Here are your Apple rumors and AAPL news items for today.
Steve Jobs Discussed HD Music Format With Neil Young: Speaking with All Things Digital at the D: Dive Into Media event, legendary rock icon Neil Young said that the problem with the modern music industry isn’t the rise of digital distribution but the audio quality of MP3s. The solution, according to Young, is improved, significantly larger digital music files in a different format that could offer the high-definition sound quality common to traditional analog music formats like vinyl records. Steve Jobs, famously a vinyl fan, had discussed the problem with Young before he passed away in October 2011. Jobs was “working on it,” according to Young, but was apparently nowhere near announcing a new audio format to replace the MP3 or even the high-quality lossless audio format supported by iTunes.
Apple Buying Up HDTV Parts from Big Suppliers: Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster threw more fuel on the Apple HDTV fire on Tuesday, claiming in a note to investors that a “major TV component supplier” told him that Apple is actively shopping for parts. Munster believes that the manufacturer’s statements are strong indicators that Apple will in fact release an HD television set by the end of 2012. Rumors about Apple’s TV kicked into high gear in October after Walter Isaacson’s biography Steve Jobs quoted the late CEO as saying he had “finally cracked” designing an HD television for Apple. Munster, however, originally had indicated that Apple would delay release such a device for significantly longer, suggesting in September 2010, for example, that Apple’s deal with Rovi (NASDAQ:ROVI) confirmed that Apple would sell its own TV by 2014, along with its own content services.
Kindle Sales Triple as Amazon Earnings Disappoint: You’ve got to spend money to make money. That maxim was painfully borne out for Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) when it reported its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday. The company saw a 57% decline in net income because of a $4.7 billion increase in spending. The company invested heavily in developing and releasing its Kindle Fire tablet computer last fall. Earnings may have missed Wall Street expectations, but Amazon’s strategy worked in terms of establishing itself in Apple’s market. Amazon still refuses to reveal specific sales numbers but the company did say that the Kindle line of products saw a 177% increase in sales and that it sold “millions” of Kindle Fire tablets.
As of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned stocks. Follow him on Twitter at @ajohnagnello and become a fan of InvestorPlace on Facebook. For more from the company, check out our previous Apple Rumors stories.
