licenses with record labels that would give the company more flexibility in using music,? the NYTimes says, adding that discussions are early and that an Apple service is ?not imminent.? Talk about Apple and a streaming music service aren?t new. Back in Dec. 2009, Apple bought online music service Lala.com, only to shut it down in May 2010. That prompted speculation that Apple would use Lala?s technology to develop a cloud-based service for its devices. Former CEO Steve Jobs famously dissed music subscription services like Napster by saying that ?nobody wants to rent music.? He also didn?t think dividends were a good idea, but it?s a new era with CEO Tim Cook in which anything is possible.
Of stock splits and the Dow. Speaking of anything is possible, Steve Jobs was also not a big fan of stock splits. But with Apple?s shares at $680.44 and headed, if the analysts are right, to $1,000 in the next year, there?s some discussion about why a stock split may make sense. Here?s one take from Seeking Alpha: ??Another huge effect a stock split could have for Apple is the inclusion in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Previous discussions of Apple being including in the Dow Jones has quickly been nixed, for one main reason: price. The Dow is a price-weighted index, meaning that the value of the Dow is calculated by the share price of its components rather than by market cap, such as the S&P 500.? As Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. noted in July, Apple is the only dividend paying company with a market cap north of $215 billion that isn?t in the Dow. He believes the time is ?ripe? for Apple?s inclusion on the DJIA.
Hackers and tutus. This week?s news of the weird: A hacker group affiliated with Anonymous called AntiSec claimed they?d hacked into the computer of an FBI agent and gained access to 12 million identification numbers for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. Their goal: to prove that the FBI used mobile devices to track people. Only thing is that the FBI released a statement saying it wasn?t true: ?The FBI is aware of published reports alleging that an FBI laptop was compromised and private data regarding Apple UDIDs was exposed. At this time, there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data.? As for Apple, it put out a statement saying ?The FBI has not requested this information from Apple, nor have we provided it to the FBI or any organization.? Then the group said it wouldn?t give any interviews to the press until Adrian Chen of Gawker, who has been critical of Anonymous, posted a photo of himself in a tutu with a shoe on his head. Chen did, and the photos are amazing ? if only because not a lot of people can pull off a pink tutu. Kudos for posing! As of now, though, Chen hasn?t heard a peep from AntiSec. I guess the photos have left them speechless.
The digiterati rule. Vanity Fair?s 2012 list of ?The New Establishment: The Powers That Be? looks like a who?s who in tech. Apple?s Tim Cook and top designer Jonathan Ive share the No. 1 spot this year, up from No. 4 last year. Says Vanity Fair, ?The two longtime understudies have more than proved their mettle in the wake of Steve Jobs?s death? As CEO, Cook has presided over an increase of more than 50 percent in the company?s stock price since October. Ive, Apple?s design chief?whom Jobs gave ?more operational power than anyone else at Apple except me??has seemed to channel his former boss in recent statements. ?Our goal at Apple is absolutely not to make money,? he said in July. ?Our goal, and what makes us excited, is to make great products.? The Google boys are No. 2 on the list, with Amazon?s Jeff Bezo, Facebook?s Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey of Square and Twitter rounding out the Top 5. The complete list is here.
Nixing price fixing. A federal judge approved a settlement with three publishers, HarperCollins, the Hachette Book Group and Simon & Schuster, who were caught up in an e-book price fixing scheme the government claims was led by Apple. The three denied any wrongdoing, but agreed in April to settle and to allow retailers, including Amazon, to set their own prices for e-books, which should mean consumers will see prices drop soon. Apple, Macmillan and Penguin Group USA declined to settle and are expected to go to trial next year. U.S. District Court Judge Denise L. Cote in Manhattan, in a 45-page opinion, sided against Apple and the publishers, calling it a straightforward price-fixing case. But the opinion is worth reading because it reads, in part, like an essay on the importance of literature. Case in point: Page 20, where Judge Cote writes:
There can be no denying the importance of books and authors in the quest for human knowledge and creative expression, and in supporting a free and prosperous society. To quote Emily Dickinson,
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page
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