Here are your Apple rumors and AAPL stock news items for Wednesday:
Apple TV Eating Connected TV Market Share: While television manufactures like Sony (NYSE:SNE) scramble to figure out just what the heck Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is going to foist on the world when it releases the Apple HDTV in 2012, Apple already has been making a subtle impact on the TV market. The company’s self-described hobby product, the Apple TV set-top box, will account for 32% of the entire connected television market by the end of the year. This is according to a new report from Strategy Analytics published Monday detailing the connected television market. To clarify, the connected TV player market refers to both televisions and set-top boxes that access the Internet as well as broadcast, cable and satellite programming, like Google‘s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Google TV and Samsung (PINK:SSNLF) televisions using Yahoo‘s (NASDAQ:YHOO) Yahoo TV. Apple’s numbers are impressive, but the connected TV market still is infinitesimally small. Just 8% of U.S. households use a connected TV device.
Microsoft Delivers First iPhone Apps: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is an equal opportunist when it comes to the mobile market. Why settle for making money on your own devices when you can seed your apps across the best-selling handhelds in the world? Hence why Microsoft is releasing a variety of apps associated with the company’s Xbox brand on Apple’s iOS platform. Among its initial run of apps are the pet game Kinectimals, a story-based app for its best-selling franchise Halo, and an interface for its online gaming and social network Xbox Live. Microsoft also released a cloud-based file management app for the iPhone and iPad called SkyDrive that will let users transfer files to and from their iOS device via the web. The question now is when Microsoft finally will release its profitable Office apps for iOS. The Office segment of Microsoft rakes in $18 billion per year.
Apple Founding Contract Sold at Auction for $1.6 Million: The original 1976 contract signed by Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne and Steve Jobs that formed the Apple Computer Company was sold at a Sotheby’s auction on Tuesday. The contract and other documents sold for a final price of $1,594,500, more than 10 times the $150,000 price they were expected to sell for.
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.
