Here are your Apple news items and rumors for Wednesday:
Uncle Sam Slaps Down AT&T/T-Mobile: The U.S. government moved to block AT&T‘s (NYSE:T) merger with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA on Wednesday. An antitrust complaint was filed that claims the merger would “substantially lessen competition,” according to a report at Bloomberg. “AT&T’s elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low-priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market,” the filing reads. AT&T shares fell more than 3% on Wednesday morning following the announcement. While AT&T’s shareholders are undoubtedly disappointed by this development, it comes as good news to Verizon (NYSE:VZ), Sprint (NYSE:S) and numerous small telecoms.
iCloudless Skies for iPhone, iPad Users: For anyone excited about having streaming access on their Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone and iPad to all the music and movies stored in their iTunes via the new iCloud service, you’re in for a rude awakening. iTunes Match and iCloud do not stream content to Apple’s portable devices. The lack of streaming support was confirmed in a Tuesday report at All Things Digital. What iOS users will be able to do is access their stored library of media through iTunes Match, then download it directly to their device. This distinguishes iCloud from competitors like Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Amazon‘s (NASDAQ:AMZN) cloud services.
Turn Left at Low-Cost Garmin Navigation App: Up until now, Garmin‘s (NASDAQ:GRMN) GPS app for the iPhone and iPad has been one expensive piece of technology, running users $60 for a single download. Realizing that’s an untenable business model for a company whose technology is slowly being outmoded, Garming has introduced the Garmin StreetPilot onDemand app. The new GPS navigation program uses a subscription pay model rather than a flat fee, running users 99 cents per month. This lighter version of StreetPilot provides public transportation info for 31 cities and does spoken turn-by-turn directions in the vintage Garmin style. Of course, GPS navigation tools with spoken turn-by-turn directions come free in some Android phones, such as HTC’s Thunderbolt. Consumers tend to like things that cost nothing more than they like things that cost a dollar. Garmin should explore that.
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.
