News

After having its strongest November performance ever and then reaching a 52 week high of $577.25 on Thursday, December 5, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stocks came down a bit, ending last week at $554.43. Despite the drop, analysts remain bullish about the company's future.

According to The Motley Fool, Apple still has plenty of room to grow. Stock prices have risen 40% since June yet still remain 20% lower than last year's all time high. The company has also upgraded its product portfolio in recent months with the addition of the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c. The 5s has been the best selling smartphone for all four major U.S. carriers in each of the past three months, while the 5c has held the second or third spot at each carrier. Additionally, the iPhone has enjoyed success in foreign markets recently, with the 5s, 5c and 5 taking three of the top four spots for global smartphone sales in October. The 5s and 5c are likely to launch on China Mobile this week, which should result in a surge in sales.

Apple announced today that Beyoncé’s newest album has become the fastest selling studio release ever on the iTunes Store. The self-named album sold 828,773 copies in just its first three days while breaking first week album sales in the US. The album also earned the number one slot on the music charts in 104 countries, according to the Apple press release.

Beyoncé was released exclusively worldwide on the iTunes on December 13. This is the fifth solo release by the artist and her first "visual album," which features 14 new songs and 17 videos shot around the world. Beyoncé's last album"4" sold 310,000 copies in its debut week in July of 2011, according to Billboard.

Sprint announced today that its 4G LTE network now spans 70 new markets. The large list of Sprint LTE-enabled cities now includes major additions such as Green Bay, San Diego, Little Rock and Orlando. You can see a complete list of all the cities now covered by Sprint's LTE network below.

Sprint also recently announced that its Sprint Spark would soon be available on Samsung Galaxy S 4 handsets. Spark is an enhanced LTE network which allows tri-band devices to move seamlessly between spectrum bands. Sprint promises its new Spark network will help devices like the Galaxy S 4 reach "unprecedented speeds" and improve in-building signals and call quality / clarity. Spark is also the first network to reach 1GB download speeds over-the-air, according to Sprint.

In their online introduction to iOS 7, Apple affirmed that iOS in the Car would be coming soon. Today's release of iOS 7.1 beta 2 added credibility to that claim in the form of a 'Car Display' toggle under Settings>General>Restrictions. In addition, according to 9To5Mac, "Apple has greatly increased the amount of iOS in the Car references in both iOS7.1 beta 1 and in the new beta 2."

When asked about iOS in the Car on an earnings call earlier this Summer, Apple CEO Tim Cook described it as "part of the ecosystem, just like the App Store is a key part of the ecosystem... having something in the automobile is very, very important." Although Apple has not yet released iOS in the Car, all of this points to a release date sooner rather than later, perhaps alongside iOS 7.1, which is slated for early 2014.

Apple has released iOS 7.1 beta 2 for registered developers. The update which carries the build number of 11D5115d is now available via Apple's developer website. The second beta comes a few weeks after Apple released iOS 7.1 beta 1 in mid-November.

The second beta removes the option to enable the ‘dark keyboard’ which was introduced in the original version. It also fixes a few bugs, offers a few redesigns and adds a new "Button Shapes" option. You can see the brief iOS 7.1 beta 2 change log and release notes below.