Is it just me or is Apple in the news for all the wrong reasons lately? For the company that has recently been listed as the #3 most valuable brand, they certainly aren’t acting like a good brand to support. This week:
- they have issues with: a careless employee who lost his new iPhone prototype.
- they’re still mad at HTC for patent infringement.
- they have seemingly burned bridges with Adobe.
- they fired an employee for showing the iPad to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak at the launch event a half-hour before it started. Seriously?
- they are limiting people from buying multiple iPads.
- they’ve clamped down retailers to try to bolster their own sales.
In the meantime, Apple has acquired a second mobile device processor company and is trying for a third. Why is that significant? Because these processor companies control which mobile device (like smartphone) manufacturers can license the latest and greatest processors for their devices. All because Apple doesn’t like competition. Anti-trust anyone?
Wall Street Reacts?
Apple’s stock closed at 270.71 last Friday (before the REACT raid on Gizmodo’s editor). Since then, it’s declined steadily and closed today (Wednesday) at 261.60. It’s a small fall at only 9 points. But Apple is coming off a 26-point jump (from 244.60) since announcing their 2Q earnings only a week ago.