Disney announced yesterday that it will buy iPhone game supplier firm Tapulus which has 35 million users. Its most widely used game, “Tap Tap Revenge”, has been played more that 1 billion times.According to Reuters, Tapulous is profitable and has about $1 million in revenue per month.

Disney said that Tapulous strengthens the company’s portfolio of games and entertainment offerings in the fast-growing mobile arena. Disney already has a large and quickly growing business in mobile interactive media.

Disney and old-line media companies are in the same race. They must use their brands and content to push into the world of handheld devices that have become a new platform for entertainment in addition to the TV and PC. Firms including Tapulous, Clickgamer, and Gameloft, none of which are part of major media companies, are dominating game sales made from the Apple Apps store.

Over three billion downloads have been made from the App store, many of them entertainment and game applications. More than a third of the top 25 downloads for the store are  games.

The acquisition of these game companies by larger entertainment firms will likely quicken as the larger firms buy what they cannot quickly and successfully build.

Douglas A. McIntyre

The reward was broken down into $5 million in cash and 75,00 restricted shares. Apple’s stock trades at $226, near its all-time high. The stock is up almost 130% over the last year.

Cook’s bonus vests 50% on March 10, 2011 and 50% a year later.

Cook was integral in keeping Apple on course during the early period after the iPhone was launched and then upgraded with 3G capacity, a period during which Jobs was often absent due to cancer.. He has been Job’s N0.2 for over a decade, a time in which Apple has successfully launched the iPod, iTunes, several new versions of the Mac, and the iPhone and highly successful App Store. The firm will launch its new iPad tablet PC on April 3.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Apple shares were indicated higher by about 0.7% pre-market, despite the sell off seen in overseas markets and in U.S. futures this morning.  After the open, shares are now up almost 1.5% at $172.90.  Apple shares closed down $3.08 on Friday to $170.42, which was better than the overall market fared.  Shares did hit new intraday highs of $174.63 on Friday.

Since shares were hitting new highs on Friday, you can imagine what the chart says.  During the August market malaise Apple shares closed as low as $117.05, so shares are up over 40% from those levels.  Options do not expire until November 16 after Friday’s expiration, but it appears that option traders are expecting a move of up to a $12.00 to $13.50 range in either direction today.  Speculators are obviously using options as a "cheaper" way of trading the stock, because there are over 100,000 contracts listed in the open interest in the closest strike prices for November.

We just noted this morning how Strategy Analytics was predicting that Apple and AT&T would deliver 1.1 million iPhones in Q3, bringing sales to 1.325 million units.  You have to wonder when Steve Jobs is going to split this stock.  As a reminder, we are less than 5-days out from its new Mac OS X Leopard launch as well.

We recently covered how Apple was growing its worldwide computer shipments, and Gartner said that last quarter’s Mac shipments rise 37% to roughly 1.3 million units.  If that is accurate, Apple’s computer market share is now 8.1%.  Apple was also listed as one of our key window dressing stocks and Jim Cramer has it as one of his "New Four Horsemen of Tech," although recently he noted how some of these may see some expected profit taking.

Jon C. Ogg
October 22, 2007

We’ve already gotten the iPhone, we’ve already seen new PC announcements, we’ve already been given the delayed launch date of the Leopard operating system, and we are still viewing the TV initiative as a hobby as Steve Jobs called it himself.  Unless Apple is going to shock the you know what out of everyone with a new unknown and undiscovered product, this iPod revamp makes more than perfect sense.  Consumers want it too.

Back in April, Apple said it had sold its 100-millionth iPod.  This goal is probably to hit 200 million units if it wants to keep driving the stock.  We think this may be more of an iPhone-esque iPod, but without the phone.  So we’d be looking for more touch screen and hopefully some more Wi-Fi features.  We’ll know in a few hours.  Here is what some of our tech friends are saying around the web today:

Business 2.0: wide-screen, touch-sensitive iPod, iPod nano with a larger screen, iPod Shuffle with more memory for the same price….

Engadget: Rick Rubin proclaims "the iPod will be obsolete"
Apple to unleash "The Circle" concept tomorrow?

Newsday.com: What’s coming next from Apple?

CNET: "The iPod is growing up: If Apple really is putting a version of Mac OS X in a new iPod, presumably it has more in mind than showing high-quality reruns of The Hills."

Think Secret: Touch-screen iPod to take center stage

San Francisco Chronicle: What news awaits the Apple faithful?
Speculation centers on redesigned iPods, expanded content offerings on iTunes

After the recent Zune price cuts, you have to wonder if Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is holding on to this space with looser hands and maybe just as a hobby.  And as far as Creative Tech (NASDAQ:CREAF), everyone now only asks "Who?".

Jon C. Ogg
September 5, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Wal-Mart is one of the first major retailers to offer MP3 digital tracks with music content from major record labels such as Universal and EMI Music, and the launch is aimed to get into the space of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com (NASSDAQ:AMZN).  Wal-Mart’s new MP3 music catalog includes hundreds of thousands of songs and albums, and will be continually expanded with additional mainstream and independent music content. Also, Wal-Mart is currently offering special MP3 album pricing on hundreds of album classics.

It used to be that once Wal-Mart went after your space that things became instantly worse for you and your other competitors.  But after the Wal-Mart woes of late, they just don’t seem able to wrangle away customers at the same rate.  In fact, many may now chuckle at new initiatives because its online presence is still too small to be a major factor.

Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos probably didn’t call each other up in a panic this morning, and probably won’t be tomorrow either.  These stocks are even higher on the heels of RealNetworks (NASDAQ:RNWK) launch of a new digital music company with MTV.  We addressed this earlier today.  If these were as threatening as they sound then Amazon.com (AMZN) shares might not be up 3.8% and Apple (AAPL) shares might not be up 4% today.  Getting the huge established tech predators unseated from a dinner table at their favorite restaurants usually takes more than getting a two-top table in the corner.

Jon C. Ogg
August 21, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.