It looks like Apple and Bose have worked out their differences and decided to be friends again.
Just in time for the holiday shopping rush, Apple on Tuesday evening added some Bose products back to its online store, including the Bluetooth-enabled SoundLink III and SoundLink Mini wireless speakers and QuietComfort acoustic noise canceling headphones. The move comes after Apple back in October quietly pulled all Bose headphones and speakers from not only its online store, but all its brick-and-mortar outlets as well.
Rumors of Apple's about-face on Bose products first surfaced earlier this week. The French Apple website iGen on Monday reported that some retail Apple stores have been receiving shipments of Bose products with orders to put the products back on store shelves next week.
There's no official word on why Apple removed Bose products in the first place, but the decision followed Cupertino's acquisition of headphone and speaker-maker Beats, so that likely had something to do with it. Some speculated that Bose's deal with the NFL, which bans players from wearing Beats headphones at official league events, may have contributed to Apple's decision, as did a recent patent dispute between Beats and Bose.
Bose filed the lawsuit soon after Apple in late May announced that it was acquiring Beats for approximately $3 billion, arguing that Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine's headphone company infringed on a number of Bose patents related to noise-cancelling technology. Bose was asking the court to ban sales of Beats Studio and Studio Wireless headsets as a result of the alleged infringement, but in July agreed to dismiss the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Bose isn't the only company Apple has dropped in recent months. The company back in November removed Fitbit products from its online store to make room for its own Apple Watch wearable.