Wednesday Apple Rumors: Sprint Gets an iPhone of Its Very Own

Here are your Apple news items and rumors for Wednesday: Sprinting Toward the
iPhone 5: Contrary to what some investors might have read, Sprint Nextel (NYSE:
S ) still is around. The telecom has shed more than 94% of its value over the
past 12 years, and its current subscriber base is only be a fraction of Verizon
(NYSE: VZ ) and AT&T s (NYSE: T ) combined footprint on the mobile industry, but
its still out there trucking away, trading many millions of shares per day. A
Wednesday report in The Wall Street Journal suggests Sprint is going to be a bit
more competitive in the current smartphone landscape come October when the
service starts supporting Apples new iPhone 5. Reinforcing rumors from earlier
this month , the report said Sprint will join AT&T and Verizon in supporting the
latest version of Apples smartphone, allegedly named the iPhone 5. Apple is
expected to announce the new model as well as a second, cheaper model called
the iPhone 4S at the end of September, with an early October release to follow.
Sprint blamed its decline in subscribers during the second quarter of 2011 on
competitive headwinds caused by its chief competitors sharing control of the
iPhone market. That said, the iPhone 5 still might be coming too late to save
the sinking company. Android Virus Blues: Google s (NASDAQ: GOOG ) Android may
power 52% of the smartphones sold in recent months, but the platforms popularity
is making it a target for less-than-reputable sorts. A new report from the Intel
-owned (NASDAQ: INTC ) McAfee computer security company detailing malware
threats over the second quarter found the number of viruses and trojans
targeting Android increased 76% over the second quarter of the year, with 44
known pieces of malicious code found. Apples iOS, the operating system powering
the iPhone and iPad, remains malware-free. McAfee didnt report an active virus
that could attack a store-bought iPhone. The same could be said of
Hewlett-Packard s (NYSE: HPQ ) webOS, as well. At least thats one piece of good
news for HPs mobile business! Sunny iPad Forecast: The U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office published a gaggle of new patents that have been granted to Apple
according to a Tuesday report at Patently Apple (via TUAW ). Among those
published is a patent titled Methods and apparatuses for operating devices with
solar power. Though not the first patent filed by Apple using photovoltaic
technology, it is the first to describe a touchscreen that is itself a solar
panel . An iPad or iPhone that charges in the sun? Yes, that would sell. As of
this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks
named here. Follow him on Twitter at