Apple is a price-fixing ringmaster, U.S. says; Apple says that’s ‘absurd’ (VentureBeat)
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and U.S. book publishers conspired to limit e-book competition and break Amazon’s hold on the digital book market, the U.S. Department of Justice says. The case, which was filed in April 2012, is finally coming to trial in June. And in new documents that the government filed, the attorney general paints Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) as the ringmaster. All of the other original codefendants, including Harper Collins, the Penguin Group, and Simon & Schuster, have already settled with the government, leaving Apple as the sole defendant. As the saying goes, them’s fightin’ words. And Apple is fighting back.
It turns out that the desire to speak with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook, along with $610,000, will buy you a cup of coffee. That’s the winning bid offered in a charity auction for up to an hour of Cook’s time. As we reported last month, the chance to grab coffee with Cook at Apple’s headquarters zoomed past the suggested value of $50,000 set at the Charitybuzz auction site, rising to more than $600,000 in just three days. The winner hasn’t been identified; an earlier glance at the list of bidders suggested that many of them have companies or entrepreneurial projects they might like to discuss with Cook. The winner has one year in which to coordinate a date to grab coffee with the executive.
Apple approaches 50bn App Store downloads (The Guardian)
Nobody knows which was the first app to be downloaded from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone App Store on 11 July 2008 – but the total is expected to pass 50bn on Wednesday, marking a huge new business created by the explosive spread of smartphones over the past five years. The person who downloads that 50 billionth app will receive a $10,000 gift card. But that’s small beer compared with the payouts to app developers that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has made since starting the store. In April it announced that developers have received $9bn (£5.9bn) since the online store started, pointing to a gigantic new economy that can now make teenagers into millionaires and create entire new business giants. Apple receives 30% of the revenue from app customers, meaning that the company has made around $3.86bn from the app store.
Why Gold And Apple Are Tanking At Exactly The Same Time (Business Insider)
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is down 2%. The big gold ETF, GLD, is down 1.4%. These moves are happening on a day when the market is basically flat. It’s not an accident that they’re diving together. The reason is: During the immediate post-crisis era, gold and Apple were huge outperformers, that were uncorrelated to the day-to-day “risk on, risk off” regime that was dominating financial markets. Remember, investors are desperate to find uncorrelated assets that don’t just mimic the S&P. Thus gold and Apple both held tremendous value as assets that provided outperformance, and seemed to exist in a world of their own rules, and their own returns. But now things are changing. Suddenly the market and the economy are looking better. This means that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) no longer seems so special. Lots of companies have the ability to thrive. And with the economic improvement, the appeal of gold is limited too. So Apple and gold move together.
Apple iPhone suspected of interfering with airline equipment in 2011 incident (Apple Insider)
As the debate over use of portable electronics during takeoff and landing of commercial flights rages on, details of a 2011 incident suggest that an iPhone may have caused interference with the flight equipment on a regional airliner. The compasses on the flight were behaving abnormally, sending the plane several miles off-course, according to a report published Wednesday by Bloomberg. But the systems apparently returned to normal after a flight attendant had a passenger in row 9 turn off their iPhone. The Federal Aviation Administration has been leaning toward relaxing its current rules, which prohibit the use of…
…most electronic devices — including Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iPhone, iPad and iPods — while the plane is under 10,000 feet. But proposed rule changes by the FAA have been held up by technicalities, and the desire to develop a concise, future-proof set of regulations.
David Tepper Dumped Nearly 250,000 Shares Of Apple In The First Quarter Of This Year (Business Insider)
David Tepper, who runs $12 billion distressed debt hedge fund Appaloosa Management, has filed his latest 13F regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During the first quarter of 2013 ended March 31st, Tepper pared back his Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stake selling more than 247,000 shares. According to the filing, he held 239,020 shares in the tech giant in Q1 of this year compared with 486,476 in Q4 of 2012. Apple is still one of Tepper’s top holdings.
Apple iPhone 5S Features: Device Could Have Sapphire Crystal Capacitive Home Button With Fingerprint Sensor (International Business Times)
Ever since the first Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone came out in 2007, the “home” button on the front of each of the company’s flagship smartphones has remained one of the defining features of the handset. It’s now widely rumored that Apple will ditch that traditional feature to incorporate a much-improved replacement with the release of the next iPhone model, presumably to be called the “iPhone 5S.” Citing Taiwanese publication TechNews, a Cult of Mac report said on Tuesday that Apple might use a sapphire crystal capacitive-touch home button with a new fingerprint sensor on the upcoming “iPhone 5S.”
Why Apple Is Unlikely To Change Its Famous App Icons’ Shape (Business Insider)
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is reportedly going to change the look of iOS, the operating system that runs iPhones and iPads. iOS is due for a tweaking. It’s looked pretty much the same since it was rolled out. Some people are getting bored and would love to see something different. When Apple changes iOS, however, don’t expect its app icons to change too much. A lot of people have been speculating that Apple might tweak their shape as part of an overall design change.
Lawsuit claims Apple sold iPhone 4 with bad on-off button (CNET)
A lawsuit has been brought against Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) for allegedly selling iPhone 4 smartphones with faulty power buttons. The suit, which seeks class-action status, claims that Apple knew about the issue and failed to fix the problem. Debra Hilton filed the lawsuit in San Jose, Calif., alleging that she and “thousands of iPhone 4 users” were sold the device with on-off buttons that stopped working shortly after the 1-year warranty was up. The problem purportedly had to do with a defective flex cable that controlled the power button. According to the court filing, the defect in the power button prevented users from restarting the phone or being able to toggle it on and off. If the issue came up after the 1-year warranty expired, users allegedly had to pay a $149.99 replacement fee.
