Here are your Apple news items and rumors for Wednesday:
High-Def: Rumors about a possible entrance into the high-definition television market have slowed in recent weeks, with industry murmurings about Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) future plans centering more on its next smartphone. A report at Daily Tech (via Mac Rumors), however, now says Apple has partnered with an unnamed television manufacturer to produce a line of high-definition televisions. These TVs will be equipped with have both the Apple TV set-top box and iTunes built into them. An unnamed “former Apple executive” gave Daily Tech the details on the new Apple HD TV, claiming that it would “blow Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and all those other guys away.” The source also says that the TVs should be ready for release this holiday season, but that Apple may delay them into 2012 to guarantee a high level of quality.
New iPhone: Bloomberg said Tuesday that, as other rumors have suggested, Apple will release its next iPhone at the end of the third quarter. Coming in September, the fifth-generation iPhone will use the A5 processor — the one used in the second-generation iPad that came out in March — making it markedly faster than Apple’s current smartphone. It will also include an improved camera. Bloomberg‘s sources said that the phone has other new features, but details weren’t provided. Those sources also said that Apple is preparing a third-generation iPad that includes a higher-resolution screen, which supports rumors from earlier this year.
Amazon Ready for Tablet Fight: DigiTimes (via Apple Insider) has said that Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) will finally go toe-to-toe with Apple’s iPad when it releases a Kindle tablet in August or September of this year. Component makers allegedly providing parts for the tablet said that Amazon plans to ship as many as 800,000 tablets a month in the U.S. and Europe across the holiday season. Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN) is said to be providing the processor for Amazon’s device. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in May that he believes Amazon will offer a Kindle tablet in the near future, but that it will only sell slightly above 2 million of them in 2012, a fraction of Apple’s iPad sales.
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.
