I know it is very fanboi of me, but I remember the Wired Pray cover. I remember Michael Dell saying "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." ( http://bit.ly/3CupAe How bout them Apples?) I remember thinking Jobs was an idiot when the cut off Power Computing, I remember thinking killing 3.5 inch drives was a disaster, and USB only, and OSX was terrible, and, and and. And while Apple is far from perfect, as is Jobs, the relentless execution they have displayed over the last 12 years is truly inspiring.

Keep it up Apple, and please don't get too complacent. You and the personal computing industry are both better off when you are running for your life.

(And thank you for producing a laptop that my wife can create DVDs on without calling me for technical support)

John Gruber noted that Apple currently has enough cash on hand to buy Dell in its entirety.

"I remember thinking Jobs was an idiot when the cut off Power Computing, I remember thinking killing 3.5 inch drives was a disaster, and USB only, and OSX was terrible, and, and and. And while Apple is far from perfect, as is Jobs, the relentless execution they have displayed over the last 12 years is truly inspiring."

Not that these things weren't great products but the stock didn't really start moving until the the iTunes store was introduced and the iPods really started selling (late 2003 - early 2004).

> OSX was terrible

That might have been because early 'Gold' versions of OSX were considered by many to be of sub-standard quality. I personally feel that OSX should have been released at 10.3 or at least 10.2. Not necessarily with all the 'frills' like iChat (which they introduced in 10.2) and such, but with the stability of the underlying OS at that point.

They could have waited until 10.3. And you can wait until your app is v3 before you launch. They can buy all of Dell's public stock with the money in their bank account. What are you going to do?

> They can buy all of Dell's public stock with the money in their bank account. What are you going to do?

Huh? Are you some sort of Apple fanboi or something? What kind of a response is that?

"Microsoft can buy a small country with their money, therefore every action that Microsoft has taken as a company was perfect in every way and above reproach in every sense (morally,busienss-wise,etc)."

"Microsoft released a buggy version of Vista that wasn't really ready for primetime until Service Pack 1, but LOOK AT THEIR BANK ACCOUNT it was obviously the right move.... right?"

The amount of money they have in the bank has nothing to do with anything. Unless you're trying to imply that you believe the golden rule, "Whoever has the gold makes the rules," is right and just.

The general consensus that I'm aware of is that 10.0 was ordinary, and started to get better from 10.1, which some people say should have been the first OSX release.

AAPL was in the $10 - 12 range at the low in 2001 after the dotcom crash.

Amazing isn't it. AAPL was ~$70 just last Christmas, and $200 now, and Palm was at $1.50 something, $15+ now.

Good for us that they never got too big and complacent.

It reminds me of the Avis motto: "We Try Harder."

Looking at it all, the execution that people see in the stores is amazing and probably a bigger driver then people give it credit for. Also, I think Intel, bootcamp, fusion, and parallels have some big effects (I know the school I deal with wouldn't have been able to buy without them (needed edu software)).

Is it me, or does the market value of AAPL being > Google seems a little odd to anyone. I know Apple is doing good but being just below microsoft and above google suggests that the stock is way overpriced

GOOG: P/E 35.60 Quarterly Net Income 1.64 Billion

AAPL: P/E 35.81 Quarterly Net Income 1.67 Billion

No, it suggests you don't realize just how very well they actually are doing.